Tag: Outdoors

Tim Cahill: At Home in Montana

The Wall Street Journal visits the veteran travel writer at a cabin in southwest Montana where he does most of his writing. Says Cahill: “It’s often hilarious to me that I’m writing about Tonga or some tropical place and there’s a blizzard outside and the cows are on their backs with their hooves in the air.”

For more about Tim Cahill’s writing process, check out his remarks on creating literate adventure stories. (Via @Gadling)


Video You Must See: The Northern Lights in Time Lapse


Tim Cahill on Writing Literate Adventure Stories

"You don't need Superman to do an adventure story"

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Travel Movie Watch: ‘127 Hours’

It looks like “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle may not be headed back to Mumbai right away, after all. Variety is reporting that Boyle’s next project is an adaptation of “127 Hours,” the true story of a mountaineer who was pinned under a boulder in Utah for five days and eventually amputated his own arm to make his escape. The rumor mill has Ryan Gosling playing the lead, but nothing’s been confirmed yet. Stay tuned. (Via Gawker)


Fall Foliage Around the World

Central Park, New York Photo of Central Park, New York City, by joiseyshowaa via Flickr (Creative Commons)

From Osaka to Chicago, seven photos of turning leaves around the shrinking planet

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Photo You Must See: Sailing Off Trieste

Photo You Must See: Sailing Off Trieste REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini
REUTERS/Stefano Rellandini

Sailboats at the annual Barcolana regatta in the Gulf of Trieste near northern Italy. The race is one of the largest in the world with more than 2,000 participants.


Introducing the ‘Walkway Over the Hudson’

It seems pedestrian park-bridge hybrids are really catching on. After Manhattan’s High Line opened to rave reviews this summer, Poughkeepsie, NY, has followed up with its own offering, transforming a 1.25-mile railway bridge into a state park/walkway running more than 200 feet above the Hudson River. This Just In has the details on the grand opening.


Photo We Love: Outhouse in Nunavut

Photo We Love: Outhouse in Nunavut REUTERS/Andy Clark
REUTERS/Andy Clark

An outhouse way out there—in the Canadian Arctic.


Recession Hiking on the Appalachian Trail

Recession Hiking on the Appalachian Trail Photo by Matt Phillips via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by Matt Phillips via Flickr (Creative Commons)

NPR’s Thomas Pierce set out to find out whether the recession has influenced who’s hiking the Appalachian Trail this season, and fell in with “Pusher” and “The Duder.” Maybe Pierce will return soon and find out if there’s also a Sanford effect out there.


When (So-Called) Eco-Travelers Sin

When (So-Called) Eco-Travelers Sin Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Photo by stevendepolo via Flickr (Creative Commons)

When I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Last American Man a few years ago, I was struck by an exchange between the nature-embracing mountain man Eustace Conway and an acolyte whose idea of life-changing sustainability was to turn off the water when she was brushing her teeth.

I wonder if some so-called “eco-travelers” operate the same way. Maybe they book a “life-changing” holiday at an eco-resort in Costa Rica and declare themselves sustainable travelers. But what if they take their unsustainable bad habits with them?

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Kilauea’s Hot Summit

Kilauea’s Hot Summit Photo by Image Editor via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by Image Editor via Flickr (Creative Commons)

It used to be that you had to go to the end of the winding Chain of Craters road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park if you wanted to get a look at hot melted planet. I’ve never done it—once the road was closed due to excessive volcanic activity, and once there wasn’t time and once ... Oh, my excuses are endless.

But if you’re on the Big Island right now, you don’t have to make that trip. According to the L.A. Times, Kilauea is “glowing brightly as molten lava swirls 300 feet below its crater’s floor, bubbling near the surface after years of spewing from the volcano’s side.”

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Martigny, Switzerland

A traveler from Vietnam poses with Saint Bernard Salsa, at the Great Saint Bernard mountain pass.

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Chaitén, Chile: Life After the Eruption

Chaitén, Chile, After the Volcano Eruption Photo by Nicholas Gill

A year after a volcano began ravaging the Patagonian town, Nicholas Gill looks back at the destruction

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Lessons From The Dancing Chickens

Lessons From The Dancing Chickens Photo by Sophia Dembling
Photo by Sophia Dembling

When I heard about the Lesser Prairie Chicken Festival in Woodward, Okla., my mind went directly to funnel cakes, face painting, and maybe a parade with a Lesser Prairie Chicken Queen. Sign me up, I said! I love small-town fests.

I’m kind of a moron sometimes. It wasn’t until I had my trip planned that I fully understood that a bird festival is where bird watchers gather to watch birds—in this case, lesser prairie chickens. Not only was funnel cake not part of the event, but the centerpiece of the weekend involved waking before dawn to spend three hours in a field watching chickens dance.

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Maui vs. the Moorhen

Maui vs. the Moorhen Picture by Charles Lam via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Picture by Charles Lam via Flickr (Creative Commons)

The fluffy little chick paddling in the pond at Waimea Valley didn’t look like much of a keeper of fire. She was all black fuzz and pathetic peeping. The endangered ’Alae ’Ula chick—or Hawaiian Moorhen—was the last of a brood of three that hatched this spring. There are only about 300 of the birds left, according to a State of Hawaii fact sheet.

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Can Eco-Travelers Save the World’s Rainforests?

Can Eco-Travelers Save the World’s Rainforests? Photo by leszekwasilewski via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by leszekwasilewski via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I’ve been thinking about this question since I saw a public awareness video released on YouTube by Prince Charles’s Rainforests Project. His Royal Highness rightly points out that climate change is the “greatest threat facing mankind” and that deforestation worsens global warming. (Burning trees releases their stored CO2.) At home, we can buy coffee tables and cabinetry made from sustainable wood. But what can we do when we travel?


America the Accessible

America the Accessible Photo by Rick McCharles via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by Rick McCharles via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Fifteen years ago, when nobody else was really servicing the community, writer Candy Harrington ditched traditional travel writing and launched Emerging Horizons, a travel magazine for people with disabilities.

“Back then most of my friends and colleagues thought I was a few fries short of a happy meal for making such a drastic change,” says Harrington. Silly colleagues. Other travel magazines come and go but Emerging Horizons is still running strong, and Harrington also writes books, articles for magazines and websites, and a blog on the subject.

We checked in with her to find out about the state of accessible travel in America—and some of her favorite accessible travel adventures around the 50.

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Name That Cactus!

Scottsdale is all very hip and happening, with fancy hotels, great golf courses (allegedly—I’m no golfer) and highly rated restaurants. But during my visit last year, I was mesmerized by the cacti. So many varieties, so many personalities. I snapped umpteen photos—see my brief slideshow after the jump and read about a contest that could win you a trip to the booming desert city.

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The Altered States of Sedona

The Altered States of Sedona iStockPhoto

Laurie Gough looks Arizona's New Age mecca in the vortexes and says, "Sacred energy of the Earth, come and get me."

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Saving ‘Cleopatra’s Beach’ and a Jewel of the Aegean

Saving ‘Cleopatra’s Beach’ and a Jewel of the Aegean Photo by haruncagan via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Photo by haruncagan via Flickr (Creative Commons)

I’m not surprised that the beautiful Gulf of Gökova off the southwestern coast of Turkey has practically been loved to death. The Aegean blue water and soft beach sand (which Mark Antony allegedly imported to Gökova from Egypt for Cleopatra) is the stuff of sea-loving tourists’ dreams.

Over the years, yacht tours polluted the bay, illegal fishing depleted its marine life, and all those sunbathers started eroding that queenly beach sand. The European-funded Gökova Integrated Coastal Management program banned the sunbathers from the beach in 2007 and is now working to support sustainable fishing, protect the bay’s natural flora and fauna, and keep the Gökova waters clean. (Via Treehugger)