Update on 2008 trips

The following trips are full and we are taking a waiting list: Dogsledding and Winter Fun; Kilimanjaro Climb and Safari; Sea Kayaking the Caribbean; and Beaches, Castles and Caves of Mexico

These trips have very limited availability: Howling with Wolves, Running wth Dogs (2), Dogsledding in the Northwoods (2); Exploring Utah's Canyons (3); Grand Alaska Road Trip (1)

We have recently changed our lodging for our trip over New Year's, Howling with Wolves, Running wth Dogs, and we are now staying in a very private large eight bedroom house so everyone has her own bedroom and there is a private sauna! Take a look by clicking here. This trip has always been lots of fun and staying here should truly be the icing on the cake!

Email access during international travel

One of the most striking changes in travel in the last 10 years is our ability to stay in touch with the folks back home through email. Almost any country that has a tourist trade has some internet access. How do you receive email? There are countless ways and many offer the ability to retrieve email from a website. I had been planing to use a .mac account in Bhutan, as I found on other trips that emails from my yahoo account often seemed to go astray (or were perhaps nabbed by spam filters). Big mistake. In the first town we stayed in, the internet access was dial up and an attempt to load the Mac web site kept freezing the system. Similar things happened to the other folks who weren't using one of the web-based email systems like yahoo, gmail, hotmail. Fortunately I also had a Yahoo account and that loaded quickly. Moral of the story: anytime you are traveling some place that may not have fast internet access, you might consider signing up for a free Yahoo email account.

Book of interest

Even if you have absolutely no interest in ever going to Bhutan, I highly recommend "Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey into Bhutan" by Jamie Zeppa. Jamie was a your Canadian and recent graduate when she decided that she needed experience before settling down in a conventional job and marriage. So having no idea where Bhutan was, she signed up to be a volunteer teacher there for two years. Her first few months were as rocky as you can imagine but gradually she learned to cope with the hardships and appreciate all the beauty of both the country and the people.

But what I particularly liked was the honesty with which she approached difficult questions. An example: although it is beginning to change in the cities, Bhutan is a society where conformity is not only the norm, but enforced in many ways. Kids are not encouraged to think for themselves and the concept of "personal space" is unheard of. The flip side, however, is that everyone works together to build houses and get in the harvest, and it is a safe country where kids can run around. She shows us that, contrary to many reports, Bhutan is not Shangri La. But she also shows us why it is an amazing country. Best of all, it is well and compellingly written and should be enjoyde by anyone who loves to learn about new places.

Saving money on buying clothes and gear

Here is the number one rule for saving money- DON'T wait until you need a specific item. If you know you are going to need something, waiting until you need it that week is the biggest mistake you can make (you would think I had learned that lesson by now, but no...).

OK, so you are planning ahead and you have given yourself 6 weeks. First, consider whether something suitable might be available at an ordinary store before you go running off to your outdoor specialty store. Many of the fabrics that were originally developed for outdoor use- you know, the ones that wick and dry quickly and smash down to nothing- have gone mainstream. Example- I needed a new warm hat for Bhutan. I found a slightly dorky but very warm fleece hat at Target for $10. The cost at REI was $30. I also got some sports bras, nylon underwear, and synthetic long sleeved shirt for about half of what I might have paid elsewhere. But a note of warning: you have to know what you're doing. Sure, you can get a sleeping bag at WalMart for $30 but if the temps drop or the bag gets wet, you will very much regret those savings.

There are also a number of websites that offer clothing and gear at discounted prices. Some of our favorites are listed on our affiliates page here: in particular, I like Sierra Trading Post and REI Outlet. Another website that I only recently learned about and have not personally used is GearX and the Outdoor Gear Exchange. The major part of the web site is devoted to selling a wide range of gear at reasonable and sometimes deeply discounted prices, and that makes it worthwhile by itself. However, in addition to the web site, they also have a store in Burlington, VT where they take consignments and will give you 65-75% of the selling price. How great! Now when you really want a new piece of gear but know that your current one is usable and you could still be using it, plus you don't want to be a mindless consumer nor do you want your house or apartment to start resembling a storage locker, you have an alternative- sell it and let someone else get pleasure from it. I had a bit of trouble finding the section on the website that described this but if you click here or go to About Us, you can find it. Now if I just lived in Burlington .....

Prunes- A girl's best friend?

While people often worry about that well-known scourge, traveller's diarrhea, the opposite problem is probably even more common on a trip. Irregular schedules, different food, inadequte water intake- all of these can lead to constipation. The perfect solution? Prunes!! Not only will they help counteract the problem, they're good, good for you, high in antioxidants, and, if you get the kind with pits, you can suck on the pits as you hike along. Plus they're cheap, harmless, don't require a prescription, won't get confiscated by airport security, and speaking for me and several others on our Bhutan trek- quite effective! Now I know why Mom served us stewed prunes the first morning of our annual summer trip to the Adirondacks.

Are you interested in the world's toughest trek?

I'm serious. Three or four of us on the Bhutan trek were so enchanted with hiking in the high Himalaya we didn't want our 9-day trek to end. Despite the absence of showers and some long and hard days, we would have chosen to keep going. And it just so happens that one of the longest hardest treks in the world is in Bhutan: the Snowman Trek. This 24 day trek along the northern border of Bhutan is named for the six mountains over 7000 metres (23,100 ft. ) that the trek passes beneath, and the nine passes over 4500m (15,850 ft. ) you have to cross. Reputedly only about half the people who try it complete the entire route and getting snowbound or stopped by snow is a real possibility.

It will be long (close to 30 days with travel), expensive, and very hard. Sounds like fun, eh? We are seriously considering this for September 2009 if we can find enough other crazy women who want to do it. So if you're seriously interested, let me know now. Prior significant hiking experience is required. But it's still two years away so even if you don't have that now.....