travel

You Want Adventure With Your Travel?

Exactly what is the definition of adventure travel? Is it missing your train in Milan, getting food poisoning in Sri Lanka, or shooting an elephant in your pajamas? That last one I threw in for fans of the Marx brothers’ Animal Crackers. If any of these things qualify, then it’s safe to say that we are all adventure travelers. They even have Adventure for Singles? Isn’t being single adventure enough? No, you want us to go on physically challenging trips and potentially find the Mr. or Ms. Right.

More likely the phrase is used in reference to shooting the rapids in Nepal, rock climbing in Malaysia, exploring Patagonia, you name it.

If you are looking for adventure destinations, a great place to start is National Geographic’s website. Their travel directory will help you narrow down the possibilities. From a safari in Botswana and river rafting in Peru, to a caravan trip in Niger and a temple trek in Tibet, there’s lots of ideas here.

The Lonely Planet website uses a calendar to organize their adventure trip suggestions, with a trans Siberian trip sugested for January, for example, and tracking tigers in India for June.

Linblad Expeditions has a handy pull-down expedition menu that lets you search loads of destinations, plus daily expedition reports that give the flavor of the trip activities in a mini-blog with accompanying photos.

The GORP website has an active vacations section that organizes trips by activity, such as beaches/diving, biking, paddling, archaeology, geocaching, sailing and safaris.

Outside magazine has an online component that archives trip reports from hundreds of destinations so you can read up on other travelers’ experiences. There’s also a handy travel resources section that rates trips over the last few years with mini review and links to the trip operators.

The venerable tour operation, Abercrombie & Kent has been doing adventure tours since 1962 and its offerings cover all seven continents. They can put together escorted tours or independent travel options. A&K will even do custom itineraries that you suggest to them.

Backroads bills itself as an active travel company and the trips generally center around biking, walking, or multi-sport combinations. Their Adventures Beyond division combines the athletic aspect with more exotic locales such as cruising the Galapagos or heli-hiking in the Bugaboos.

Even if you never get out from behind your computer screen, you can absort plenty of adventure action just by reading about other travelers’ exploits. Maybe that is your adventure.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. He's written a mystery novel, which therefore makes him a pre-published author.

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