I should be wrecked.

It’s my first full day in South Africa after a brutal 33-hour journey from my home in Bend, Oregon. I woke at 3:15 A.M. to catch the first of three flights to Johannesburg, crossed nine time zones in economy class, and finally fell into bed at 9 P.M. Typically, my jet lag for such a long-haul trip lasts for days.

Strangely, though, I feel great. I have no brain fog. I’m not dizzy or cold or getting any odd-hour cravings. And I’m alert; in fact, fighting my way through Joberg’s frenetic traffic while driving on the left side of the road in a stick-shift rental isn’t even stressful. As a travel writer who’s logged about a million miles flying across every timezone on earth over the past 25 years, this state of normalcy has me dumbstruck. No jet lag? How can this be?

Unlike other globe-trotting trips, this time I used , a $99 jet lag–busting system that five years ago was only available to elite military personnel and a few top business executives. Now anyone can buy it online.

FlyKitt had me taking dietary supplements every few hours, drinking caffeinated, sugary beverages at specific times, and wearing blue-light-filtering glasses at others. The supplements, grouped in blister packs, have simplified names like “protect” (instead of vitamin C with tart-cherry powder) and “mellow” (instead of magnesium with melatonin). Also key is its app, which queried me about my regular sleep habits and upcoming flights before producing a schedule that told me when to take which pill, when to eat and drink, when to sleep, and when to wear the glasses. The app can detect if flights are delayed and recalculate the schedule instantly.

The regimen began shortly after my alarm went off, when the app told me to eat a high-protein, low-carbohydrate meal and pop two “protect” pills and one “sustain” pill (a mix of omega-3 fatty acids and fish oil). ItÌęended 45 hours and 26 pills later. And because the kit comes with enough supplements and drink mixes for two trips, I’ll follow a similar routine when I fly home.

I’d heard about FlyKitt from an șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű editor, who thought I’d be a good guinea pig to test its legitimacy, given how much I travel. I was skeptical. Having researched other jet lag remedies before—like fasting and eating a hearty breakfast—I knew most are . Science that light (and avoiding light) and, to a lesser extent, melatonin, are the only things that shift your internal clock.

But in South Africa, feeling great, I’m flabbergasted. FlyKitt’s results are mind-bending. I want to know why it works, when no verified research out there yet supports key parts of it. My curiosity turns into a monthslong quest for answers.

A Brief History of FlyKitt and Jet-Lag Research

FlyKitt is the flagship product of the Los Angeles–based company Ìę(which is in the process of rebranding itself as FlyKitt.) A biotech start-up, it has evolved from offering customized coaching and wellness plans for people in high-stress jobs—such as CEOs and national security workers—to developing health and human-performance products.

The company was founded by Andrew Herr, a former researcher for the Pentagon who holds graduate degrees from Georgetown University in health physics, microbiology and immunology, and national-security policy. The company’s chief technology officer, Clayton Kim, studied neuroscience and economics at Brown, where he conducted sleep research in the lab directed by Mary Carskadon, one of the country’s preeminent sleep researchers. According to Herr and Kim, FlyKitt solves jet lag for 93 percent of their customers.

FlyKitt’s work builds upon a considerable body of sleep research that dates back to at least , when scientists at the University of Chicago spent six weeks living in a cave in Kentucky and discovered that humans have internal circadian rhythms. (I once spent 82 hours in total darkness during a cave retreat and my own rhythm fell apart). In 1931, American aviator Wiley Post flew around the world in eight days and described what we now call jet lag, though that term didn’t appear until around 1966 during the golden age of air travel.

“There’s no such thing as ship lag,” says Steven Lockley, a circadian-rhythm scientist, professor, and creator of the app , a FlyKitt competitor that uses tested scientific research and information from peer-reviewed papersÌęto help travelers overcome jet lag by dictating when you should get light and when you should avoid it. I’ve tried Timeshifter multiple times, too, once while jumping 11 time zones between Oregon and Azerbaijan, and had only slight jet-lag-induced wooziness for a day. It is much cheaper than FlyKitt—$25 a year for unlimited trips or $10 for a single trip—but you must begin the regimen of timed light exposure a few days before your trip.

What Is Jet Lag? And How Do Long-Haul Flights Affect the Body?

Jet lag is easy to explain. Crossing longitudes quickly leaves our internal clock—otherwise known as our circadian rhythm—and the actual clock at our destination misaligned. What’s extraordinary is how our bodies naturally adapt. This evolutionary gift lets us adjust to seasonal changes in daylight so we can function our best during the day and rest properly at night. Our internal clock is wired to predict how much daylight we’ll have tomorrow, which, eons ago, was crucial to human survival—it ensured we were awake at the right time and rested enough to find a mate, gather food, and avoid being eaten.

Since we’ve only evolved to shift our body clocks by a few minutes each day, however, travel throws that bodily forecast off, and we suffer from jet lag. It’s a delicate system, so delicate that you don’t actually have to travel to throw a wrench into the works. Monday doesn’t suck just because it’s Monday; if you stay out too late on Friday and wake up too late on Saturday, you can suffer from “social jet lag” come Monday morning, even if you slept well on Sunday and were never hungover. Lockley calls that type of non-traveling jet lag “wobble.”

Circadian systems run roughly on 24-hour cycles, but each person is different. People who have shorter circadian rhythms tend to be early birds and generally have an easier time traveling east. People with longer circadian rhythms tend to be night owls and have an easier time traveling west.

Circadian “rhythm” is misleading, because it’s actually many rhythms. Our lungs, heart, kidneys, immune system, digestive system, brain, skin, and likely every cell have their own cycles of productivity and rest. That’s one reason why Ìęin the morning and why people who and spend long periods of time “desynchronized” tend to be at a , , and . Our bodies simply don’t function as well when our internal clocks aren’t in sync with the ones on our wrists. One study suggested that the only organ possibly exempt from this cycle is the testicle. (The boys must always be ready.)

Each organ’s “peripheral clock” follows one central clock, a collection of cells in your brain’s hypothalamus called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. “Think of the SCN as the conductor of an orchestra,” Lockley says, “and the peripheral clocks as the players.” The SCN takes its cues from retina cells that contain a special pigment called melanopsin, which can sense changes in light, especially cyan—a key color in daylight and the reason why staring at the blue light emitting from your phone before bed can affect your sleep.

To shift your central internal clock and beat jet lag, then, all of your clocks must shift, a process that takes about one day per hour of time change. A light-dark cycle registered through your eyes is key to making that shift. You can speed that process up by manipulating that cycle and using melatonin. Says Lockley: “That’s the only thing to have ever been shown to shift the clock.”

The FlyKitt Solution to Jet Lag

None of this was new to Herr. “Whenever you look at performance in the military, the circadian rhythm is huge,” he told me. “Soldiers don’t get a lot of sleep, and they need to perform well at night.”

His research went deeper than that. During his years working with the military, Herr sought ways to help SEALs endure extreme conditions—like riding for hours underwater in exposed submersibles—and emerge ready to fight. He also worked with fighter pilots who felt inexplicably foggy after flying at high elevations. Both led him to understand how changes in pressure and available oxygen levels were causing inflammation throughout the body that hindered performance.

Herr’s knowledge came into play later, after founding Fount as a high-end coaching and supplement service. One of his clients, a senior executive, was flying from Washington, D.C., to Seoul to close a business deal, and the South Koreans seemed to have purposely scheduled meetings for a day and time when the executive would be struggling with jet lag. “They were using jet lag as a negotiating tool,” Herr says. The client asked Herr if there was anything he could do to help him feel rested enough to keep from getting crushed.

Herr had a hunch. What if beating jet lag wasn’t just a circadian-rhythm problem but also an inflammation problem? He knew that commercial airlines don’t pressurize cabins to sea level—it’s too costly and stresses the hull—but to 5,000 to 8,000 feet. For a person living in New York or Los Angeles, take-off is like being transported instantly to the elevation of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at 7,200 feet, where each breath yields about 16 percent less oxygen. “Depressurization is stressful on your body,” says Kim.

So Herr created a new plan. He delineatedÌęwhen and what the executive should eat, and how and when he should manage light by using blue-light-filtering glasses. He also gave his client supplements tailored to tackle inflammation specific to flying. HerrÌęincorporated compounds like tart-cherry powder, vitamin C, and omega-3 fatty acids, as well as methylated B vitaminsÌęto help boost energy and aid neurological functions. He included small doses of melatonin, to offer the body’s peripheral clocks time cues (called zeitgebers) on whether it was day or night. He asked the client to eat small, protein-rich meals to manage fuel for the brain and toÌęconsume caffeine with 13.5 grams of sugar at specified times to create managed spikes in insulin that served as more zeitgebers.

Herr thought, If I could just tamp down the inflammation, tweak the central clock, and wrap it all up in a light-dark routine with enough napping, this client might arrive in South Korea able to function well but also sleepy enough at the right time to getÌęa good night’s rest. He could wake up and have his meeting with little to no issues.

It worked. The client emailed Herr the next day and said, “I slept all night, I feel fantastic! What the hell did you give me?”

Over the next five years or so, Herr fine-tuned the regimen, bringing Kim on to create an algorithm and eventually teaming up with a supplement manufacturer to craft custom supplements at scale. The overarching idea has remained the same. “Other methods require you to sort of ‘prepay’ and begin shifting your clock days before you leave,” Kim says. “We wanted to create something that you could do entirely while you’re in transit.”

Why I’m Convinced FlyKitt Is Legit

Fount has raised $14 million in venture-backed capital. And dozens of Olympians and professional sports teams have used FlyKitt, including the U.S. national men’s soccer squad during the last World Cup, Herr says. Even so, looking over the supplements before my departure, I wondered how safe the whole system might be. For my trip to South Africa, FlyKitt had me taking more than 800 times the recommended daily allowance of vitamin B12—a move designed, in part, to provide energy and prevent sleep. Curious, I reached out to two doctor friends, both of whom told me that the amount raised no red flags, assuming I didn’t consume that quantity every day. Doctors often prescribe that much vitamin B to people with malabsorption issues, one told me.

Dr. Stephan Pasiakos, director of the National Institutes of Health’s Office of Dietary Supplements, also wasn’t worried about FlyKitt’s cocktail of pills. “While not commenting on the product per se, and assuming none of the ingredients mentioned exceed recommended intakes, there are no health concerns in taking these together over a relatively short period of time for healthy adults,”Ìęhe wrote me via email.

FlyKitt has never undergone a clinical trial, but Herr hopes the military will fund one before too long. He also acknowledges that the link between jet lag and inflammation is a “new discovery” that existing science does not yet back. “But I can rebuke that science with results, which is science,” he says, adding that FlyKitt’s results are based on thousands of test cases. “It’s possible we are right for the wrong reason but we are, nonetheless, right.” The company also offers a money-back guarantee. “We do not get taken up on that very often.”

Late on my second day in South Africa, I begin to feel jet lag’s familiar wooziness seep into my head after returning from a short hike. But the symptom disappears as fast as it came on, after about 15 minutes. Following my return trip to Oregon, I experienced no jet lag at all. Still suspicious, I tried FlyKitt on a third trip, this one with 21 hours of travel, also across nine time zones, to Norway. Once again, zero jet lag.

On that return trip, I decide not to use FlyKitt. Huge mistake. I’m crushed for days—foggy-headed, cold, and so sleepy that I struggle to keep my eyes open until 6:45 P.M., only to awake at 2 A.M. A week later, I’m mostly back to normal. I run all of this by Lockley, who is a competitor, yes, but also impeccably qualified to weigh in. He’s unconvinced FlyKitt is a viable solution for jet lag. “Maybe you got lucky,” he says.Ìę“Maybe your flights were timed just right for avoiding light and dark. Placebo is also a thing.”

Without a clinical trial, Herr himself can’t be entirely sure why it works, but he’s certain that it does.

“Occasionally, I ask myself, Did we really solve jet lag?” he says. “But then I look at the results and can’t help but conclude that we did for the vast majority of people.”

Contributing editor Tim Neville is a night owl who can fall asleep almost anywhere at any time. In fact, he can’t remember the last time he was awake for take-off. He recently wrote an Outside story about the bestÌętravel hacksÌęand a feature about the world’s most traveled people.

The post I Had My Doubts About FlyKitt. But It’s Proven Itself Time and Again on My Overseas Trips. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Paige McClanahan, a journalist and travel writer, is much too diplomatic to phrase it this way, so allow me to be the grump: you’re the reason locals so often dislike tourists.

“Travel has become a consumerist exercise where the goal is to get our money’s worth out of a place,” McClanahan says in a phone interview from her home in France. “We need to wake up. Paris owes you nothing.”

The tourist-local tension has been around since before Marco Polo, but in her debut book, , McClanahan shows us just how bad things have gotten. Globally, travelers will log some 1.5 billion trips abroad by the end of 2024—the largest movement of people the planet has ever seen. In a handful of years, that number could reach 1.8 billion. Closer to home, Americans are on track to take almost two billion domestic leisure trips annually by 2025. Despite the buzz around mindful experiences and sustainable travel, locals from Athens to Zermatt have had enough of us. Some Hawaiians have requested that we stay home. Romans fine tourists up to $280 for clogging the Spanish Steps. In July, an annoyed mob roamed Barcelona’s boulevards dousing visitors with squirt guns.

McClanahan, who writes for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Guardian, has plugged her journalistic pen into this bursting dike with empathy, not by shaming or lecturing anyone. Nor does she ask people to stay put, which would be detrimental to conservation work, prosperity, and cultural bridge building. Instead, McClanahan uses the voices of locals adversely affected by tourism to inspire us to travel with more curiosity, humility, and appreciation for how our holiday can be hell on the climate and local residents. Above all, she wants us to know that we have the power to make travel a force for good.

This elevated mindset is the hallmark of the new tourist. Becoming one isn’t hard. It means visiting Iceland in the off-season or trading the line at the Louvre for a Paris Noir walking tour to soak up the city’s Black history. You can control your partying in Amsterdam and stay behind the fence at the Grand Canyon. You can insist on supporting local guides and locally owned hotels, restaurants, and food carts. (The Barcelona mob targeted people eating at a Taco Bell, among other spots.)

“Even if you’re a low-budget traveler, you can still be a high-value visitor,” McClanahan says.

McClanahan, who left the United States at age 26 and has spent the past 17 years writing from Africa and Europe, admits that she has made plenty of old-tourist mistakes—like posting a self-serving Instagram reel from Angkor Wat that barely showed Angkor Wat. “I live in a glass house,” she says.

McClanahan casts no aspersions on the types of trips you like but does bristle at people who consider themselves “travelers” and not tourists. “I don’t deny that people travel for a huge range of reasons, some higher-minded than others,” she writes in The New Tourist. “So, sure, call yourself a traveler but never forget you’re a tourist, too.” What matters is that we make informed decisions on how to travel in ways that put places and the people who live there first.

“One of the most constructive things we can do in our flickering moment of life is to embrace the chance to leave our comfort zones—those dangerous lairs where we learn to languish,” she writes. She adds to me: “None of us can wave a magic wand and change the behavior of millions of other people, but each of us can be that change.”

The post People Are Traveling More Than Ever, Driving Residents Crazy. It’s Time to Listen to the Locals. appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

It’s a pleasantly warm afternoon in Azerbaijan, a former soviet republic sandwiched between Russia and Iran, and the tank crewmen of the Qubadli regional Border Detachment are hosting a party. For hours they’ve been working to raise a wedding-style tent and set a dozen tables with cartons of fruit nectar, bowls of nuts, and plates of pale pink meats. The Azerbaijanis have been fighting off and on for more than 30 years with Armenia, another ex-Soviet state a grenade toss to the west, but tonight the war can wait.

Around 5 P.M., 14 shiny Nissan Pathfinders, Toyota Land Cruisers, and Mitsubishi Pajeros come racing into the encampment behind a military-police escort vehicle—a boxy Russian-built Lada—with lights flashing and engine whining. The SUVs file into a gravel parking area that was scratched out of the scrubland. Dozens of the detachment’s T-72 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles sit silently nearby like insects ready to sting.

The dust settles and about 30 civilians from more than 20 countries step from the cars, stretch their legs, and look around in wonder. Some are doctors. Some are vagabonds. All of them are here to see one of the world’s most contentious enclaves.

The detachment base sits on the fringes of Nagorno-Karabakh, a 2,700-square-mile patch of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains nestled inside Azerbaijan but historically home to a lot of ethnic Armenians, too. The two have been at each other’s throats for generations over this region, with thousands of lives lost. In the past four years, Azerbaijan has reclaimed the besieged area, and more than 100,000 Armenians fled back to Armenia. While the conflict appears to be over for now, there are remnants of the war everywhere: step off the road and a land mine might do you in.

A muscular, jovial colonel with thin, graying hair and slate-colored eyes comes forward in his battle dress. The tank crews stand at attention in navy blue boiler suits. His name is Murad, but that’s all he can say. A patch on his chest reads O (I) RH+, which is his blood type.

“Welcome! Welcome!” the colonel says to the guests. “We’re so honored you are here.”

The leader of the visiting guests, Charles Veley, a 58-year-old from Marin County, California, steps forward from a white Mitsubishi that I’ve been riding in, too. “Thank you for having us,” Veley replies. “I hear you have a surprise.”

“Yes, yes,” the colonel says. “I hope you enjoy.”

What’s no surprise is that Veley, who has a boyish grin and a neutral, even way of speaking, is here. That’s because he is, according to a system he created, America’s most traveled person, a wanderer who has visited more of the planet than almost any known human in history. Fewer than ten people have seen more of the globe than he has.

To quantify that, there are lists. The most straightforward one comes from the United Nations, which affirms that there are 195 countries in existence, including places like Palestine and the Holy See. Federal Express says that it delivers to more than 220 countries and territories. The list that Veley compiled, and that thousands of other extreme travelers recognize, tops out at more than 1,500 distinct places that are currently possible for one to visit. It includes countries, regions, enclaves, atolls, both poles, and at least one small, sheer-cliffed islet in the middle of the ocean. Russia isn’t just “Russia,” but 86 discrete stops. The United Kingdom has 30 stops, including islands like Herm and Sark. To see the United States, you must travel to 79 places that stretch from the Florida Keys to the Pribilof Islands in the Bering Sea.

“Charles isn’t an adventure seeker but a knowledge seeker,” his friend Kolja Spöri, the German founder of the Extreme Traveler International Congress, a yearly gathering of the world’s most obsessive travelers that’s been held in such places as Baghdad, Equatorial Guinea, and Siberia, told me. “He’s the spiritual father of all country collectors,” he added in a blog post.

The post Meet the Extreme Travelers Trying to Visit Every Country in the World appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Exploring a new destination is fun, but the rigamarole to get there, not so much. Plane travel can be exhausting, packing fraught, and ensuring you have what you need to stay safe and connected during your trip means taking a lot into consideration before you step out the door. We’ve all been there many times.

But travel shouldn’t be so stressful. And those who’ve made a profession out of it, like our travel writers, have many tricks they turn to on every trip that make their journeys bearable, and even enjoyable. “What are the hacks we should be using?” we asked them. Their answers—and their anecdotes about why they changed the way they pack or entertain their kids—wowed us in these 16 ways.

Gear Hacks

The Problem: You hate packing a regular toothbrush, and your electric one only plugs into the wall
The Solution: The Suri e-toothbrush

Having to pack a regular old toothbrush is always such a letdown. I went electric a long time ago. At home I use an Oral B, but it’s bulky, the battery rarely lasts more than a week, and it’s prone to spontaneously buzzing and vibrating in my bag. Awkward.

Then I got a Suri. These electric toothbrushes are sleek, and their slender hard case has a built-in USB-C-powered UV light that disinfects. You can power it in the case, too—not that you’ll likely need to. The company claims the battery lasts 40 days on a single charge. I’ve not personally tested this, but mine worked every day of the two weeks I just spent hopping between Oregon, Colorado and Virginia.

Suri is good for your conscience, too. We throw away upward of four billion regular brushes annually, and most electric versions are still heavy on single-use plastics. Suri’s are made of eco-friendly materials like cornstarch and castor beans. The handle is aluminum. All of it can be recycled for free. Now it too just lives in my bag. —Tim Neville

The Problem: You’ve yet to find a sizable carry-on that fits in the overhead compartment or under the seat
The Solution: The Cotopaxi 35L

Friends assume I’m a champion bag-packer. They might be right. In 2019 I spent three weeks circumnavigating the globe, with three stops (the South Pacific, Middle East, Scandinavia) in three climates, and all I brought was a carry-on. That was the first time I really put the Cotopaxi Allpa 35L ($225) to the test, and it’s since been my go-to bag for almost every travel adventure.

The zippered clamshell design has two interior mesh compartments for clothes and two smaller mesh pockets that stash my notebooks and batteries. There’s also an exterior laptop sleeve and another pocket that nicely accommodates my toiletry bag and sunglasses.ÌęI can wear the Allpa like a backpack or carry it like a briefcase.

While I love roller bags, a soft-sided backpack is really the right way to fly. I jam the Allpa into those half-size overhead bins on regional flights, and if I don’t pack it to the gills, it fits under the seat in front of me (though The Allpa 28L is better for that). Critically, it’s subtly rugged—its rubberized exterior adds neither bulk nor weight but has repelled snow, rain, and cat pee, as well as endured abuse in boats and one very dusty truck bed on an all-night trip across Zimbabwe. Five years in, mine looks pretty much the same as the day I bought it. —T.N.

ÌęThe Problem: You can’t fit everything into your suitcase
The Solution: Thule packing cubes

To buy or not to buy packing cubes isn’t a question, because the answer is: absolutely. Not only can I cram more stuff in my luggage, with space-saving cubes of underwear and T-shirts, but having everything organized keeps me sane, and that makes life a million times easier on the road. Instead of rummaging around to find socks, I jump right to that cube. When flying, my family saves on baggage fees by bringing one big suitcase filled with everyone’s cubes to divvy up later. Packing cubes are super handy on river and backpacking trips too.

I’ve gravitated to Thule’s for everything but nicer shirts and pants; those I put into an Eagle Creek Pack-It garment folder that keeps them (mostly) wrinkle-free. There’s a “clean/dirty” Thule cube fashioned withÌęa soft plastic barrier, perfect for a damp bathing suit, shoes, or dirty clothes. One could argue that cubes are cubes, but Thule’s are sturdy, allowing me to compress a maximum number of items into a dense packet without blowing out the zipper or stitching. —T.N.

ÌęThe Problem: When you fly, your legs and feet swell uncomfortably
ÌęTheÌęSolution: Compression socks

Rarely do I have the luxury—or luck—of flying to a far-flung destination in a lie-flat bed. Which is why I’ve come to rely on compression socks—what I call the poor man’s upgrade. Remaining seated for extended periods causes blood to pool in your legs, and that , so by the time you deplane, perhaps your feet have swollen to an alarming degree. Compression socks are the solution; designed to gently squeeze your ankles and calves, they stimulate better blood circulation, which in turn reduces swelling and lowers the risk of a serious condition called .

Bob Bacheler, managing director of the medical-transport service Flying Angels recommends compression socks on any flight of four or more hours. The most important consideration, he says, is a good fit—not too tight or too loose. When I wear compression socks, my legs feel fresh rather than achy or tired.

I like Bombas’s colorful Everyday compression socks, which pull up just below the knee and deliver mild compression (15 to 20 mm Hg—a unit used to measure pressure). I tend to get cold on flights, and these thick cotton socks are warmer than others I’ve tried. Levsox compression socks have a snugger fit (20 to 30 mm Hg) but they still don’t feel like they’re strangling my legs, and their extra arch support makes me feel like that part of my foot is getting a massage when I walk in them (and walk you should—the getting up every two to three hours). To reap the biggest benefits, Bacheler recommends staying hydrated, which increases blood circulation throughout your body, enhancing the effectiveness of the socks. —Jen Murphy

The Problem: You want to practice yoga on your trip, but your roll-up mat is too big to bring
ÌęThe Solution: The foldable Kama Mat

I first saw a Kama mat on a camping trip, when a friend unfolded this origami-style pad and placed it outside her camper van like a welcome mat where visitors were invited to leave their dirty shoes. Folded up, it resembles a large pizza box–size trapezoid, but it pulls apart like you’re undoing a paper crane. Laid out, the mat is big enough for a downward dog. The Kama comes in three sizes: the largest option is seven feet by five feet unfolded, while the smallest looks more like a doormat at four by two feet. I was immediately won over by all the possibilities.

My Kama goes everywhere with me now. It’s a picnic blanket I stash in the back of my car, a beach pad that keeps my feet from getting sandy while I’m taking off my wetsuit after swimming or surfing, and a comfy place for my dog to sleep outdoors near the tent. The mat is half an inch thick, with a similar feel to a cushy sleeping pad, and it’s way more durable than your average yoga mat, thanks to its tough 100 percent Cordura material, a synthetic made entirely from recycled bottles that’s easy to clean. You’ll want to on how to fold it correctly, unless origami comes naturally to you. They’re not cheap—the smallest size is $98 and the largest $233—but they last and I’ve yet to find something that compares. —M.M.

Tech Hacks

ÌęThe Problem: You need a long-lasting, reliable power bank that’s allowed on airplanes
ÌęThe Solution: OtterBox’s Fast Charge

A working phone is indispensable on the road. It stores boarding passes, train passes, and itineraries in . With eSIMS opening the door to cheap data overseas, I now use my phone in places that were too expensive before, like Azerbaijan. All of this to say: I need a good TSA-approved power bank.

OtterBox’s Fast Charge has kept me going for about two years now. It weighs a pound, is the size of a thin brick tile, and stores a significant 20,000 milliampere-hours that you can tap through two ports, a USB-A and a USB-C. That’s enough oomph to resuscitate a flatlining iPhone 12 Pro at least three times. On river trips, it keeps my inReach satellite device alive for a week.

It charges things quickly, too—3.6 times faster than your standard five-watt transformer, according to OtterBox. I’ve found that juicing my device for just five to ten minutes can push it well out of the red. In airplane mode I can fully charge my phone in about 45 minutes. When paired with OtterBox’s 72-watt wall charger, the Premium Pro Fast Charge, I can power a laptop and phone simultaneously from one outlet. The only bummer? The power bank’s 18 watts can’t bring a laptop back to life. For that I rely on BioLite’s Charge 100 Max, which stores 25,000 milliampere-hours, puts out 100 watts, and is designed with five ports and a wireless charging deck. —T.N.

ÌęÌę

ÌęThe Problem: Your devices’ countless cords and cables aren’t organized
ÌęThe Solution: GoTubbs

One of the last things I used to pack, because I hated it so much, were all the cords, adapters, and wall chargers required to travel with my laptop, Kindle, phone, voice recorder, and watch. What a mess and hassle. I’d rather untangle spaghetti.

But I’ve been turned on to plastic containers from Humangear called GoTubbs. Each is circular and transparent, with a fantastic, deep-sided lid that I can squeeze open with one hand. Marketing pictures showed them holding snacks and vitamins, but I saw their true calling instantly: here were the perfect containers for my gadgets’ power cords, chargers, batteries. And today I keep these containers in—you guessed it—a packing cube.

For something more purpose-built, Eagle Creek recently redesigned its E-Tools Organizer Pro, which combines sleeves with zippered pockets in a clamshell design. Incase has a Nylon Accessory Organizer ($50) with thoughtful features like elastic rings to hold your wall chargers. Both are great and light-years better than rubber bands or a Ziploc. —T.N.Ìę

ÌęÌę

ÌęThe Problem: You can’t sleep in trains, planes, and automobiles
ÌęTheÌęSolution: Earphones (or buds) and Background or Sleep Sounds

I can doze off anywhere, even as a six-foot-seven giraffe shoehorned into economy. I just need the right tools to help it happen. For years my sleep kit was little more than a neck pillow, ear plugs, and a free eye mask I scored on an upgrade. But now I use AirPod Pro 2’s and my iPhone for a trick I’m about to recommend that keeps me sleeping soundly on anything that moves.

First, find the feature called Background Sounds that’s embedded in any iPhone running iOS 15 or newer. Android phones have . (A quick web search will help you find where, or whether, this feature is located on your phone.) These are basically white-noise machines that provide various pleasing sounds that also mask or absorb any distracting sounds that can make sleep tough.

Once activated, you can choose from eight sounds on an iPhone that range from “bright noise” to “dark noise,” as well as natural tracks like the ocean, rain, a stream, and night. Android users can access three sounds or anything from Spotify. Set up with this soothing tool of modern technology piped into my AirPod and I’m out before takeoff. —T.N.

ÌęThe Problem: You’re nervous the airlines will lose your checked luggage (it happens!)
ÌęThe Solution: AirTags

These discrete trackers felt a little creepy to me when they first came out, despite their practical benefits when it came to finding lost keys and bags. But my editors suggested I try them, and I admit to being won over on a recent trip to Africa. I put an AirTag inside a checked bag, launched the Find My app native to iPhones, and watched with glee as it made its way between planes during layovers and eventually to baggage claim. While airlines like United have an app that allows you to track a checked bag each time a handler scans its tag, it isn’t always clear what’s happening. With an AirTag, however, I could see exactly what was going on—and with a weekslong trip ahead of me, that reassurance was very valuable. —T.N.

Website and App Hacks

ÌęThe Problem: You want to tip your guide after a tour, but you lack local currency or access to an ATM
ÌęThe Solution: Bepo

If you’ve ever hired a guide, perhaps to help you climb a mountain, ski to a backcountry hut, or paddle down a remote stretch of river, you know it’s common practice to give them a gratuity at the end of your trip. American guides are usually happy to accept a Venmo payment as thanks, but internationally, there hasn’t been an easy way to tip guides without getting cash in their local currency. Which often means you wind up struggling to find an ATM, then carrying around a wad of cash.

But I recently discovered , started by a travel-loving entrepreneur named Ian Sweeney in 2022 to offer seamless digital tips to service workers and guides. You can transfer funds via credit card, Apple Pay, PayPal, or Venmo (Bepo charges a 1 percent fee on all transactions), and the person you’re tipping can cash out directly into their own Bepo account.

The site is growing 15 percent each month in the U.S. and Canada, and Bepo intends to expand globally in 2025. Best of all, you don’t have to download yet another app; just head to the website, create a free profile, and then scan your guide’s QR code to make a secure payment via whatever method suits you best. Tipping has never been so simple. —Megan Michelson

ÌęThe Problem: You’ve been camping or road-tripping for days and need a few hours to recharge with hotel amenities
ÌęThe Solution: A daycation with ResortPass

When you’re traveling, access to a few nice amenities can make all the difference, be it fast Wi-Fi and a comfortable place to check email, a gym and showers, a hot tub to soak in and relax, or laundry facilities. Basically, if you could just check into a hotel for a few hours and use their perks, life would be golden. That’s the idea behind , which offers day use to over 1,600 properties across the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and the Caribbean for as little as $25. No membership fees are required; instead, just purchase a day pass the day you need it. Properties include everything from urban hotels to far-flung resorts. Some passes come with upgrade options like spa treatments, access to the fitness center, or poolside cabanas and water parks.

While on a long-haul camping trip through the Pacific Northwest with my kids last summer, I bought a day pass to a hotel in Bend, Oregon, just to get access to a swimming pool and a shower. TheÌętotal price for three of us was, incredibly, just $35. We spent the afternoon living like high-end hotel guests—ordering food and drinks poolside and using fancy shampoos and fluffy towels in the spa—before returning to our campsite that night. —M.M.

ÌęThe Problem: Taking melatonin or eating a big breakfast upon arrival have failed to cure you of jet lag
ÌęThe Solution: FlyKitt

The best way to beat jet lag is to not get it at all, but for most travelers who fly, that’s usually not possible. Or is it?

Fount, a human-performance R&D company, purports to have discovered a way to make jet lag “a choice.” To make the right one, you need FlyKitt, a system that will have youÌę wearing blue-light filtering glasses, eating supplements, taking naps, and drinking coffee and electrolytes, all at specific times generated by a free app.

Curious, I ordered one for an upcoming trip from my home in Oregon to South Africa. The pouch, the size of a toiletry bag, included everything I’d need for one round-trip journey. I plugged my flight info into the app, and a rather intense routine was laid out for me: starting with the morning of my first flight, I had to consume more than 20 capsules of things like tart cherry powder, vitamin C, magnesium, and omega-3 fatty acids over the course of the next 24 hours. I’d take the last pill the day after I arrived in Johannesburg, nine time zones ahead of home.

The results were shocking—and I say that as someone who has tried all kinds of jet-lag remedies. I had one 15-minute spell of grogginess after arriving in Johannesburg. But upon my return to the U.S., I had zero jet lag. It was as if I’d never left. Typically, I’m wrecked for days, both ways.

Others have tried FlyKitt without success. One reviewer for The Points Guy felt silly wearing the light-filtering glasses in public and skipped that part and also didn’t take all of the supplements. However, another reporter, from the Seattle Times, tried it out and had the same results as I did. I worried that consuming 41,667 percent of vitamin B12’s daily value might upset my stomach, but it didn’t—and a doctor later reassured me that this dose isn’t dangerous—so I stuck to the routine. I certainly plan to use FlyKitt again. —T.N.

ÌęThe Problem: Getting an infection in a remote place, days or miles from medical help
ÌęThe Solution: Carry amoxicillin

In general, I’ve never needed antibiotics, but there was a time that my kid did, and I didn’t have them. I’m not doing that again. Once, on a three-day float trip down °ż°ù±đČ”ŽÇČÔ’s remote John Day River with family and friends, my 11-year-old curled up in the bow and went to sleep for the entire morning. This was worrisome. She loved river trips and typically wanted to spend every minute kayaking.

That afternoon, pain set in. She complained that it felt like an ice pick was chiseling away at her skull below one eye and above her teeth. My wife and I pumped her full of Tylenol and Ibuprofen, but nothing helped. Then her face began to swell.

I’m deeply wary of using any medicine willy-nilly, and I’m no doctor, but I knew she needed antibiotics. Decades before, on a remote island in the Philippines, I’d languished for a week with a ruptured eardrum that was horrifically infected. That could have been avoided with antibiotics. And fortunately for travelers, in many countries, you can walk into a pharmacy, explain your symptoms, and walk out with what you need. But occasionally, we find ourselves seriously sick in remote locations and in need of powerful medicine, like my daughter that day on the river.

We eventually got her to a hospital, where she was diagnosed with a tooth abscess. She’d need a root canal, but amoxicillin cut the pain quickly. And that’s why I never travel without it now. For antibiotics in the U.S., you’ll need a doctor’s prescription, so I suggest making an appointment ahead of time if you know you’ll be somewhere remote and are concerned about medical resources in that area and no better recourse. In my experience, it’s worth asking for more than you’ll need to keep stashed in your Dopp kit. —T.N.

Kids Entertainment Hacks

ÌęThe Problem: You’re road-tripping with the kids and want them to enjoy the scenery without screens
ÌęThe Solution: Play just the audio of their favorite film

Playing movies on road trips has become a staple in my family. But not watching them—listening to them. When my daughter was really young, this kept her entertained, and my wife and I loved how it stoked her imagination without a screen. The trick was to download a favorite film, like Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda, or. Penguins of Madagascar. Because she’d already seen it a million times, she could picture it entirely by sound: That’s Rico eating the snow globes. That’s the penguins bouncing in the bouncy house. Other forgettable sounds became hysterical, like a chicken clucking after Kevin Hart’s character explodes in Jumanji.

This hack isn’t just for kids. I use it myself on long drives at night when I’m tired of podcasts. A favorite? Interview with a Vampire. The gurgling, slurping sounds; Brad Pitt’s breathiness; and Christian Slater’s nasalness are all so bad it’s incomparably great—maybe even better than watching it on screen. —T.N.

Airline Hacks

ÌęThe Problem: Your flight is delayed or you have a general complaintÌęabout your carrier’s service
ÌęThe Solution: Pipe up when things go wrong—it often pays off

Over the past year, airfare has , but airline reliability has plummeted. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, of domestic flights were delayed or canceled in the first half of 2024. Only 50 percent of the 63 flights I’ve taken this year left on schedule. What’s your recourse?

First, know your rights: the Department of Transportation posts a listing the services or amenities domestic airlines promise clients affected by delays and cancellations. Armed with this information, you can then reach out to a representative of your air carrier and ask for compensation. It’s worth noting that every major U.S. carrier offers meal vouchers for delays of three hours or more (talk to your gate agent). Alaska, JetBlue, and Southwest provide a travel credit or voucher for a delay of more than three hours. Only Alaska, however, promises frequent-flier miles in addition to a travel credit.

Things should improve in the next five years, thanks to a new federal regulation requiring airlines to refund customers, or offer credits that last up to five years, for flight delays greater thanÌę three hours for domestic travel and six hours for international trips. Until then, a quick email complaint can go a long way, I’ve found, particularly with United Airlines. It takes less than three minutes to fill out and submit a grievance, whether it’s a delay or annoying hiccups like a broken seat that won’t recline or spotty Wi-Fi. Nine times out of ten, I receive some type of compensation; in fact, last year I was awarded close to 20,000 miles, earned nearly $2,500 in I’m-sorry vouchers, and was even refunded the $8 I spent on faulty Wi-Fi. I appreciate this service. It takes some of the sting out of plans gone awry —J.M.

The Problem: You want to travel with your own bicycle but don’t want to pay hundreds to check it
ÌęThe Solution: Choose an airline that lets your bike fly free

Airlines have mutilated a number of my surfboards, so I’ve never been willing to gamble on flying with my much pricier road bike. I’m far from a pro, and rentals are way better than they used to be; plus, I like to support local bike shops. But I know that serious cyclists suffer separation anxiety—and for you I have intel.

If you don’t want to be charged an oversizeoverweight fee of upward of $200, you need to make sure your rig and its box weigh 50 pounds or less and are smaller than 80 inches. A nice carbon road bike tends to weigh between 17 and 20 pounds. Factor in a light case and remove the front wheel, and you can just make the cut.

But the airline beloved by many cyclists bringing bikes is Southwest. It’s the only domestic airline that grants two free checked bags, regardless of loyalty status. If your bike meets the proper dimensions (62 inches or less and less than 50 pounds), it’s counted as a free checked bag.

It’s also worth considering Delta and United if you have status with those airlines. On Delta, those with Medallion status or Delta Amex cardholders can check a bicycle for free if it meets dimensions (62 linear inches) and it’s the sole piece of checked luggage. On United, status members are granted an extra 20 pounds per checked bag, which can make a difference if you’ve sprung for a hard-shell case to keep your beloved bike free from dings. —J.M.

Tim Neville and Megan Michelson are șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű contributing editors, and Jen Murphy is a longtime șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű correspondent. All spend weeks of the year traveling around the country and abroad and reporting back to us. Neville recently recounted his scary multi-night stay in a dark cave in Oregon, Michelson rounded up the best outdoor festivals, and Murphy wrote about the countless ways to explore Costa Rica.Ìę

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The darkness has a name, but I don’t know that yet. All I know is that I’m scared.

I’m sitting with my feet in a creek in the scrubby mountains southeast of Ashland, Oregon, watching how the water spills over gray rocks into a shallow pool. All day long, I’ve been alone and unplugged, doing my best to savor moments like this one. I note how the sunlight filters through the black oaks and flickers in the water like coins in a fountain. Colors get special attention: the denim-blue lupines, the amber grass, and the plum-colored mountains around me. I squirrel these images away to return to later, like nuts before winter.

A forgettable dirt road follows the creek out of Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, which surrounds this place, but that’s as much as I’ll say about the location. A lot of famous people keen on their privacy come up this way, but even plebs like me are welcome. Once you’re here, you have to become no one anyway. In a metaphorical sense, which doesn’t feel metaphorical at all, you must be ready to be buried alive.

I walk slowly, deliberately, uphill to a small clearing ringed by aspen and oak. The anxiety that’s been ricing my lungs turns steely and sharp when I see a pale wooden door built into a hillside, framed by lava rock. It looks like the entrance to Bilbo Baggins’s house. I go in. A stairway tumbles down to a windowless, 300-square-foot room with textured walls, a bathroom, and a wooden bed that smells like sage. A single low-wattage bulb hums faintly overhead. It’s controlled by a switch covered with a hard plastic guard, which makes it difficult to turn off and on. That’s the point.

This room and two others like it in these secret woodlands are the heart of what might be the country’s only established commercial dark retreat. This is a spiritual place, where visitors pay good money to spend long periods of time in crypt-like blackness, devoid of all light and most sounds, in an attempt to uncage their minds and, they hope, discover something deeper within. I’m here to give it a shot, but the mere thought has left my hands clammy and my breathing pinched. I flip the switch to see just how dark the dark is, and terror presses into me like 13,000 vertical feet of seawater. I implode and race outside, gasping.

All humans know the feeling. This isn’t the dark of the inside of a tent on a moonless night, when the forest sways in purple starlight, nor is it a creepy basement where a thin ribbon of light can weasel under the door. You can feel this kind of dark at a place like Carlsbad Caverns, where 830 feet under the New Mexican desert, the rangers turn off the lights and let the children scream. It’s the kind that triggers some atavistic line of code that sends your amygdala rag-dolling over evolution’s awful ledges. How can I survive this? How can I escape it? And the worst: What else is in here, and is it hungry?

Evening comes. Time to be brave. I take one last look around outside and gather a few more nuts. A mountain chickadee twitters about. Deer slip through the grass. I go inside and seal myself into the room with a few necessities I’ll be able to locate by touch. A toothbrush. A Hydro Flask. A gray cotton onesie my wife got me for Christmas, because of the way it feels and smells—two senses the dark can’t steal. I light a small candle and turn off the overhead light, hoping to feel a sense of control for one last minute.

You can do this.

I blow out the candle and swallow the panic as the enormity of the situation settles in. My eyes will never adjust to this. Today is Sunday. It’ll be Thursday before I see a single photon again. That’s 82 hours, alone, in the absolute absence of light.

I can’t think about any of that now. Instead, I go to bed early and pretend everything is all right. But it isn’t. Things are about to get really, really weird.

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It was late fall, the Texas sun sufficiently merciful, and I was standing on a wood platform overlooking the humid, green core of Hazel Bazemore Park on the western outskirts of Corpus Christi. Though forgettable by most metrics, this 87-acre swatch of honey mesquite and lowland grasses ranks as one of the country’s richest and most diverse places to see migrating raptors. Three North American flyways converge here and by the time I’d arrived in early November, more than 1.2 million broad-winged hawks, turkey vultures, Mississippi kites, kestrels, and more had passed through, a record number for the second year in a row.

The park was a fitting testing ground for some super cool tech aimed largely at birders, still one of the of outdoor enthusiasts. I joined about a dozen of the country’s more influential bird nerds—each of us armed with a pair of the , the most advanced set of binoculars in the world. , the Austria-based offshoot of the larger, highly secretive, luxury crystal brand, Swarovski, would not introduce them to the world until Jan. 9, 2024, and as such we were asked not to let other birders see them up close. That’s because the AX Visio can do what no other binocular or scope in the world on the consumer market today can do: tell you what you’re looking at, instantly, at least when it comes to virtually every known bird on the planet. The binos can also identify hundreds of species of mammals, and soon, butterflies and dragonflies. And that’s just the start.

“If you have a database on wildflowers or mushrooms or stars or whatever, we can train the system to identify them,” Ben Lizdas, Swarovski Optik’s business development manager. “The idea is absolutely for developers to be able to contribute to this. It’s limitless.”

The identification feat alone is groundbreaking, but so are the other tasks that the smart binoculars can handle. The AX Visio has a tagging feature that allows you to drop a pin on a certain subject or location, like a mountain goat on a distant ridge. Hand the glass to a friend and a reticle in your field of vision will direct the viewer to the exact spot you just pinned. Paired with a smartphone app, the binoculars can also stream a live feed to up to four other devices at a time (though they need to be within about ten feet of each other), so everyone on safari can watch the jaguar eat. The display projected directly into the viewfinder can also show a digital compass offering both cardinal directions and azimuth angles. It has an onboard camera, a GPS, and Bluetooth capabilities for firmware updates and app connectivity. To function fully, it needs no signal from anything whatsoever.

Of course, Swarovski optics aren’t cheap, think $3,000 or more, and neither is the AX Visio. With an MSRP at about $5,330, they are not for everyone. But after three days of playing with them in Texas, followed by another two weeks around my home in Oregon, I can say they’re a blast, intuitive, and offer all sorts of implications for birders, hunters, guides, travelers, and those who just like to navigate the natural world by name. “I think there are applications that we can’t even imagine yet,” says Janet Moler, a manager with Portland (Oregon) Audubon. “I don’t recall anything on the market even close to this.”

At the moment, in Texas, I trained the glass on a flamboyant yellow bird with a sky blue head and a black throat that had materialized as if out of a Walt Disney film. I’d never seen a bird like it. The words “Green Jay” illuminated in a simple, unobtrusive orange font almost instantly along the bottom of the hyper crisp image. Suddenly I could appreciate this park a little more.

The Swarovski AX Visio Binoculars Basics

The AX Visio (a riff on something like “augmented-experience vision”) looks like a chunkier, more militaristic set of binoculars with 10×32 lenses, which, like all optics, translates to “how big by how bright;” In the AX Visio’s case, 10x magnification with 32 millimeter objective lenses. That’s enough glass to collect sufficient light for most outdoorsy applications, though a little under-gunned for dimmer conditions, like in the thick of a rainforest.

Like all of Swarovski’s optics, the lenses are crafted to nanometer precision. But the real magic lies with a fiercely guarded mix of light-altering chemical coatings applied in as many as 50 layers to enhance clarity and contrast. So secret is the recipe for these coatings that Swarovski has opted not to patent them, a protection that would require the company to divulge its materials and methods. Better to let the competition spend the time and money trying to reverse engineer it all with lasers and gas spectrometers than to spell it out in a patent, or so the thinking goes.

Some of the experts on this trip, most of whom are on the front line of the birding world as dealers who sell optics to other birders, said they could see birders wanting a brighter lens, say 42 mm, but the smaller 32 mm glass saves on weight. That was necessary because a third optical barrel sits under the bridge linking the other two barrels near the focus wheel. This third barrel houses a 13 megapixel camera with a fixed 2.2 f-stop (and maximum exposure time of 1/125) that’s capable of shooting HD video at 30 to 60 frames per second. Figuring out how to pair a camera with the binoculars was key to the whole “smart” process.

“People have tried to put cameras in binoculars before, but the technology was changing so fast that by the time it came out it was already obsolete,” says Daniel Nindl, the company’s head of product management. Now the components are so small and the processors so robust that Swarovski Optik, which first began toying with smart binocular designs about a decade ago, felt confident enough to move into prototype stages about six years ago. In the end, engineers packed the AX Visio with 37 lenses, eight prisms, and nine electronic boards powered by a removable, rechargeable lithium battery pack. Combined with the 390 individual parts (think sensors, a gyroscope, magnetometer, accelerometer and more) all housed in a forest-green, IP68-rated moisture- and dust-tight body, the unit is about three pounds. Though it’s a bit of a beast, it feels great in your hands.

How Does The AI-Generated Identification Work?

The ID feature is well worth the heavy weight, especially when you consider some of the alternatives. I got into birding the way many others did during the pandemic, when I happened to look out my window to find a delightful little guy with a body as yellow as an Easter Peep sporting a jaunty black patch atop his tiny birdy crown. I went full analog and hauled out a dusty copy of , eventually landing on page 825, a Wilson’s warbler.

Though I’m not a serious birder, I’ve learned a few very basic tricks that make identifying birds so much easier than that, namely the free Merlin Bird ID app. Merlin is a “machine learning -powered bird ID tool” put out by the avian gods themselves at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology at Cornell University. I take a picture of a mystery bird with my smartphone, record its song or enter its description, and Merlin will spit out a list of species possibilities. I use it almost every day just walking the dog.

This app, or rather the research and database behind it, forms the muscle behind the AX Visio’s ability to identify birds. Swarovski Optik obtained the rights to use the data and then figured out how to pack the hardware and software into binoculars that could make sense of it. The system includes a processor similar to one in your phone that powers an algorithm using a “neural processing unit” based on the Merlin app. In short, artificial intelligence.

What’s truly amazing is the sheer size of the bird reference library that the AX Visio’s AI can tap. On your phone, the Merlin app is so data-heavy with photos and sound bites that you have to pick and choose which “bird packs” to install based on your geographic location. Those packs narrow down the realm of possible birds to those the user is most likely to see in that particular area. For example, that’s 717 birds for “U.S. and Canada: Continental” and 810 birds for “Costa Rica.” The AX Visio, meanwhile, can only identify birds by “sight.” That data set consumes less storage space than the full Merlin app and allows the binoculars to have an on-board reference library that essentially includes every bird from every bird pack—roughly 8,000 birds total. The processor needs no connectivity to access it. That means it can identify a satyr tragopan in a remote rhododendron forest in Bhutan as easily as a mourning dove in New York City.

Understanding how this all unfolds is material for a graduate degree, but as a user, it couldn’t be more simple. To identify the green jay, I powered the unit on, waited for it to lock in a GPS signal, and turned the “mode wheel” to the bird ID function. Looking through the viewfinder, which included adjustable eyecups I could dial in to fit my sunglasses, a reticle appeared in the shape of a circle cut into four equal, curved segments. The more the bird can fill that circle, the higher the confidence in the AI result. Holding the binoculars naturally, you can toggle the size of the circle by depressing a button using a right forefinger.

A second, adjacent button acts like a shutter release on a camera. Once I had the jay lined up in my sights, I depressed the second button halfway, and the unit’s autofocus took over. Depressing it the rest of the way, the unit took a picture that was automatically uploaded to my paired iPhone 12 and then produced an ID readable directly in the viewfinder. All four segments of the circle had grown thicker, like a font in bold, signaling a high-confidence result. The fewer segments in bold: the lower the AI’s confidence in its result.

The system isn’t perfect. The unit couldn’t decide if a seagull was a laughing gull or a Franklin’s gull—it kept alternating between the two each time I hit the release. Ideally, the viewfinder needs to be filled with 224 x 224 pixels, though the minimum it needs is 100 x 100. Other times, it tested my own limitations. A hummingbird showed up and it was difficult to get a clear, stable shot of it that filled the circle. I tried anyway and the unit said it couldn’t recognize it or it wasn’t in focus. When I did get a decent shot of the bird face-on, the AI thought it was an Allen’s hummingbird when the birders all knew it was actually a Rufous. The differences between the two are difficult for beginners to distinguish and boil down to the shape of the tail feathers.

“To be fair,” said Clay Taylor, a naturalist who joined Swarovski Optik in 1999 as the division’s first in-house bird specialist, “even (famed ornithologist) David Sibley would need to see its back before he could tell you what it is.”

Other times I was shocked the AI could make sense of what I fed it at all. A raptor rocketed by and I fired off a sloppy shot. The unit called it a northern harrier, correctly. In the most comical, extreme example, perhaps, a bird never seen anywhere north of Panama suddenly showed up in downtown Corpus Christi, having likely hitched a ride on one of the many ships that come into port—a vagrant in birder-speak. The AI must have overridden what its own GPS said it couldn’t possibly be (or perhaps the unit couldn’t lock in a solid GPS signal among the buildings) and identified it as a cattle tyrant, a fly-eating fiend with a yellow breast and olive-brown back that had found an endless feast in a blue downtown dumpster. Soon hundreds of people from all over the country had gathered around this greasy trashcan to catch a glimpse.

Additional Features

I played with the other functions over the next few weeks. The location tagging setting led me right to a vermillion flycatcher a friend had spotted on a fence. Another time, I put it on mammal mode and drew a bead on a shih tzu walking down the beach, but all it could say was “dog.” One day, for giggles, I pointed it at my teenage daughter. “Human,” it said, though the state of her habitat would suggest otherwise.

I wondered if hardcore birders who already know hundreds of species by heart would have a need for something like this, and the answer is maybe. “We can all go someplace new and be totally lost,” says Diane Porter, co-founder of . Moler of Portland Audubon agrees: “There were many birds in Texas it identified when I didn’t have a clue,” she says. Having a pair to share among a group seems ideal, like an outfitter that equips its trip leaders and guides with a set to help clients see an owlet in the redwoods or a lion snoozing in the shade.

I shot a video of one egret bullying another in a pond and took pictures of distant buildings with architectural features I thought were cool, which was easy since I didn’t have to put down the binoculars and take out my phone or a camera. Though I enjoyed the photo function, it still can’t compete against a dedicated camera with, say, a 600 millimeter lens. “No way will it replace my big camera,” Porter says.

The most exciting features, however, may be the ones to come. The mode wheel already includes two empty slots ready to be claimed by future functions (which will also be open to third party developers). Perhaps one day one will go to the names and elevations of distant peaks or even climbing routes to the top. Maybe plane spotters will find a way to use it. In the meantime, there’s no doubt they’re game changers for many.

Personally, I’d kill to own a pair for the sheer amount of joy I got out of the Genesis-like gift of being able to give names to these delicate, gorgeous marvels of the world, and for the way that knowledge enriched my time in Texas, expanding doors and introducing me to others. (Like those 1.2 million raptors spotted at a tiny park for starters.)

“It’s a revolutionary product,” Moler says. “Now when a person walks in and says, for that price, those binoculars should identify the bird for you, I can say, they do.”

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1. Stay at a Cozy șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Base Camp

The in Hillsdale, New York, about two and a half hours from Manhattan and Boston, opened in August with 14 rooms that blend 1950s Berkshires ski culture with the feel of a Swiss chalet (from $345). The lodge is set at the foot of the Catamount Mountain Resort, one of the country’s oldest ski areas, which has 1,000 feet of vertical and 43 trails, including the steepest run in the Berkshires. Back at the lodge, relax in a barrel sauna before dinner at the Tavern, where a James Beard Award–nominated chef is at the helm.

Farther south, in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, the keeps things cozy with 25 tiny homes tucked in 20 acres of snowy deciduous forest (from $320). A sauna, hot tub, and fire pits are on site, and it’s a ten-minute drive to the slopes of Jack Frost and Big Boulder, where you can night-ski and use your Epic Pass.

In the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in North Carolina, the town of Boone is a great jumping-off point for cross-country skiing around 6,285-foot Roan Mountain or downhilling at Sugar Mountain and Appalachian Ski Mountain. Get a suite at the 15-room , a boutique hotel (from $280) in downtown Boone.

Or head north (way north) to the Charlevoix region of Quebec on the Saint Lawrence River, a mini North American Norway, with stunning fjords and dense woodlands. Stay right in the middle of it all in the Laurentian Mountains at , a collection of walk-in geodesic huts (see image above) with private hot tubs, fireplaces, and fully equipped kitchens (from $350). Fifteen minutes away, the ski area has just over 2,500 feet of vertical drop, the most east of the Canadian Rockies.

2. Ride the Winter Trains

In Switzerland, most everyone takes the train to the ski mountain. There are a few locomotive options on this side of the pond, too. The from Denver to Colorado’s third-largest ski area is back this season. Trains with baggage compartments for skis and boards leave Denver’s Union Station every Friday through Sunday, January through April, starting at 7 a.m. During the two-hour trip ($29 each way), you’ll roll through 31 tunnels and view the Continental Divide. Returning trains depart Winter Park at 4:30 P.m. Even cooler, if you time your flights right, you can hop the A Line train—with commuter service between Denver International Airport and Union Station—and skip the rental car.

For a more vintage vibe, board the Mount Washington Cog Railway, which has been chugging up the flanks of New Hampshire’s tallest, worst-weathered peak since 1869. The three-mile journey to the 6,289-foot summit is unavailable in winter—200-mile-per-hour winds, anyone?—but you can ride up to Waumbek Station, at about 4,000 feet. There you disembark to warm up with hot drinks and cog-shaped sugar cookies by a fire pit. The ski descent drops 1,300 vertical feet on an easy-to-intermediate trail beside the tracks.

Yet another train trip to experience national parks in the winter is , which runs from Chicago to Seattle and south to Portland, passing within a snowball’s distance of Glacier National Park. Book yourself on Vacations by Rail’s nine-day ($3,600) and you’ll stay at Glacier’s Lake McDonald Lodge for hikes around the lake, stop for a snow-coach outing to spot bison in Yellowstone, and go cross-country skiing in Jackson, Wyoming.

3. Ice Skate On Forever

Almost 200 years ago, a British Royal Engineer completed one of the greatest transportation projects in the world, a 126-mile waterway between Ottawa and Kingston, Ontario, called the Rideau Canal. In winter, a portion of the canal becomes something even cooler: the world’s longest ice-skating path. It’s up to Mother Nature when the 4.8-mile opens—January is always a good bet—but when it does, you can glide through the heart of downtown Ottawa. Rent skates at one of three locations along the route, or stay at the Westin Ottawa, which offers skating packages. From there you can push past warming huts that serve hot chocolate and BeaverTail pastries topped with cinnamon and sugar.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., some kids in Warroad, Minnesota, 250 miles northwest of Duluth, might argue that their five-mile deserves the longest-skateway title. A couple of years ago, when the pandemic closed the two hockey rinks in town, they built a pair of their own on the frozen Warroad River. Their parents then cleared a path between the rinks, and the route took off. Base yourself at the four-room (from $260) and bring your hockey stick for pickup games.

4. Sled Your Heart Out

Sledding isn’t just for youngins. in Quebec may have the best skiing east of the Canadian Rockies, but what’s really a hoot is the five-mile sledding trail that whips down 2,703-foot Mont Liguori. A snowcat will take you up 2,620 vertical feet to the entry point. Strap on a helmet and count on taking two hours to get all the way to the bottom, with a pause at one or more of the warming chalets along the way serving hot chicken soup. For an unforgettable twist, do the run at night with a headlamp.

°ż°ù±đČ”ŽÇČÔ’s , located in Government Camp, across from its 11,240-foot namesake peak, boasts the world’s only cosmic tubing park, with 600,000 LEDs, black lights, and lasers dancing in trippy bliss across 14 tubing lanes every weekend and holiday evening. Listen to Portland DJs and live music, or go skiing on 34 lit slopes, the most night-skiing terrain in the country. The midmountain offers up toasty bowls of homemade Hungarian goulash.

Midwesterners have it good, too. Ohio’s biggest ski area, , outside Columbus, turns 60 this year and has two lifts dedicated to tubers sliding about 300 vertical feet down as many as 20 lanes, depending on the conditions.

5. Earn Your (Delicious) Calories

There’s night skiing, and then there’s truly unforgettable night skiing. For the latter, you need alpine touring gear, so make this the winter you finally get yours. Then head to for the full moon on January 6, February 7, or March 7, when you can skin approximately 1,800 vertical feet up the Main Buttermilk Route, with shimmering views of Highlands, Pyramid Peak, and the magnificent Maroon Bells ($69 for a season-long uphill ski pass). There, the Cliffhouse restaurant stays open just for adventurers like you, with fire pits, a bar, and à la carte dining options. Fueled up and warm, strap on your headlamp and cruise back down to the base.

Back east, about 200 miles west of Washington, D.C., West Virginia’s , a 37-trail ski area with 1,500 feet of vertical drop, features backcountry hut dining in a log cabin just two miles up the Cheat Ridge Trail. Snowmobiles whisk your party to the cabin for a gourmet meal. Try the daytime resort skiing, too: with 180 inches per season, Snowshoe gets the most natural snow in the mid-Atlantic.

6. See the Northern Lights

The northern lights appear to be gathering their might this year. What better place to catch the phenomenon than at , a pod of 20 glass-domed igloos on 100 acres of forest 25 miles outside Fairbanks, Alaska (from $1,793 per person). Guests can rent 12-by-32-foot “cubes,” each with a full wall of glass on the northeast end for prime viewing. This place fills up fast, so if you can’t get in, try the , reachable via a half-hour bush-plane flight from Yellowknife, in the Northwest Territories (from $1,500 for three nights). The lodge, which has hot tubs and about four miles of groomed cross-country trails, sits under the auroral oval—the belt around the magnetic pole—offering some of the best panoramas.

7. Check Out This Cool Ski Resort News

One of the more impressive upgrades this winter is at Snowbird, in Utah. The resort, famous for its thigh-burning steeps, plans to unveil two new tram cabins with viewing panels built into the floor and floor-to-ceiling windows for the journey to 11,000 feet. Nearby has a new fixed-grip quad lift and additional terrain.

For the second time ever, , in Montana, will run a guided night-skiing excursion; at sunset you ride the heated seats of the Ramcharger 8 lift (each chair is enveloped in a weatherproof bubble) for a tour of groomed corduroy off 8,800-foot Andesite Mountain.

This season also marks the grand opening of the $65 million, 2.2-mile Base to Base Gondola at California’s . It will connect the resort’s Olympic Valley and Alpine Meadows areas. Close by, at Northstar, a high-speed six-pack will replace the Comstock quad, boosting capacity by 50 percent.

In Vermont, and are adding six-person high-speed lifts, and Killington’s improved K1 Base Lodge will open in November.

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the ski capital of the Midwest, Big Snow Resort is under new ownership and being upgraded and relaunched as , while the state is investing $20 million to renovate the nearby .

8. Explore the Best of the Backcountry

The stretches for 300 miles through some of Vermont’s most spectacular terrain—a wild tableau of snowy peaks, chutes, and forest. Amid that territory, one section near , 25 miles east of Burlington, stands out, offering access to some of the best backcountry skiing in New England.

Trail options are almost limitless here, but consider tackling the nine-mile tour linking Bolton Valley with Stowe’s (founded by the family of The Sound of Music fame), leading through hardwood forests perfectly spaced for tree skiing. When you finally arrive at the lodge, a brat platter with housemade pickles and an Austrian beer await. Bolton Valley offers guides and shuttles as well as backcountry clinics (from $175).

Next door in New Hampshire, the sits at 2,700 feet in Mount Cardigan State Park and serves as a perfect base for a few days of playing around in the snow. The 1938 cabin has one room with six beds (sleeping up to 12 people total), a propane stove, and a woodstove for keeping warm ($169 a night per person). From there you can tour about half a mile to the exposed summit of 3,121-foot Mount Cardigan, or work your way over to Duke’s Ski Trail off Firescrew Mountain—one of Mount Cardigan’s three summits—for a run that will drop you close to the , a full-service hut where a hot family-style meal comes with your overnight stay (from $177).

9. Learn Something New, Like, Yep, Snowkiting

Kiteboarding on snow may sound daunting, but it’s easier to learn than on water. For starters, you use skis, you’re already standing up, and a gentle breeze will suffice. Book a lesson with in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, on the southern outskirts of Madison.

Or head 230 miles west to Clear Lake, Iowa; on February 18, it hosts the largest kite festival in the Midwest, where you can also book a snowkiting lesson.

Want to try your hand at fat biking on snow? is home to 20 miles of fat-biking and cross-country trails. Rent a rig from the Northstar Cross Country Center and set out solo, or with a guide, on one of eight beginner-friendly routes.

East Coasters can book a guide with , in that New York city’s Canalside neighborhood—the only place in the world where you can learn to ice-bike. Picture a bicycle atop a sled with broad, stable runners and a fork with skate-like blades that allow you to turn.

10. Get Festive at These Awesome Events

No winter is complete without a fun festival celebration. For ice climbers, that means heading to Munising, Michigan, about 175 miles north of Green Bay, Wisconsin, for the lively , February 8 to 12. The action happens at along Lake Superior, home to sheer walls and lots of frozen goodness. The festival includes skills clinics and talks from experts.

There’s also the in Snowmass, Colorado, March 11 and March 18, with a gondola ride up to Elk Camp, where you can watch fire dancers, go snow tubing, eat s’mores, and sled down the mile-long Breathtaker Alpine Coaster. Dates this season start on December 28, with select nights in January, February, and March, too.

in the Adirondacks of upstate New York goes big with a ten-day, 126-year-old winter carnival; this season it’s from February 3 to 12. Tour a giant ice palace, enter a nordic ski race, or play softball in your snowshoes.

Meanwhile, there’s , a music and art blowout. Dance your face off January 19 to February 11 in minus-25-degree cold to sixty-something acts, most of them EDM.

Or head west for the annual at Bally’s Tahoe on January 7, where you can take in adventure cinematography and mingle with filmmakers and athletes.

11. Ski Utah’s Famous Champagne

Welcome to , an incredible multi-resort adventure. This ski trip links to and up to four other resorts, all in a day, all on skis—and you don’t even have to skin (though there are some uphill traverses). Hire a guide through Ski Utah and decide how many resorts you would like to ski to. Longer tours include about 25 miles of skiing down 15,000 vertical feet, starting with a lift ride up at Deer Valley and concluding with a run at Snowbird.

In between you’ll ride lifts and work your way over to , through the backcountry to in Big Cottonwood Canyon, and beyond to in Little Cottonwood Canyon, with a last traverse over to Grizzly Gulch. Finally, a shuttle will take you and your tired legs back to Deer Valley, 40 miles away by road. A steeper and deeper option starts and ends at Snowbird and includes a 20-mile loop with 15,000 feet of skiing across Alta, Brighton, and Solitude. There are shorter tours, too, and guides will tailor the day to fit the group. From $475

12. Take a Hut Tour in Maine

offers a four-day, three-night self-guided tour in the Carrabassett Valley, about 100 miles west of Bangor. Four off-the-grid huts are tucked away among the state’s 4,000-foot High Peaks and are anywhere from nine to twelve miles apart, linked by fat-biking and cross-country-skiing trails. Inside each you’ll find a common space, reading areas, a fireplace, and hot showers. The huts sleep up to 48 people, in rooms for two to six (from $90 per person).

On weekends, caretakers with Huts and Trails serve popular home-cooked meals like lasagna. The highlight of the tour comes on day two when you leave the Poplar Hut and roll for about 14 miles above Flagstaff Lake, gliding through hardwood forests to the Flagstaff Hut. At 1,200 feet, it perches on a peninsula jutting into its eponymous lake, with views of 4,150-foot Bigelow Mountain to the southwest.

13. Nordic Ski in the Cascades

°ÂČčČőłóŸ±ČÔČ”łÙŽÇČÔ’s , some 200 miles northeast of Seattle, runs like a poker deep into the North Cascades, a famed nordic-skiing hub. The more than 120 miles of groomed trails in the Methow wend through fragrant forests, past warming huts, and out to huge-sky vistas. Base yourself at the (doubles from $200) and grab one of its 16 cabins on Patterson Lake, with 35 miles of trails right outside the door.

The lodge rents all the gear you need. Near Chelan, 80 miles south, the Echo Ridge trail system (day passes, $10) runs for 25 miles through the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Rent skis at , where you can pick up a map. Work out the kinks afterward at YogaChelan; instructors sometimes offer “snowga,” if you require still more time outside. Stay at , with 170 waterfront rooms on lovely Lake Chelan (from $114).

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A sickle of moon hung in the black Atlantic sky as the four of us began the mile-long walk to the beach. It was shortly before 5 A.M. on the southern reachesÌęof Assateague Island, off Virginia’s Eastern Shore, but already a hundred people or more were chasing the cones of their cell-phone lightsÌęacross the marshes and dunes of .ÌęFarther south, nearly 15,000 more had gathered in a shorefront parking lot. Blades of grass waved spookily in the glow.

The humidity was like it always is here in summer—hateful—and the mosquitos had their feast. I walked with Mattie Allen, communications director of an in Española, New Mexico, and noticed how her curly auburn hair had become a nebula that blotted out the stars. The humidity hairdo had become a running joke, a novelty that underscored how far she and her 13-year-old daughter, Maizie, had traveled to be here. My own daughter, Evie, who is also 13, fell in with Maizie, the two new BFFs hitting it off over middle school and pressures to wear makeup.

Mattie and Maizie, who has her mother’s hair and talks rapid fire, are both horse people, and they had invited Evie and me to join them for the annual Chincoteague Pony Swim, a weeklong festival held every July on the island of Chincoteague, a splotch ofÌęsand, water, and coastal vegetationÌęthat sits just beyond waterways with names like Mosquito Creek and Mud Bay Gut, three miles off the Virginia portion of Delmarva, the rural tristate peninsula that divides the Chesapeake Bay from the Atlantic.

Chincoteague, which has an average elevation of about 21 inches, is protected from the open ocean by , a 37-mile-longÌębarrier island that spans the Maryland-Virginia line. Unlike Chincoteague’s 3,000-person urban center—which is also called Chincoteague and is known for hotels, vintage beach-house rentals, ice cream shops, and seafood restaurants—Assateague is feral, an undeveloped mix of windswept terrain, all of it protected as parkland in one form or another, mostly by the federal government. It’s on Assateague where you’ll find the local celebrities: a fabled herd of wild, salt-grass-eating ponies.

How they got there isÌęa mystery. The more mundane theories have suggested that pirates or early English settlers left them on the island to forage. The most fantastic and repeated tale holds that, centuries ago, a Spanish ship carrying horses between Spain and its New World colonies wrecked off the coast, and the animals swam ashore and survived. With only nutrient-poor marsh grass to fill their bellies, the horses grew smaller over the generations until they became ponies, meaning a horse that’s less than 14.2 hands tall—about four foot nine. (Some ponies are genetically different from horses, but these are not; they’re just small.)

As it turns out, that shipwreck tale, long dismissed as a myth, might be true. Archeologists know of at least buried in the seafloor off the coast of Assateague. And this July, a researcher at the University of Florida published that offered DNA evidence closely linking horses brought to the Caribbean island ofÌęHispaniola from Spain in the 1500s to the ponies on Assateague.

However the animals came to be here, Chincoteaguers have been capturing them since the 1800s to use as their own, and since 1925, a posse of horsemen now known as the saltwater cowboys has run organized roundups. The ponies are excellent swimmers, and once a year, during “pony penning” week in July, the cowboys swim the herd across a quarter-mile channel from Assateague to Chincoteague, where they run through the streets, past adoring, gleeful crowds, to fairgrounds on the west side of the island. There, toward the end of the week, about 60 foals go up for auction before the cowboys swim the rest back to Assateague.

Doing all this keeps the herd size in check at around 150 ponies and, combined with proceeds from an annual carnival, raises nearly $800,000 for the , which has owned and managed the herd for nearly 100 years.

For everyone else, the week is a chance to overdose on some seriously cute ponies.

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Contributor Tim Neville has spent years on the road finding off-the-grid destinations to write about for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű. So when he says these are the most memorable meals he’s eaten after a day of adventuring, that’s really saying something.

Mestia, Republic of Georgia

What: Dumplings and bazhe salad
șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pairing: Paragliding

After a day of soaring around the Caucasus Mountains above Mestia, I made my way to the and ordered the khinkali meat dumplings and a salad with bazhe sauce, a miracle paste of crushed walnuts packed with blue fenugreek, coriander, and marigold. A guy at the next table started to sing, and soon everyone else joined in. Nothing strange in that—Georgians love to sing at dinner.

Pyeongchang, South Korea

What: The buffet
șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pairing: Skiing or hiking

Shortly before the 2018 Winter Games kicked off, I spent a week skiing and exploring the region’s temples and barbecue joints. But it was the buffet at the that I would return for. Picture a room the size of an airplane hangar, with dozens of stations displaying spicy kimchis, rich sundubu-jjigae (a tofu stew), hoeddeok (sweet pancakes), and so many crocks of fermented veggies that I think I overdid it.

Vis, Croatia

What: Lamb peka
șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pairing: Scuba diving

A few years ago, I visited this island in the Adriatic to dive among the ancient amphorae that dot the seafloor. Still wet, I drove to a spot between the towns of Vis and Komiza and found , a winery and family restaurant in a gorgeous stone building. I sat under a colossal tree and devoured a bowl of peka, a rich lamb stew with spices and carrots that’s slow-cooked over an open fire at an outdoor kitchen.

Egypt

What: Ful mudammas, falafel, labneh
șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pairing: Cruising the Nile

In 2016, a few years after the Arab Spring rocked Egypt, I went to see whether tourism was bouncing back. It wasn’t. I stuck around and ended up aboard a luxury Nile cruiser, the , which traveled between Luxor and Aswan. Every morning I’d sit on the top deck and eat a plate piled high with falafel, ful mudammas (a fava bean stew), and creamy labneh (strained yogurt), watching kids play in the river and the ancient villages and temples coming into view. I could eat that meal three times a day.

Ryukyu Islands, Japan

What: Umibudo
șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pairing: Island hopping

The Ryukyus stretch southwest from Japan toward Taiwan, and at the northernmost part of the chain is Okinawa, which is something like the Hawaii of Japan, with a different culture, music, and culinary tradition than on the mainland. Here you order umibudo, a type of sea-grape-looking seaweed that’s crunchy, bright, and salty. It’s the closest thing you can get to taking a bite out of the ocean.

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In the late 1970s, my parents took my brother and me to a cabin on Little Cobb Island, an uninhabited dollop of beach and seashells on the Atlantic side of Virginia’s Eastern Shore. The cabin was only accessible by boat, and things could get sketchy if the fog rolled in and you drifted too close to the surf. It was November, and the lodge was cold and drafty, so all four of us slept that first night stacked like cordwood in a single musty bed.

I was only four or five years old, but four decades later I can still recall with full clarity the smell when I woke up the next morning. Bud Taylor, a local roofer who doubled as the cabin’s caretaker, was cooking sausage in a cast-iron pan atop a stove fired by driftwood. “Here, boy,” my father said, handing me a link. It was small and gray and wet with fat. Every bite sent delicious bolts of grease sizzling around my scrawny body. “Everything tastes better when you’re roughing it,” my father said, sensing my astonishment and handing me another link. “Don’t eat ’em all.”

There was nothing even remotely special about that sausage. It was just a pack of Jimmy Dean that Bud had picked up at the local Meatland market before we launched from the town of Oyster. But consuming those lumpy treasures out there, with the wind bullying the windows and the tide marching in, had transformed every single bite into a culinary masterpiece.

That’s the beauty of food and adventure, that something as simple as saucy grits can be downright magical on °ż°ù±đČ”ŽÇČÔ’s John Day River. Lentils at home are just wrong—convince me otherwise—but when spooned over rice in a remote Nepalese teahouse, with the Himalayas shimmering in the purple moonlight, you’ll be crying for more, too.

Food has given me so many great reasons to travel, to be curious, to try something new. I spent the bulk of a Swiss vacation hunting for a particular cheese, learned to make pickles from an Estonian lady who exacted her payment in kisses, delighted a friend by picking her pomegranates while hiking in Albania, and gave my tongue a fungus eating so many fermented things on a ski trip to South Korea. One great bite can change your entire perception of a place. If you want to fall in love with North Dakota, go run through the grasslands with a bag of Dot’s pretzel sticks.

That’s what I did. And of course I ate ’em all. Here are some of my other favorite meals from around the world.

Brats and Bikes: Hermann, Missouri

Back in the early 19th century, German immigrants left their homes in Philadelphia and set out west looking for land to build their own community. They settled along the Missouri River, where the hills and sunshine reminded them of the Rhineland, and the town of Hermann was born. Today you’ll still find families named Oelschaelger, streets like Goethe and Gutenberg, and, of course, heaps of wunderbar food and drink. Biking is one of the best ways to experience that legacy, too. The Katy Trail runs for 240 carless miles over rolling hills between Clinton and Machens and is the country’s longest rail-to-trail path. You will spin over mostly limestone gravel through farmland and along the Missouri River, then past wineries and into small towns like Rocheport, where the welcomes diners and riders alike with a fleet of rentals, and Hermann, a town worthy of a layover. Start things off at the on East First Street, where wurstmeister Mike Sloan peddles classics like knockwurst, weisswurst, and bockwurst, as well as creative, American-influenced versions like the Bloody Mary brat, a hickory-smoked iteration with celery, tomato, and horseradish. You won’t go thirsty, either. The whole riverfront region between Saint Louis and Jefferson City is known as the Missouri Rhineland for its scores of wineries. Hermann’s own Stone Hill is also home to the restaurant Vintage 1847, serving various wursts, krauts, and kartoffelpuffer, a potato pancake that’s a delight to say as well as eat. Forty miles east, the area around Augusta became America’s first federally recognized wine region in 1980, beating California’s Napa Valley by eight months. At the end of the line—or anywhere along it, for that matter—getting back is easy. Amtrak trains zip along the opposite bank, with special cars that can accommodate your bike.

Fondue Redux: Obwalden, Switzerland

It doesn’t take a culinary Sherlock to figure out what happens when a country famous for cheese shares a border with one famous for pasta—you get world-beating mac and cheese. And the Swiss version is excuse enough for an ocean crossing. Called Ă€±ô±è±ô±đ°ùłŸČčČ”°ùŽÇČÔ±đČÔ, or herdsman macaroni, it’s richer and smokier than the American stuff, made with bacon, butter, wine, and supremely stinky cheese melted in pools of heavy cream in a cast-iron cauldron over an open fire. Pour it over macaroni or penne and the result is exactly what you want after a long day in the Alps. You can find this dish throughout the country, but for the most authentic experience head to the central canton of Obwalden, where several small mountain farms double as restaurants come summer. Once, while cycling over the 5,285-foot Glaubenbielen Pass, I happened upon one where the matriarch, a boisterous woman named Rita Enz, served me a mound with a side of applesauce and stiff stone-fruit brandy. The Enzes have since retired, but their farm was located along the Älplermagronen Trail, which lives on today. Its little-known network of well-marked footpaths and dirt roads lead to a handful of farms that create the namesake dish using ingredients produced on-site. To explore, keep your objective simple, with a two-mile out-and-back hike along the Obwaldner Höhenweg Trail, starting from a parking area just west of Glaubenbielen Pass; you can stop at the Glaubenbielen Alpine Farm, near the 5,860-foot Rotspitz, or wander a few miles west to the Alp Arni-Schwand farm. For an overnight trip, hike about 4.5 miles one way south on the BĂ€rgmandlipfad Giswil Trail, also called Trail 576, to reach the Fluonalp farm, where the dairy cranks out 29,000 pounds of cheese each summer, some of which ends up in Ă€±ô±è±ô±đ°ùłŸČčČ”°ùŽÇČÔ±đČÔ. You can stay there, too (from $70).

Food Finds

Camp Chef

Three outdoor schools take backcountry cooking to a whole new level

Want to blow your friends away with a hearty stew or a freshly baked pie on your next river trip? The near Philipsburg, Montana, offers a four-day class that will see you mastering the art of Dutch-oven cooking (from $800). Or learn to barbecue better with four-time world-champion pitmaster and bestselling cookbook author Myron Mixon, whose in Unadilla, Georgia, will bolster your confidence preparing everything from pork butts and shoulders to chicken, beef, and ribs (you know, all the food groups) during a three-day course at his home (from $895). And if you’ve simply got to perfect pasta, Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region is the premier place to start. Make it a weeklong adventure with a van-supported, 156-mile bike tour from Parma to Bologna with (from $1,500). You’ll stop in towns along the way for tutorials on balsamic vinegar, gelato, and, naturalmente, handmade pasta.

Breakfast Club: Lone Pine, California

Last summer, photographers Dan and Janine Patitucci spent months mapping remote trails in California’s Sierra Nevada, looking for the best 36 paths to highlight in a new trail-running guidebook, to be published later this year. Their most rewarding discovery? Breakfast at the . And by breakfast we mean pie. The diner has perfected the art of the light, flaky crust, and it loads them up with the freshest fruit available. The triple-berry pie sells out fast, but the Patituccis also recommend the peach and blackberry, which you can order in a six-inch round just for yourself. The cafĂ© is located just 12 miles from Whitney Portal, the jumping-off point for climbing (or running) 14,494-foot Mount Whitney, the highest point in the lower 48. It’s also about 120 miles from Badwater Basin in Death Valley National Park, at 282 feet below sea level the country’s lowest point. Summiting Whitney is a big day by any measure, with about 21 miles and 6,600 vertical feet to cover. If that’s your goal, order the Iron Man Scramble—an eggy hodgepodge of spinach, avocado, mushrooms, and tomato slathered in hollandaise sauce—and get your pie to go. If you’re spending the night, grab a slice in the morning.

First-Reds Frenzy: Cordova, Alaska

Each spring, a craze begins to cloud the minds of Alaskans, and it has nothing to do with the approach of summer and, with it, of long stretches of actual daylight. Spring is when the first Copper River reds, a highly coveted and especially tasty sockeye salmon, begin arriving on the docks of Cordova, located at the mouth of the river, about 145 miles southeast of Anchorage. The fish, which can easily go for $50 a pound, are prized by chefs for the additional fat they pack on to complete their 300-mile journey, which makes for richer and more decadent eating. While you could order a fillet from Sarah Ecolano, a commercial fisherwoman and founder of the sustainable , why not head deep into the Last Frontier to witness the madness firsthand? First book a room in Cordova at the (from $140) overlooking the inlet, then set out on any of the 40 streams and rivers guides have access to. You can sportfish for salmon in the salt water, or head up to the Eyak River to throw big streamer flies at reds and Dolly Varden trout. At the end of your trip, the lodge will process up to 50 pounds of fish per person per day at no additional charge, flash freeze it, and store it for you until you’re ready to head home.

Food Finds

Hunt, Gather, Eat

A series of courses teach the value—and ethics—of holistic harvesting

You’ve probably heard that one of the best things you can do for the planet is give up meat, but that kind of misses the point. It’s not the burger that’s the bogeyman but the industrial, methane-spewing, water-polluting complex behind mass-produced meat. Enter Bruce McGlenn and his . Based in Kettle Falls, Washington, McGlenn teaches students who have never held a rifle or harvested a wild oyster how to hunt and gather. “Hunting is really about strengthening our connection to nature so that we feel we’re a part of it,” he says. “It’s about being human.” From May through June, McGlenn holds a series of four-day Awaken the Hunter courses, designed to brief you on how to prepare for and carry out a “holistic, ethical hunt.” It covers everything from regulations and strategy to choosing the right rifle or bow. In the field, you’ll learn how to dress and butcher your kill, as well as proper ways to cook it. McGlenn also offers half-day shellfish-foraging lessons on Hood Canal, where you’ll learn how to identify Manila clams and shuck a wild oyster. The session ends with a three-course feast right on the beach. Foraging from $195; hunting from $2,400 for four days

Eater on Belay: Kalymnos, Greece

The Greek island of Kalymnos sits just off the coast of Turkey, about 150 miles southeast of Athens, and counts as the closest thing to Elysium on earth. Whitewashed villages ring a ragged coast of limestone cliffs facing the Sea of Crete. While climbers know this 42-square-mile paradise for its thousands of sport routes, which ascend spectacular sun-fired arches and walls, you should come to meet George Pizanias, quite possibly the island’s best cook, judging by the crowds that flock to his restaurant, the , in the town of Massouri. Pizanias runs the establishment with his wife and three daughters, and prepares traditional Greek recipes with “an extra touch,” as he says, like adding homemade fruit chutneys that set the meal apart. Grab a table on the patio that overlooks the island of Telendos and let gluttony rule. Should you start with the stuffed grape leaves or the “ancient” salad? (The latter is a mix of wild vegetables the islanders have been eating for millennia, something Pizanias’s culinary research uncovered.) The whole leg of lamb, roasted to perfection, is hard to pass up, but it’s the tuna that’s exceptional; caught that day, it’s pan-seared with sesame seeds and served with marinated beets, red cabbage, olive oil, lemon, and fig chutney. If that doesn’t seal the deal, dessert probably will. Pizanias makes his own ice cream and serves it atop little fried dough balls called loukoumades, which he then drizzles with Kalymnos’s most famous ingredient: a golden, naturally herbal-tasting honey made by bees drawn to the island’s large swaths of wild thyme and oregano. Try not to think about that when it’s your turn to belay.

The Meat and Three: From Oxford to Hattiesburg, Mississippi

Chef Robert St. John knows a thing or two about awesome southern food. As the author of 11 cookbooks, the owner of seven restaurants, and the producer of the foodie show , the 60-year-old from Mississippi has spent a lifetime refining family recipes that have defined the region for centuries: Fried chicken. Dumplings. Black-eyed peas. For him, the greatest way to experience the South is to taste it, and to do that, he suggests a 250-mile road trip from Oxford in the north down to Hattiesburg via the capital city of Jackson. The itinerary links some of the most memorable community cafĂ©s in the state offering the traditional “meat and three” lunch special: a choice of protein with three sides, like collard greens, butter beans, and rice with gravy. The main at in Oxford is southern-fried catfish, while Bully’s in Jackson does everything from pigs’ feet to beef tips, all served on a wonderfully lowbrow cafeteria tray. The highlight might be the in Hattiesburg, run by St. John. “Best fried chicken of your life,” he says. Bring a paddleboard or a kayak to explore the northern recreational playgrounds of Grenada Lake and Sardis Lake, the latter also popular with mountain bikers, who enjoy 13.5 miles of singletrack at Clear Creek. End your trip in the Gulf town of Biloxi; from there you can quickly paddle to Deer Island Coastal Preserve, a four-mile undeveloped stretch of white sand where you can pitch a tent for free.

Food Finds

Back to Their Roots

A new Minneapolis restaurant is serving up gourmet Native American cuisine

There’s a growing movement of Native American chefs exploring their traditional food cultures, and it’s only getting tastier. In July, Sean Sherman, better known as the and lauded for his bestselling cookbooks, and Dana Thompson, executive director of the , opened , a restaurant in downtown Minneapolis on the banks of the Haha Wakpa, or Mississippi River, that’s dedicated to Native cuisine. You’ll find no dairy, chicken, or pork on the menu—or any other ingredients that aren’t indigenous to North America. Instead, chefs whip up delectables like native-corn tacos with grilled mushrooms, bowls of tepary beans with wild rice and wojape (a chokecherry sauce), and plates of braised bison. Even the cricket salad looks irresistible.

Big Sky, Big Steak: Hatch, Utah

If you could survey the legions of visitors who come to southern Utah every year to explore the national parks and monuments that pepper this beautiful part of the country, chances are good they would say these three things impressed them most: the rocks, the sky, and the steak in Hatch. Tucked in a rather boring brown building in this dusty hamlet, a mere 15 miles from the gates of Bryce Canyon, the on Main Street is an institution worthy of your attention. It’s a classic western joint, with a taxidermied bear on its stage and a bar where passersby can belly up for a spiked sarsaparilla on an actual saddle for a seat. But it’s the giant, open-flame grill in the room that makes this place unique. That’s where you go to cook your own steak. This is cattle country, and the beef is as good as you’d expect—local, grass-fed, mouthwatering cuts. Most folks aren’t from around these parts, so they opt for something hard to mess up like a New York strip. The more dedicated, however, should set their sights on the Tomahawk, a 24-ounce rib eye that covers the entire plate. The grill has meat probes to help you get that perfectly pink middle, or you can spend an extra three dollars to have the staff grill it up for you. If steak isn’t your thing, the chef smokes a batch of baby back ribs daily with hickory and other hardwoods until the meat falls off the bone. Also, sorry, families; no one under 21 is allowed inside, because Utah. As for working all those calories off, it just so happens that the nation’s newest long-distance hut-to-hut mountain-bike route runs right past the saloon. The Aquarius Trail stretches for 190 miles from Brian Head to Escalante and includes rollicking descents on solid singletrack like the 12-mile Bunker Creek Trail, which you’ll ride on day one into Hatch; from there, the first hut is just a few merciful miles away.

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