Free The 100 Best Affordable Vacations by Jane Wooldridge
Authors: Jane Wooldridge
butter, honey, and freshly baked bread. Not only are they tasty but also consider them necessary fuel to power long days of shopping.
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
Fentress County Chamber of Commerce, 114 Central Ave. W, P.O. Box 1294, Jamestown, TN 38556, 800-327-3945, www.127sale.com .
[ CHAPTER 2]
into the wild
S ometimes it seems as if the nation has been covered in asphalt. The landscape, you’re convinced, holds nothing more than highways, drive-thrus, and strip malls. When that feeling hits, it’s time to head out of town. Because as photographers (and philosophers) have often maintained, when you change your location, you change your perspective, too.
In just a day, you can find yourself marveling at waterfalls, kayaking with dolphins, or zipping through trees. You can gasp at the wonders of nature and geology, and quite literally find yourself alone in the wilderness—a place where deadlines and career highlights don’t matter. When you’re moving under your own power—by foot, paddle, or with the kick of a flipper—you won’t go as far as you would in a minivan or SUV, but you’ll see so much more. And when you arrive, you’ll know instinctively that life is simpler, yet infinitely more complex, than you ever imagined.
How does this magic happen? There were no committee meetings to design the whale shark, the largest fish on the planet. No flow chart organizes the elaborate ecosystem of a rain forest. And caves were formed without benefit of architects and interior decorators. But as you spend time in and around these wonders of nature, you’ll feel connected to the world around you, and part of something much bigger than a towering interstate interchange.
Perhaps you once found yourself in the wilds of South Dakota or some other isolated area, far from the city lights, and looked up to the sky on a moonless night and saw the Milky Way in all its glory, the heavens filled with constellations, novas, and glittering stars beyond counting—even beyond comprehension. The band of light was so dense that it did, really, look milky. That moment filled you with awe—and with a strangely tangible sense of self.
And revelations like that are what these “wild” adventures offer.
hop a ferry to alaska
ALASKA
Never before this had I been embosomed in scenery so hopelessly beyond description.
— NATURALIST JOHN MUIR, ON A VISIT TO ALASKA ABOARD THE STEAMER DAKOTA (1879)
29 | Alaska’s marine highway is a street like no other. It’s a place where eagles nest, glaciers calve, and whales breach. The imaginary road is navigated by state-run ferries (called “Blue Canoes”), linking communities along the Inside Passage, and out to the far end of the Aleutian Islands.
The 3,500-mile Alaska Marine Highway System also offers a way for visitors to experience the grandeur of the Last Frontier. However, with a choice of more than 30 routes, a trip takes time and planning. If you bring a car aboard and reserve sleeping rooms, you could easily spend as much on your rustic adventure as you might on a traditional cruise vacation, which includes unlimited meals and entertainment. Each experience has its pluses but is different. The Alaska you see from a cruise ship will be carefully packaged. And shore excursions, which last just a few hours, can cost hundreds of dollars a person.
Taking the Alaska State Ferry as a walk-on passenger, though, makes the trip affordable and allows you to hop on and off the boat and spend time seeing Alaska’s rich coastal heritage, both scenic and cultural. Depending on ferry schedules, you may spend a day or two camping by the sea, or staying in a rustic bed-and-breakfast.
Even years later, passenger Wes Lafortune says he can still remember awakening early one morning when the ferry captain alerted the ship to an orca swimming just a few hundred feet away. “It was misty and the whale started breaching straight out of the water,” he says. “It was very still
HOW TO GET IN TOUCH
Fentress County Chamber of Commerce, 114 Central Ave. W, P.O. Box 1294, Jamestown, TN 38556, 800-327-3945, www.127sale.com .
[ CHAPTER 2]
into the wild
S ometimes it seems as if the nation has been covered in asphalt. The landscape, you’re convinced, holds nothing more than highways, drive-thrus, and strip malls. When that feeling hits, it’s time to head out of town. Because as photographers (and philosophers) have often maintained, when you change your location, you change your perspective, too.
In just a day, you can find yourself marveling at waterfalls, kayaking with dolphins, or zipping through trees. You can gasp at the wonders of nature and geology, and quite literally find yourself alone in the wilderness—a place where deadlines and career highlights don’t matter. When you’re moving under your own power—by foot, paddle, or with the kick of a flipper—you won’t go as far as you would in a minivan or SUV, but you’ll see so much more. And when you arrive, you’ll know instinctively that life is simpler, yet infinitely more complex, than you ever imagined.
How does this magic happen? There were no committee meetings to design the whale shark, the largest fish on the planet. No flow chart organizes the elaborate ecosystem of a rain forest. And caves were formed without benefit of architects and interior decorators. But as you spend time in and around these wonders of nature, you’ll feel connected to the world around you, and part of something much bigger than a towering interstate interchange.
Perhaps you once found yourself in the wilds of South Dakota or some other isolated area, far from the city lights, and looked up to the sky on a moonless night and saw the Milky Way in all its glory, the heavens filled with constellations, novas, and glittering stars beyond counting—even beyond comprehension. The band of light was so dense that it did, really, look milky. That moment filled you with awe—and with a strangely tangible sense of self.
And revelations like that are what these “wild” adventures offer.
hop a ferry to alaska
ALASKA
Never before this had I been embosomed in scenery so hopelessly beyond description.
— NATURALIST JOHN MUIR, ON A VISIT TO ALASKA ABOARD THE STEAMER DAKOTA (1879)
29 | Alaska’s marine highway is a street like no other. It’s a place where eagles nest, glaciers calve, and whales breach. The imaginary road is navigated by state-run ferries (called “Blue Canoes”), linking communities along the Inside Passage, and out to the far end of the Aleutian Islands.
The 3,500-mile Alaska Marine Highway System also offers a way for visitors to experience the grandeur of the Last Frontier. However, with a choice of more than 30 routes, a trip takes time and planning. If you bring a car aboard and reserve sleeping rooms, you could easily spend as much on your rustic adventure as you might on a traditional cruise vacation, which includes unlimited meals and entertainment. Each experience has its pluses but is different. The Alaska you see from a cruise ship will be carefully packaged. And shore excursions, which last just a few hours, can cost hundreds of dollars a person.
Taking the Alaska State Ferry as a walk-on passenger, though, makes the trip affordable and allows you to hop on and off the boat and spend time seeing Alaska’s rich coastal heritage, both scenic and cultural. Depending on ferry schedules, you may spend a day or two camping by the sea, or staying in a rustic bed-and-breakfast.
Even years later, passenger Wes Lafortune says he can still remember awakening early one morning when the ferry captain alerted the ship to an orca swimming just a few hundred feet away. “It was misty and the whale started breaching straight out of the water,” he says. “It was very still