North America
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Family trips can leave parents feeling like they need a vacation from their vacation. Moms and dads can't always cater to kids—they occasionally need to indulge in adult-friendly pursuits, like flying down a white-knuckle mountain-bike trail or taking off on a sailboard. Here are five innovative trips—with built-in baby-sitting—so children have f
From the heart of Jack London country to Quebec, the best of 60 degrees latitude and higher
At twice the size of Texas, Alaska isn't easy to boil down into a "best of" list. The fact is, just about every cranny of this behemoth state can be labeled with a superlative: the wildest, the most vast, the most breathtaking. Even though any intrepid family can land in Anchorage, rent a car, start driving, and come upon wildlife and characters that guarantee
Blackwater NWR is the center of the greatest nesting density of bald eagles in the eastern United States north of Florida. Q: I'm thinking of taking a kayak trip around the Chesapeake Bay. Can you point me to some resources for planning a route, camping areas, maps of…
When the sea summons you, answer! Fourteen idyllic beach escapes, from Cape Cod to Sanibel.
Anza-Borrego’s raw desert beauty Q: I’m looking to camp someplace pretty, not too popular, and mild in temperature around this time of the year. Can you give me any suggestions? — Anne Moore, Long Beach, California ϳԹ Advisor: A: There…
With western drought lowering Lake Powell daily, Glenn Canyon fans dream of going all the way
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE For more photos and an audio interview with Andrew McLean, CLICK HERE EXPEDITION: ARCS OVER THE ARCTIC TEAM: ANDREW MCLEAN, BRAD BARLAGE LOCATION: BAFFIN ISLAND, NUNAVUT, CANADA OBJECTIVE: TO EXPLORE FJORDS AND VALLEYS BY KITE IN SEARCH OF…
Q: I need to take a three- to four-day getaway somewhere secluded. I’m very familiar with the outdoors and am looking for a place far away from people, perhaps even a fly-in trip. I’ve never been to Montana or any of the northwestern states. I might like to…
The Big River's been saved—and just in time. Here's how to enjoy the northern coast's newest playground and its spectacular environs.
Cool off north of the border, in the land of boundless rivers, lakes, and pristine wilderness.
Three variations on pain-free wilderness trekking... hut-to-hut hiking, mule packing, and base camping.
At the First Church of What Happens Next—MIT— a NASA-trained engineer and his stable of whiz kids are jump-starting the future of outdoor gear
Last spring, 41-year-old Andrew McLean and 29-year-old Brad Barlage set out into the arctic wilderness of northern Canada ‘s Baffin Island for a month-long expedition in which they would complete 19 first ski-descents on runs as long as 5,100 feet. The key to the journey was an arsenal of giant…
What does it take to steer across the Bering Strait? Guts, persistence, and—oh yeah—a seven-ton SUV.
The just-in-time, let's-party, fear-no-evil Winter Olympics get ready to rip in the country that needs 'em now more than ever
Warm, windswept, unfettered, ever-changing—North America's four great desert regions hide untold possibilities for classic winter adventure. They may be scorching and sere, with prickly dangers over every horizon, but if you know where to go—and how to explore wisely—you'll find these 500,000 square miles of desolation downright hospitable.
Lazy river day: the Rio Grande winds through Big Bend National Park Q: A group of around five to ten of us intend to take a two-to three-day trip to Big Bend National Park during the Thanksgiving holiday. Any advice for a group visiting the park for…
Ride a sudden whim or a sturdy steed to arid expanses where solitude reigns
For newcomers—meaning most of us—they are merely picturesque. But for Native Americans, the sacred places of the Great Plains and Northern Rockies are alive with centuries of memory and meaning—and something much, much bigger.
Late fall in Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area Q: Do you have ideas for great backpacking trails in the Flaming Gorge area of Wyoming? We will be with two children (eight and ten years old). Thanks! — Luckey, Avon, Connecticut…
Exploring remote canyons is dangerous fun, but expert advice will get you through it alive. Marc Peruzzi learns the ropes, deep in the Arizona backcountry.
The ever-soggy West Coast Trail isn't for everyone. You know who to thank for small favors.
It's a long line from the old salt to the swarms at Waikiki. So real Hawaiians head for the far sides of paradise.
The supernatural tour of Hawaii, where spirits live and enemies become fishhooks.
A tale of big money, prison, Disney World, and the world's foremost dinosaur-hunting twins.
Q: Where can I find inexpensive, tourist-free backpacking in Alaska? — Rosanne Clemente, Bay Shore, New York ϳԹ Advisor: A: The general rule with Alaskan wilderness is that you can have it cheap OR tourist-free, but rarely both. There’s a simple reason for…
Dive (or cannonball, or belly-flop) into summer at these seven backcountry water holes and hot springs.
Q: I am looking for adventure in Canada — camping, hiking, wildlife — any suggestions? Canada, on the rocks: a sunlit berg off the Newfoundland coast – Rosanne Clemente, Bay Shore, New York ϳԹ Advisor: A: News flash: It’s a big country up there, with more adventure possibilities than human inhabitants.
Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, ϳԹ Online's ϳԹ Advisor is here to show you the way.
With a little help from the Web, the urban exploration phenomenon gains momentum
Who hasn't dreamed of clean country living, of owning your own green acres? Bill Vaughn bought his piece of rural heaven a decade ago, and began a new life of peace and quiet, of starry nights and days on horseback. And of gunfire, angry words, barbed-wire diplomacy, trespassing, rotting carcasses, and proliferating grudges. An insider's journal of the Feud Yea
The Bighorn Mountains are still one of Wyoming's great wild redoubts
In the gentrifying mountain village of Telluride, a band of local adventure addicts is preaching the gospel of neo-hippie purity in an upstart 'zine called Mountainfreak. Can these goddess-worshipping ski bums stay true to their vert' and manage to run a business at the same time?
You’re poised to launch off a cornice at 9,000 feet in British Columbia’s coast range. Beckoning below is a stadium-sized bowl of fresh powder atop an impressive base. You push off and cut a series of perfect turns, hearing nothing but the swish of your own skis—until the mountain announces…
THE STARTING POINT: What follows are six elemental landscapes—forest, desert, inland waterfront, prairie, mountain, and coast—featuring 18 blissfully unsullied locales, from Alaska to Florida, Arizona to Maine. Clear into the next state: The view from North Carolina, near the town of Tyron, into South Carolina. THE COST: Our survey…
Way, way out in the land of powder, the cornices are steeper, the trails go deeper, and the crowds are nonexistent. Where is this mythical kingdom, you ask? Right here in North America.
It may be cold, it may be impossibly vast and empty, but in its first hours of existence, Canada's newborn Inuit territory proves that there's nothing so liberating as home rule.