If you’re a regular traveler like me, you already know this: most airports are awful. You’re constantly rushing through a crowded terminal, competing with a harried mess of humanity, only to then cram yourself into a narrow seat for a few hours until you get to your next terminal purgatory—meanwhile, dragging your luggage the whole way. Germs waft through the air. Couples argue about holding each other up in the TSA line. As I write this, I’m sitting in the F concourse at Minneapolis Saint-Paul listening to a kid whine at NASCAR-engine levels about not getting soft serve ice cream and his Chick-fil-A nuggets.

Airports are the worst.

Except…not all of them. Around the world, there are a growing number of destinations that are making their airports, well, welcoming. A shocking idea, I know. I’ve been to a handful of these miraculous creations (compared to the usual dreadfulness)—international airports like Vancouver, Zurich, and Munich. They’re clean, organized, and, best of all, have a place to get some fresh air before your next long-haul flight. With this new wave of amenities (and your travel sanity) in mind, here are the best airports in the world, from Asia and the Middle East to right here in North America, that offer incredible open-air areas to soothe your traveling stress.

Singapore Changi Airport, Singapore (SIN)

Don’t Miss: The Indoor Climbing Area

Changi Airport is a perennial winner of the , thanks to a seemingly never-ending list of Disneyland-like attractions, including a onsite, a on the roof of Terminal 1, and the , at seven stories high. There’s even an indoor forest, called , with walking paths and a glass walkway that rises 23 meters above the terminal floor, allowing you to trek amongst the treetops. (To see how impressive the full list of attractions is, you can scroll through it .)

For nature lovers, though, the true gem is Changi’s series of gardens, including Cactus Garden, Sunflower Garden, Enchanted Garden, Petal Garden, and Butterfly Garden. Together, they offer the most complete botanical adventure you’ll get at any airport on earth. And even though some of the gardens are indoors, it’s hard to tell.

The , for example, is set in a large conservatory designed as a tropical forest, with an 18-foot high grotto waterfall. It’s home to over 1,000 butterflies from as many as 40 species and, on your way to your gate, you can stop by and stand amidst the flora as the butterflies flutter around you. For a splash of yellow, the is worth a quick stop if you have some time to kill in terminal 2, and the , also in Terminal 2, is designed to offer Shangri-La-like atmosphere, with the sounds of a forest pumped into is a large room dominated by four giant glass bouquet sculptures that are filled with a variety of flowers and ferns.

Perhaps most Zen of all, though, is the on the roof of Terminal 1, which features over 100 species of arid plants from Asia, Africa, and the Americas—everything from prickly pear cactus to giant ponytail palm trees. It also has a bar and shaded tables, so it may just be the best place to grab a local while you hope for another hour delay on your flight out.

Denver International Airport, Colorado (DEN)

Don’t Miss: The Ice-Skating Rink

This pick comes with a minor asterisk: the primary outdoor area is before you go through security, so you’ll need to enjoy the al fresco offerings in advance of your flight, but the options are worth the early arrival. The space is called the , and it’s a large synthetic turf located between the Jeppesen Terminal and the Westin Hotel, underneath the airport’s famous faux mountain peaks.

In summer, the turf is set up with cornhole games and wooden benches for lounging, and there’s often live music or other events throughout the season (all of which are free to the public). In the winter months, typically from Thanksgiving to New Year’s, the area features an open-air ice rink with free loaner skates.

Of course, don’t fret if you’re running on time and need to get through the TSA line: inside the airport there are three outdoor lounges with seating and fire pits, at Concourse A-West near gate A15; on Concourse B-West at gate B7; and at gate C67 on Concourse C-East.

Zurich Airport, Switzerland (ZRH)

Don’t Miss: The Outdoor Walking Paths

If you find yourself craving one last view of the Alps before your flight home, , the primary hub for Swiss International Airlines, has an executive lounge with an outdoor terrace that has impressive views of the mountains beyond. The at the Midfield Terminal is open to all travelers for a fee (roughly $50) and, in addition to the outdoor terrace views, you get access to all of the lounge’s food and drink options, and other amenities.

But the real reason Zurich Airport is on this list is because of its adjacent , a 20-acre park filled with forested walking paths and a modest hill with good views from up top. It’s a great place to unwind during a long layover or if you get caught waiting for a delayed flight. You’ll need to leave the terminal to access it, but the short walk and fresh air are worth it. During much of the week, there are park rangers who will take you on a , explaining the flora and fauna and how it was designed for maximum relaxation (check the rangers’ in advance). There’s even a free cable car to whisk you into the park in the most Swiss way possible.

From the arrivals area, walk across the parking area to the Circle, the large building adjacent to the terminal that hosts restaurants, hotels, and stores. From there you can take the cable car into Der Park.

Vancouver International Airport, Canada (YVR)

Don’t Miss: The Digital Light Show

For most passengers headed through , their first introduction (or last farewell) to British Columbia is YVR’s Chester Johnson Park, located directly adjacent to (and underneath) the Canada Line train station. The park is designed to feel like an , with rock-lined paths, native trees, driftwood benches, and a large wooden sculpture—the Musqueam Welcome Figure—curving throughout its length. It’s also home to the Green Wall, a 17-meter-high vegetated art installation made up of, at last count, 27,391 individual plants.

As for inside the airport itself, there’s a new 47-foot-high open-air atrium in the international terminal, with three full-grown hemlock trees in the center. Until recently, the glassed-in atrium was only visible to passengers as they commuted past, like looking into a giant terrarium, but you can now open a door and walk out into the atrium for a breath of fresh air. At night, the trees and rock landscape are lit up by digital light projections—faux waves crashing over the rocks, for example—and a corresponding soundscape. The whole experience is designed to showcase the sights and sounds of B.C., and it does just that and more. It may be the most successful attempt of any airport in the world to bring a little bit of the region’s natural landscape into the airport itself.

Incheon International Airport, South Korea (ICN)

Don’t Miss: The Indoor Gardens

Among the many attractions for passengers flying into or through South Korea’s —the country’s main international gateway and one of the busiest airports in the world—is a sprawling, in Terminal 2.

The green features are spread throughout much of the large space, with a mix of flowers, trees, ferns, and bamboo growing from planters situated throughout—in the floors, dividing walls, large garden spaces, and above kiosks’ ceilings, with strands hanging down. Smaller water, rock, cactus, and pine gardens are strategically located across the airport campus, too. Technically, none of these areas are outdoors, but the enormous roof above the main area, with translucent panels in the center, makes it feels as such, which is why we’re including it on this list.

We’re also including Incheon because of the airport’s ongoing plans to add even more green spaces that utilize a variety of plants to create a living, breathing indoor space with healthier air for all visitors. As part of its , the airport also plans to add a terrace with an outdoor garden, so passengers can decompress before their (likely long) overseas flight.

Long Beach Airport, California (LGB)

Don’t Miss: The Palm Treed Courtyard

, bills itself as “America’s coolest airport,” and while that moniker is a bit of a stretch, it does have an impressive courtyard with a series of tall palm trees and a drought-tolerant garden. The airport, one of the five major commercial airfields serving the greater Los Angeles metroplex, is the second smallest, with just 11 gates. In such a tiny airport, the 4,200-square-foot courtyard is definitely a unique amenity, one that punches well above its weight.

The courtyard is also ringed by dining options from local establishments, so it’s an excellent place to grab a bite to eat while you wait for your flight out. For those heading to this side of L.A. or points south along the coastline, LGB is definitely a good choice over LAX (see below).

Los Angeles International Airport (LAX)

Don’t Miss: The Private Lounges

For anyone who has traveled through recently, you know it’s a mess, thanks to a $30 billion overhaul one of the world’s busiest airports is getting ahead of the , in L.A. By the time construction is done, it will almost be a brand new airport, with new terminals, an elevated train, and an on-site rental-car facility to help eliminate the shuttles current clogging up the passenger pickup/drop-off areas. Already some of the upgrades are beginning to appear, including a series of new lounges with outdoor terraces.

The in Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B) has a large outdoor deck with fire pits, trees, running water, and great views of the Hollywood Hills in the distance ($75 for standard access). The United Club in Terminal 7 is much smaller—more a balcony than a lounge—but it’s spacious enough to get some fresh air and does have good views of the tarmac ($59 for a single-entry pass).

The new , which is open to Delta customers traveling with a Delta One ticket, is the company’s premium lounge, with table service at every seat, a sushi bar, and eight relaxation pods. It also has a large private Sky Deck on the roof, with a landscaped terrace full of chairs, sofas, and enough plants to keep it feeling like a lounge, rather than an extension of the tarmac.

LAX will remain a very urban airport, but with a few spots to sneak in some last-minute SoCal sun, these lounges are worth it, if you can afford them.

Hamad International Airport, Qatar (DOH)

Don’t Miss: The Indoor Tropical Garden

Yes, this is another entry highlighting a space that is not, technically, outdoors, and yet we promise that visiting ’s “The Orchard” will feel more like being in nature than just about any of the other places on this list.

It’s a massive, 64,000-square-foot set beneath a soaring, translucent roof shaped like the inside of a shell. More than were sourced from around the world to create the indoor garden, and at its center is a “water feature” that is best described as a spiraling waterfall emerging from a slanted halo. At points the faux forest is so lush that you almost forget that you’re surrounded by roughly five dozen shops, lounges, and restaurants, with hundreds of rushing bodies scrambling to catch their flights. It’s almost worth a trip to Doha just to see it—or at least a long layover.

Munich International Airport, Germany (MUC)

Don’t Miss: The Next-Door Surf Park

This wouldn’t be Bavaria without beer, so it’s fitting that not only does have a beer garden onsite, it’s also an open-air one, with a covered glass roof. Called the, it’s the first brewery in an airport on earth. It has an indoor tavern for drinking, but the patio offers both fresh air, protection from the occasional rain shower, and food and beers, like the Fliegerquell Lager and the Kumulous Wheat.

Munich Airport also has a 900-square-meter , with seating and binoculars to take in the alpine views on clear days. Across from Terminal 1 is , an extensive outdoor area with grass lawns and trails, a playground area, interactive exhibits, benches for sitting, and a 90-foot-high hill overlooking the area. It’s an excellent place to stretch the legs before a long flight or burn off some of the kids’ energy before boarding.

Oh, and just in case you have half a day to kill, there’s a brand-new surf park, , just around the corner from the airport. It’s Germany’s first wave pool and the largest in Europe, at over 215,000 square feet, capable of churning out waves .�� Getting there is a cinch: it’s just a five-mute car ride away, literally in the shadow of landing flights.

Bonus Picks: Other Noteworthy Outdoor Areas in North American Airports��

While these airports do have notable outdoor areas, they really can’t compare with our picks for the best airports in the world featured above. That said, they’re still worth calling out on honorable mentions—especially for domestic travelers—for these specific reasons.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, Texas (AUS)

The accessible to Sapphire Reserve cardmembers, has a large outdoor terrace with seating overlooking the tarmac and Hill Country beyond. The Delta Sky Club, directly adjacent to the Sapphire Lounge, also has outdoor seating, and more outdoor areas are in the works as part of the airport’s multi-billion-dollar expansion.

San Francisco International Airport, California (SFO)

For ticketed passengers, there’s a free in the international terminal with seating and excellent views of the airfield and beyond. Three bronze sculptures by local artist Woody Othello decorate the space, at the end of Boarding Area G. For plane-watching, there’s also the , located atop Terminal 2. It’s a good, free place for the public to come (no ticket necessary) to see some of the largest aircraft serving SFO. The SkyTerrace is open Friday through Monday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Georgia (ATL)

The in Concourse F has an outdoor deck for its club members, with seating for roughly 40 guests and a free bar. As with all of Delta’s clubs, there’s free food and drinks, as well as WiFi.

John F. Kennedy International Airport, New York (JFK)

For travels heading through JetBlue’s Terminal, there’s a roughly 4,000-square-foot post-security rooftop lounge with green spaces, seating, a children’s play area, and even a dog-walk area. The rooftop lounge also offers passengers views of the Manhattan skyline and of the iconic TWA terminal, which is now the . The , as it’s called, is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the entrance is across from Gate 28.

Ryan Krogh is a freelance writer and editor based in Austin, Texas. He mostly covers the subjects of travel and the outdoors, and is always looking for a way to get some fresh air in airports worldwide.����

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The map that has become a meme first began arriving in text messages, emails, and social media tags at least four years ago. Maybe you’ve seen it online, too—a Google Maps screenshot of the globe with a blue line that curves nearly 14,000 miles northward from Cape Town, South Africa to Magadan, Russia, arcing like a launched rocket through zones of extreme geopolitical turmoil. It is, allegedly, “the world’s longest continuous walk,” a fact I’ve never bothered to vet despite the dozens of friends who’ve sent it my way. I’m not very interested.

It’s true that I love walking long distances, whether that means going from Mexico to Canada via the Pacific Crest Trail or traversing entire states like Florida and Arizona a month at a time. But for me, hiking is a means to an end, never the end itself. I don’t want to walk the longest continual path so much as the most impactful ones, the ones that show me nature and beauty, myself and others, the present and especially the past from some surprising vantage. I suppose this viral trek would do the trick, but I’m not sure if it’s the best or most efficient way to encounter the unexpected I crave, at least compared to these ten hikes I’m determined to do in my time.

Rakiura Track, New Zealand

Distance: 20 miles
Time to Tackle: Three days
Terminus: Near Oban

Look at a map of Te Araroa, a 1,900-mile path that splits both the North and South Islands horizontally. Notice the dot of land just beneath the trail’s southern terminus? That’s Stewart Island, or , home to an eponymous national park and perhaps the most enticing of New Zealand’s ten Great Walks: the Rakiura Track. Kiwis take “tramping” seriously, devoting so many public resources to developing, protecting, and maintaining their routes that Americans can only be envious—or at least visit. Consider the Rakiura, which winds along near a series of bays and inlets (head out at night to look for kiwi feeding) and heads into forests of towering rimu. Enjoy three days of slow walking and reverie on isolated beaches, and choose from multiple huts (think Appalachian Trail shelters, but sturdy and clean) and campsites, ranging from $5 to $60 per night. And while I do love hiking in ankle-deep mud, officials work hard to curb the bog’s creep by packing down the trail. Thanks to flipped hemispheres, you’ll want to trek Rakiura—or tack it onto the Te Araroa—between October and March, when stateside hiking opportunities dwindle.

Greater Patagonian Trail, Chile and Argentina

Distance: 1,900 miles
Time to Tackle: A lifetime
Termini: Santiago, Chile (north), and Navarino Island, Chile (south)

I often lament that much of my hiking life happens on established trails, following routes that can be navigated via maps on apps. But what would it be like to really explore, to feel the frontier of modern adventure? For the next several years, the Greater Patagonian Trail should provide some answers. Dreamed up by German engineer Jan Dudeck and his dauntless Chilean wife Meylin Ubilla over almost two decades, the GPT, despite its name, is less a trail than a confederation of cattle paths, tiny roads, and otherwise unmarked expanses that you must make your own way through. Sure, the Pan-American Highway and Chile’s Route of Parks can guide you deep into some of the least developed parts of the planet, but no journey questions and expands the philosophical underpinnings of hiking quite like this one does. Can you negotiate your way through private land in Spanish? Can you slow down and embrace local culture and astounding beauty without feeling the American compulsion to finish, let alone finish fast? Can you accept failure, the most common GPT outcome, as a variety of success? With its stunning diversity of terrain and dependence on diplomacy, the GPT might be my ultimate trail—the one that, when I’m ready to commit, could be my final trek. Good thing Dudeck and Ubilla have yet to settle on its ends.

Ocean to Lake Trail, Florida

Distance: 61 miles
Time to Tackle: Four days
Termini: Lake Okeechobee (west) and Hobe Sound Beach (east)

I’m cursed to be a completist. The trait becomes arduous with through-hiking, where the desire to finish every side jaunt quickly piles on the miles. If hiking is partly about minimizing what you need, maybe I can learn to let completeness go, too? Some winter soon, I’ll head south to the Ocean to Lake Trail, a fee-free, west-east offshoot of the 1,200-mile Florida Trail, a playground of swamps and sand, cypresses and pines. The Florida Trail is as fun and uncanny as American through-hiking gets, but it’s also a monthlong negotiation with alligators and grotesque, blistered feet. This sampler offers plentiful campsites, nearby restaurants (it’s South Florida—always go to the Mexican spot), and cell service, so you can post trail pics for your adoring masses to enjoy. Although Florida is infamous for ceaseless strip malls and ostentatious development, its woods and wetlands remain among the wildest places in the U.S. This lush little corridor proves it.

Route K, Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia

Distance: 11 miles
Time to Tackle: Five hours
Terminus: Entrance Station 1

To glimpse —a chain of sapphire and emerald jewels cut into karst and connected by streams, many of them subterranean—is to wonder whether you’ve wandered into an AI-generated simulacrum of natural beauty. Not only are these gems at the core of Croatia’s oldest national park, but you can see many of them during day hikes on a network of serpentine trails. The longest one, Route K, is a circuit among the lower and upper lakes; it spools around the awe-inspiring Jezero Kozjak, like a Lake of the Ozarks retouched in Photoshop, and leads you across a series of boardwalks—ideal platforms to take in an unbelievable panorama of verdant forests, towering waterfalls, cascading seeps, and sprawling tufa embankments. Despite the place’s popularity (it’s affordable, and a quick trip from the Adriatic Sea, which separates this coastline from Italy), wolves, black bears, and wildcats prowl the landscape, a rarity in Europe. There’s a nominal entrance fee; otherwise, you’re free to roam.

Backbone Trail, California

Distance: 67 miles
Time to Tackle: Three to five days
Termini: Point Mugu (west) and Will Rogers State Historic Park (east)

Tell people you hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and they’ll wonder how many times you saw the ocean. (Answer: zero.) So here’s your chance to admire the big blue expanse from several thousand feet above Los Angeles. zigs and zags across the Santa Monica Mountains, just north of the lavish homes of Malibu, before descending to coastal coves. Slicing through a rare safeguarded stretch of Mediterranean ecosystem, this is arguably the country’s most anomalous trail—public land with ocean views, in an area where private interests buy up every scrap of acreage. During the pandemic, the Backbone became a hot spot on the fastest-known-time circuit, with runners racing it in ten hours. Assuming you’re not pursuing such a record, know that campsites are infrequent. So have a friend pick you up at day’s end, or recruit a guide via the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council to lead you and secure lodging, though it could cost upwards of $500. Otherwise, if night sets in and you’re out of options, you’ll need to burrow in among the chaparral; if anyone asks, you’re from Calabasas.

Chilkoot Trail, Alaska

Distance: 33 miles
Time to Tackle: Two to five days
Termini: Dyea, Alaska (south), and Bennett Lake, British Columbia (north)

From battlefield paths to Appalachian gaps, I love historic trails—journeys that foster a visceral connection with the past in ways books can’t. Exemplary in that regard is the , a Tlingit trade route across the Coast Mountains that bustled with prospectors racing from Alaska into Canada’s Yukon during the Klondike gold rush. Officials weighed their gear just below Chilkoot Pass to ensure that they were bringing enough food and supplies for the expedition ahead. Remnants of this American avarice litter the trail, which, if you’re heading south to north, climbs from a gold-rush ghost town to the Canadian border before descending to mountain-bound Bennett Lake. (“The world’s longest museum,” the National Park Service calls it.) You’ll need a permit ($60) to overnight at the many otherwise free campgrounds. The trail’s international border was closed in 2022, and the trail itself was damaged by floods in October, though the entire thing is expected to reopen in August of this year. If you want to attempt the entire trek, double-check the status before you start—you’re here for a Klondike gold bar, after all.

For more ideas on spectacular Alaska hiking, check out our recommendations in The Best Places to Visit in the U.S.

Trans-Bhutan Trail, Bhutan

Distance: 250 miles
Time to Tackle: 35 days
Termini: Haa (west) and Trashigang (east)

Apart from their traditional uses, historic trails fascinate me because they often involve a renaissance story that occurred long after they were supplanted by train tracks or highways. Case in point: the , used by royal couriers, soldiers, and religious pilgrims for half a millennium before parallel road construction led to disuse and disrepair in the 1950s. Last September, the eastern Himalayan nation reopened the route after substantial fixes by a small army of trail builders. Few places in the world offer an experience of a culture this distinct, especially on foot. When Bhutan, a Buddhist and matrilineal society, opened its borders to tourists in 1974, it revealed rich folklore, verdant expanses of uncut forests, and ornate temples and fortresses tucked into cliffside crags. As you make your way across sweeping valleys, through cramped passes, and into welcoming villages, you can look forward to sharing hearty meals like ema datshi—a stew of cheese and chilies—with the people who made them. The Trans-Bhutan Trail strings together such experiences (along with possible sightings of red pandas, Bengal tigers, and Asiatic black bears) like an ancient charm necklace. Save up, though, since a local guide is required. A five-day trek through a remarkable section near Paro is just $375, but a through-hike will run you around $20,000—cheaper at least, and less cliché, than an attempt on Mount Everest.

Sinai Trail, Egypt

Distance: 340 miles
Time to Tackle: 50 days
Termini: Serabit el-Khadim (west) and Ras Shaitan (east)

“How many trails do you have left?” friends always ask. But how can I reach the proverbial trail’s end when new ones appear every year? To wit, in 2015 three Bedouin tribes on Egypt’s storied Sinai—the land bridge between Africa and Asia—banded together to introduce an amazing 140-mile route from the Red Sea to the country’s highest summit, 8,600-foot Gabal Katrine. With proof of concept and new revenue bolstering a region not frequented by tourists, organizers soon got five more tribes on board and expanded the trail by 200 miles. The Sinai traces an austere desert landscape beneath massive skies. What’s out there? Tiny chapels and abandoned mines, Martian-like rock outcroppings and near tropical oases, serrated mountains and slot canyons. Due to local custom, and an attempt to create an economic boom in an area that sees few of them, you’ll hike with Bedouin guides, your gear and water ferried by camels that, yes, you can ride. Each of the four sections takes about a dozen days to complete and costs a little over a grand, an absolute bargain in the realm of international accompanied treks. The first official through-hike is set for autumn 2023 with local outfitter . While the trip is high on my list, it’s going to have to wait, because terrorism remains a threat in the region; at press time the U.S. government advised against travel in the Sinai. Check with the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs before you book.

Hayduke Trail, Utah and Arizona

Distance: 812 miles
Time to Tackle: Two months
Termini: Arches National Park (east) and Zion National Park (west), both in Utah

George Washington Hayduke is the justifiably spiteful hero of Edward Abbey’s , a comical, canonical manifesto of guerrilla environmental resistance. I have a suspicion Hayduke would approve of now bearing his name. An unsanctioned route that rambles across the mighty sandstone mesas, canyons, and monoclines of the lower Colorado Plateau, the Hayduke traverses public land, including five national parks. With its river crossings, treacherous descents, barely-there pathway, dearth of resupply options, and general water scarcity, it may be the most demanding trek in America. The commensurate beauty, however, is a testament to the no-guts-no-glory credo that compelled Hayduke (and maybe got him killed). At least it’s free, as Hayduke would have wanted. This is the trail I most covet, but even as I near 10,000 total miles on foot, I don’t know that I’m ready yet. My motto, should the time come: Prepare to go through hell to see the Southwest’s heaven.

Olomana Trail, Oahu

Distance: 4.4 miles
Time to Tackle: Four hours
Termini: Olamana Ridge Trailhead (north) and Ahiki (south)

The City of Honolulu recently posted a pair of signs at the famed Olomana Trailhead in eastern Oahu, but these weren’t a polite guide to trail etiquette. “Six people have fallen to their deaths after hiking past the first peak,” read the top placard, a stern preamble to a second sign listing the dates and locations of the accidents. The trail, just ten miles from the capital, is part of the island’s incredible free recreational network—which is to say that, despite the signs, you can legally hike it. But it’s worth considering whether you’re up for the challenge. Named for the first of three steep and narrow summits, linked by a short but harrowing path lined with guide ropes, Olomana is one of the most polarizing trails in the U.S. It’s trumpeted by adrenaline junkies, who also champion the sweeping coastline views that such extreme exposure allows, but scorned by those who see it as a potentially fatal magnet for YouTube bros. Maybe it’s both.

Map It

Nothing gets us excited about a hike more than a good map

And there’s no better backcountry map out there than Gaia GPS. For the ten hiking routes featured here—many of them in places where cell service may be nonexistent and advanced beta on terrain and logistics could be a lifesaver—you can download detailed Gaia GPS trail maps for offline use, so you always find your way. Gaia Topo’s interactive maps set the standard for clarity and detail, and help you locate campgrounds, scenic overlooks, water sources, and summits. Precise weather forecasts are available by tapping the map, and you can leave a breadcrumb trail of your progress, in case you want to take that detour to a waterfall and still find your way back. Once you’re home again, relive the whole experience in 3D on . Bonus: ���ϳԹ���+ members get access to all these routes—and millions more trails worldwide—along with Gaia GPS’s safety tools, giving them everything they need to get after it with confidence. (Disclosure: Gaia GPS is owned by ���ϳԹ��� Inc., which also owns ���ϳԹ��� magazine.) —Tasha Zemke

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On May 22, during a violent storm of rain, hail, and freezing temperatures. The Chinese government responded on Wednesday on ultra races in the country, as well as “newly popular sport activities that involve high risk,” like��wingsuit flying. As the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)��has only just begun its investigation, it’s unclear which outdoor sports the latter category will include, but the details will be important. Depending on the length and range of the ban, the decision could stifle��the growth of outdoor adventure sports in China, which have exploded over the past decade, especially among the growing Chinese middle class. Ultrarunners across the globe are worried about the future of the sport in the country.��“There is something truly special about moving through the world under your own power,” says ultrarunner Mike Wardian, who has competed in several events in China.��“I am so sad for the athletes and their families and the race organizers who won’t be able to compete in this way.”

I’ve been covering ��for years, and for those familiar with the Chinese ultrarunning scene, the tragedy wasn’t all that shocking.��There is an enormous range of quality, safety standards, and planning at Chinese races, and many outdoor athletes there are still learning to manage weather risk in the mountains more cautiously. The government response hasn’t been surprising, either: the CCP��tends to respond to civic tragedies with blunt, outright bans rather than nuanced reform, and that’s exactly what they’ve done this week.

The Chinese central government in Beijing is often unaware of unregulated booms occurring in distant provinces—in this case, running—until something bad happens. Then the Party cracks down.��Political scientists use the wonky term “”��to describe this dynamic of in China, but I’ve always thought an ancient Chinese proverb does the job better: “Heaven is high, and the emperor is far away.” Though the Chinese running boom had been expanding for decades across distant mountains with the enthusiastic support of local officials, the central government wasn’t always aware of the growth or its potential dangers. Until now.

But what about China’s runners, who number in the tens of millions? Will races and other outdoor sports ever come back for them? Here, the CCP faces a more complicated problem. Since China ��but not its political system��in the 1970s, the CCP has maintained an informal agreement with its citizens:��in exchange for continued one-party authoritarian rule, Chinese people have been allowed greater immediate personal freedoms in areas of civic life like recreation, which have been widely explored. “Sports give you self-confidence. They make you healthier. They make you happier,” 53-year-old Chinese runner��Yu Yan��told me a few years ago after finishing an ultra.

Banning something like a popular outdoor sport, however, crosses this line of personal freedom, which makes this response from the CCP so unnerving. Such violations have been under President��Xi Jinping. For��ultrarunners and organizers in China,��seeing a similar intrusion into a hobby like running is especially troubling. Most in the Chinese ultra scene��would agree that outdoor adventure sports need to be made safer in China, but permanently banning the sport—which has provided a space for individualism, adventure, and freedom in people’s daily lives—would be a shame. “Running is a way of spreading enthusiasm, solidarity, and ability among people,” said one runner��who worried about the government’s coming response to the tragedy. “I think a better way to deal with it is for organizers to improve infrastructure and various measures of safety.”

A ban would also endanger the income that commercial racing has provided to many Chinese athletes who have fled the harsh Soviet . “I have a friend who’s got a wife, two small kids, and parents. He left the sports system to make money racing,” Qi Min, a top Chinese runner, once told me. If commercial racing disappears, runners trained in��sports academies with little other education��won’t have the same avenues to make a living. Given these realities and the popularity of running in the country,��CCP leaders will likely feel public pressure to allow ultra events again, and��after a while, local officials may lobby to bring back races for all the fanfare they bring��to their cities.

It would be a mistake, however, to frame all questions surrounding the oversight of adventure sports as being unique to China. Regulation of adventure sports has always been suspect to many outdoor athletes, and even infrastructure that makes races safer can be viewed with skepticism. “With this sport becoming more mainstream, with more people than ever getting involved, the risks are greater and we are more likely to see adverse outcomes,” Nathan Montague, a British ultrarunner who’s raced in China, told me. “So both race directors and organizers have a greater degree of responsibility to negate these risks and protect these individuals from themselves. But ultimately, the duty of responsibility needs to be taken by the athlete.”

When I reported on the top-flight medical team that provided support to the Ultra Gobi, another premier event in China, some athletes viewed the extra support as a luxury, even a bit overblown. Ultras can’t ever fully guarantee safety, some pointed out, and athletes can’t ever be entirely free without being allowed to take risks. “I really love that in the U.S. most races don’t have requirements,” Wardian says. “The race might suggest stuff, but it’s up to you. It’s a free country, and it’s your choice.” He added that diversity in race regulation is probably a good thing. “Europe is more strict with mandatory kits and certifications. I like both, it’s just different.”

In any case, an outright ban will likely be self-defeating. In the absence of formal races, Chinese athletes will keep venturing into the mountains,��but with even less oversight. One can only hope that the CCP will acknowledge this reality and devise more thoughtful reforms than bans. “It is impossible to remove risk in the mountains,” Wardian says. “They don’t ban surfing if someone��drowns.”

The post China Just Banned All Ultra Races and Extreme Sports appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

On Saturday,�� during the fourth annual Yellow River Stone Forest Park 100K, a��race held in Gansu, China. The weather turned bad about 15 miles in and more than 6,000 feet above sea level, after the leading runners left the second checkpoint and started an exposed 3,000-foot climb. Suddenly, the route was hammered with a mess��of freezing rain and hail, and temperatures plummeted to near��freezing at higher elevations.

“At the bottom of the mountain there was already wind and rain, and the higher you climbed the bigger the rain and wind got,” blogged Zhang Xiaotao, a racer who survived the storm. “Halfway up, the rain started to mix with hail and kept smashing into my face, and my eyes started getting obscured and blurry. A few places, you couldn’t make out the route clearly.” Another racer he came across on the trail, he wrote, “had begun to shake all over his body.”

Runners found themselves stranded between the second and third checkpoints without warm clothes. Many tried to use space blankets (which they were required to carry),��and some were able to shelter in a cave, but dozens fell on the treacherous terrain or lost their blankets in the wind and passed out from exposure. Some survived long enough for help to arrive, but 21 did not.��, a 1,200-person search and rescue operation was launched for all��172 of the race participants, but local authorities couldn’t save everyone.��

One of the victims was Liang Jing, a top Chinese ultrarunner. I got to know him in 2018,��while reporting a story on the medical team at the 248-mile Ultra Gobi in western China, a race��that he won. He was among the toughest athletes I’d ever seen. One night, temperatures fell into the twenties, and when I woke up in my tent the next morning, my water bottle was frozen solid. As I found out��later, Liang��kept running through it all. He was too tired to pack away his yellow sleeping bag, so he wedged it through the loops of his backpack, above his waist, and for the rest of his run, the ends flopped behind him like deflated wings. A day later, we were sharing beers and talking about his adventure.��

For a runner like Liang to lose his life, conditions must have been truly horrendous. But among those familiar with the Chinese endurance-racing scene, a tragedy like this isn’t seen as especially surprising. I’ve written about China for the past ten years, including��, and in the aftermath of the Gansu disaster, most of the WeChat messages I received from China expressed sadness, not shock. Over the past decade, tens of millions of people—perhaps even hundreds of millions, depending on which Chinese running expert you ask—have taken up the sport. I’ve heard estimates that as many as 3,000 long-distance races are held annually in China, ranging from shoddy events sponsored by local governments to��Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc–branded competitions.

Because there aren’t enough experienced organizers to run all these races safely, responsible preparation and oversight—including contingency planning for bad weather—is absent at many events. “I think what is happening is that there is a lot of enthusiasm for mountain sports, and now the demand is outstripping the supply of expertise,” said one organizer, who asked not to be named, given the likely coming crackdown on races.

One reason why races outpace resources in China is politics. Party officials, who are often called cadres in China, are promoted based on economic development in their region, and large cultural projects—including recreational events—earn them bonus points from higher-ups. As a result, marathons and ultra races have become a favorite pursuit for many officials. (At the Gansu race, the mayor of the city hosting the event��shot off the starting pistol.) They bring tourism and media coverage, and cadres can highlight them on their résumés. Politicians see other countries hosting competitions and, not to be outdone, organize their own, sometimes one-upping each other by increasing race distances and elevation gains. Every county in China now seems to host a race, and organizers from the country’s entrepreneurial class have risen quickly to chase after government and sponsor contracts.��

This has led to a dramatic range of quality at trail-running competitions. The Ultra Gobi that��I covered had regular medical checkpoints staffed by doctors, and both foreign and Chinese athletes were impressed by the race support and organization. There were still blind spots when it came to��safety, but medical help wouldn’t have been far away had someone become��hypothermic on the trail. This hasn’t been the case at other events, however. In my reporting, I’ve often heard stories of participants becoming hopelessly lost at high elevations, without any volunteers, medical support, or guidance to be had. Any sudden change in weather could have spelled disaster in such��situations.

When I asked organizers about the potential for something like this to occur, they frequently told me the question was when, not if, a tragedy would happen. Getting lost isn’t uncommon in ultras around the world, nor is bad weather, and the tragedy in China�� whether ultra running has grown too extreme in general. But races in China often lack basic preparation.

Both foreign and Chinese organizers brought up these issues in the aftermath of last weekend’s race, pointing out that runners�� to carry sleeping bags and warm clothes, which��some other competitions insist on. “Some events only focus on financial results and are unwilling to make investments in safety,” said�� posted last weekend by Paopao Wang, a popular Chinese running app. “Some companies who undertake [these races] are completely unprepared in their ability to organize high-risk sports and spend the necessary resources.”��

Such inconsistency in quality and planning is typical for developing countries that are growing adventure sports to appeal to a growing middle class, but China’s progress has been especially uneven. Wei Jun, a former sports bureaucrat who now organizes private races, told me a few years ago that only about 10 percent of organizers survive the business, and��that new ones—many with no experience—replace them immediately. “So you have races that are run very well. Others are disastrous,” he said.

On top of that, as Chinese athletes have honed their endurance, respect for unpredictable weather hasn’t always caught up, and organizers often fail to set boundaries in the mountains. “It’s a crash course in mountain culture,” said the organizer who asked not to be named.��“What is happening is that you have this natural let’s-get-it-done��attitude, but people refuse to believe that weather will change.” He added that��in the 1970s, when mountain sports were growing in Korea, tragic accidents were common there, too.��

Several race organizers told me on WeChat that they hope the Gansu disaster will serve as a wake-up call. Whether the Chinese government will react thoughtfully is another question. When a civic tragedy strikes, authorities tend to respond bluntly, often by shutting down an enterprise entirely rather than reforming it. Once, when I worked at a Chinese high school, someone drowned in the campus pool, and the administration responded by banning swimming and removing the pool. In the aftermath of last weekend’s events, authorities may take a similar approach, eliminating races rather than making them safer with��investment and alpine education for organizers.

This appears to be happening already. An investigation by the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the same body that investigates high-profile corruption cases and purges officials, is already looking into Gansu. Yesterday, in a sign that the dominoes have begun to fall, one of the largest state-run organizers, XTrail, canceled a major race at Kansas Lake in Xinjiang’s Altai Mountains, and local governments have already begun calling off marathons.

Reform is desperately needed, but a harsh crackdown would be a huge hit to the burgeoning community of endurance athletes in China. Within the country’s authoritarian system, running has blossomed into a cherished space for individualism, freedom, and risk-taking, and it’s also brought competitors together from across the world. At the Ultra Gobi, a day after the top finishers had slept off their exhaustion, I found myself chatting with Liang and Zhao Jiaju, the second-place finisher, in a hotel courtyard. Later��some of the foreign runners joined the conversation, and I helped translate. The group swapped stories from the race, laughing with their competition and sampling cheap Chinese beer. It felt like a meaningful moment—Chinese athletes are often rendered faceless to their Western competitors. Endurance events in China have the potential to create countless similar moments, but not if organizers can’t be trusted to prevent reckless tragedy.

The post Why the Ultra-Race Tragedy in China Wasn’t Surprising appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

On Friday, Mount Everest saw its first summits of 2021, along with a new record: Kami Rita Sherpa summited for the 25th time, breaking his own record for most ascents. He was leading a rope-fixing team of 11 Sherpas, the Nepalese��guide company Seven Summit Treks.

Kami Rita, 52, is from the Himalayan village of Thame and first summited Everest in 1994 at 24 years old. He has summited four other 8,000-meter peaks—K2, Lhotse, Manaslu, and Cho Oyu—for a record 33 summits of 8,000-meter peaks in his lifetime, according to the Himalayan Database. He’s expected to log one more Everest summit this season while leading commercial climbers, a double-summit-season feat he’s accomplished on five other occasions.

With the ropes fixed from Base Camp��to the peak, commercial teams quickly followed. Yesterday,��the five-member Bahrain Royal Guard became the first non-Sherpa group to summit this year, a team that included Prince Sheikh Mohammed Hamad Mohammed Al Khalifa��and 19-year-old Shehroze Kashif, the��youngest Pakistani to summit Everest. Kenton Cool, an English mountaineer,��set a UK record of 15 Everest summits, tying him with American Dave Hahn for most non-Sherpa summits.

With continued good weather, more of the over 300 climbers waiting in Base Camp are expected to��summit this week. This year��Nepal issued a record 408 permits to foreigners, but many have left due to the coronavirus. Last week��the reported that there were 17 hospitalized COVID patients in Kathmandu whose cases originated at��Base Camp, but the true number of cases in the region resulting from the Base Camp outbreak is likely much higher.

The spread of COVID in the Everest climbing community has slowed in the past ten days, with no new cases reported at Base Camp. Meanwhile, on Dhaulagiri, another 8,000-meter��Himalayan peak, over 25 people have been evacuated after testing positive for the virus.

At the end of last week,��the Nepalese government closed the airport to all flights but two a day to India, stranding many visitors. However, the��government��also announced that it��would try to facilitate climbers’ departures from Nepal. It continues to deny that the virus has infected climbers on Everest and asking that the media not “publish stories without verification as it could terrorize the mountaineers as well as their family members.” Meanwhile, reported today that relief groups in Nepal are asking climbers to donate their used oxygen cylinders to help fill gaps created by medical supply shortages as the nation��grapples with surging COVID cases.��

The post Kami Rita Sherpa Just Broke His Own Everest Record appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

In late July��of 2016, more than a dozen��Liberian researchers set up a makeshift lab at the edge of the��rainforest in their nation’s��northern��, which shares the��border with��Guinea. Liberia is home to����and��houses some of the world’s rarest animal��species, including the Liberian mongoose and pygmy hippos. But Jackson Poultolnor and the other researchers, all clad in��rubber boots, N95 masks,��face shields, leather welding gloves, and��Tyvek suits, were there for bats.��

Bats have been a source of food in Africa and other parts of the planet��for thousands of years.��When Poultolnor��was a child, his��mother��prepared the meat in a sweet stew for him and his eight siblings. But the mammal��is also a reservoir of pathogens and to be the source of the 2013 Ebola virus outbreak, which led to more than 11,000 deaths across this region. So��Poultolnor and his team��ventured into the��dense vegetation to bind mist nets to��trees in order to capture and study the animal. It was Liberia’s first��wildlife-surveillance operation, and it was conducted as a part��of��, an organization launched in 2009 by the��U.S. Agency for International Development’s��(USAID)����to monitor infectious diseases.��

Since the organization’s inception,��American epidemiologists and sociologists have trained over��6,000 researchers in more than 30 developing countries to seek��out zoonotic diseases in wildlife and��collaborate��with local officials��to head off new outbreaks. Predict teams across the globe have discovered , including Ebola viruses and SARS-like coronaviruses.��

In January��2019, after sampling over 5,000 bats��every two��weeks��for more than two years, the Liberian Predict��team found for Ebola. It was the first time the type of Ebola virus responsible for the 2013��epidemic was detected in a Liberian bat. The discovery could help scientists learn more about how that virus infected humans��and, by extension, how to prevent other zoonotic diseases with pandemic potential��from spreading.

A few months later, in the fall of 2019,��the Trump administration for Predict, leaving more than ��around the world in limbo.��

At the heart of the Predict��project are the principles laid out by the , which seeks to foster collaborations between professionals in various science fields��that will benefit the��well-being of humans, animals, and the environment.

It’s an all-in-one philosophy that has deep historical roots. Hinduism’s ahimsa dictates that all living things are sacred because they are part of God and the natural world. Totemism, popular among may African tribes, posits��a kinship between humans and��wildlife.��Similarly, One Health,��which was started by��veterinarians and doctors in the United States , looks��to understand the human-wildlife interface,��encouraging��interdisciplinary collaborations in governent and academia, discouraging human encroachment��on natural habitats, and calling��for the extensive surveillance of pathogens.��

��

There are ��lurking in animal hosts across the globe, and more than 650,000 have the potential to��infect people, according to researchers at the at the University of California at��Davis. In fact, nearly 75 percent of the diseases affecting humans today stem��from wildlife. SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the current pandemic,��is thought to have originated in bats and believed to have been��transmitted��to humans via at an open-air market in Wuhan, China.

In addition to the vast number of viruses, scientists at the One Health Institute��say��that viruses��are also��mutating faster than ever. Urbanization and climate change, as well as activities like logging, poaching, and��animal��trafficking, have shrunk and fragmented natural habitats, which in turn has led to��increased��contact between humans and wildlife and more opportunities for viral mutation.��

“Trying to find these viruses in the wild is like finding a needle in a haystack,” says��, an American field veterinarian who was appointed by the Obama administration to lead Predict��in Liberia. That doesn’t mean it’s worthless to try. Although it cost $20 million to operate Predict��each year, some have estimated that the current��COVID-19��outbreak could cost the world . A future pandemic could cost much more.

Though Predict��failed to identify��the virus that results in��COVID-19,��a Predict-supported publication by scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology back in 2015 warned about in China and Southeast Asia.��

On April 1, as confirmed cases of COVID-19 surpassed one��million in the U.S.��and three��million worldwide, Predict��received ��from USAID to focus��on the coronavirus. But the money was far from enough to host teams in different countries.��Luckily, in May, USAID announced a new project:��set to launch this��September,�� will leverage the data collected by Predict��to develop interventions that will��reduce the risk of the transmission of dangerous pathogens passing from animals to people.

For too long, when it comes to disease outbreaks, there’s been a cycle of panic (as threats ramp up) and neglect (when they subside), says��Tierra Smiley Evans, a wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist at the One Health Institute. She hopes this pandemic will result in something different. “We can’t leave a single country out in understanding the importance of the connection between human and animal health and working together on the prevention of the next pandemic,” she says. “Through the tragedy that is happening now to the planet, I hope we come out stronger on the other end.”

The post How Do We Prevent the Next Pandemic? appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

As a travel editor with perennially itchy feet, staying within a three-mile radius of my house has been tough. Since canceling planned trips to Italy, Alaska, and Hawaii, with no indication of when I’ll be able to��reschedule them, I’ve tried to find different ways of tricking my brain into thinking I’m traveling again: watching YouTube videos of the grizzlies I was hoping to see at Katmai National Park this summer, changing my Zoom background to a shot of me on a sailboat in the South Pacific, and tuning into��40-plus hours of thru-hiking vlogs. But despite working at ���ϳԹ��� and not Bon Appétit, I’ve realized that while I miss the adventures, I miss the food just as much.

So my latest lockdown hobby has been recreating some of my favorite meals I’ve enjoyed��while traveling. Here are nine recipes that have managed to satisfy those cravings. And I’ve included some ingredient suggestions��that substitute��in common pantry staples, to spare you multiple, risky trips to the grocery store. Give these dishes��a try, close your eyes, and you might just believe you’re at a beach in Mexico or a food stall in Asia. At the very least, you’ll no��longer be hungry.��

Indonesia: Peanut Sauce

This adaptation of a classic Asian peanut sauce, or satay sauce, comes from the mother of fellow editor (and my roommate) Maren Larsen. The first time Annie made it for me, I almost cried and said, “I want to eat this every day, every meal, for the rest of my life.” It was the closest thing I’ve had to the copious amounts I consumed during my year in Indonesia. I now always have at least one jar in the fridge and one in the freezer, and I throw it on everything from stir-fry to chicken and rice. You can��even dip��raw carrots into it like hummus.

Ingredients:��

½ cup peanut butter (the��natural, no-sugar-added chunky kind is better, but in a pinch, Skippy will work)
2 tablespoons sriracha or other hot sauce
4 tablespoons��soy sauce
4 tablespoons��rice vinegar
4 garlic cloves, chopped
½ cup fresh basil��
1 tablespoon��brown sugar
1 teaspoon��toasted sesame oil��
1 can coconut milk��
¼ teaspoon��crushed red pepper flakes
1 small scallion (optional)��

Instructions:��

Throw everything in a pot, and simmer until fragrant and combined. Put it on whatever you want, and hold back tears of joy.��

Mexico: Slow-Cooker Carnitas��

Since my favorite local taco stand has shut down, my mouth has been watering for carnitas, the Mexican version of pulled pork. The traditional process involves a deep copper pot and lots of lard, but because I am in possession of neither, I’ve tried to replicate the flavors and texture with my Crock-Pot and oven. I modified recipe, using pork instead of chicken (though��with the shortages, I��imagine chicken thighs would be easier to find) and skipping the chipotle sauce—I found that by using the slow cooker, the meat exuded enough delicious juice to use��instead.

Ingredients:��

1 tablepoon��ground cumin
½ teaspoon��chili powder
½ teaspoon��Mexican oregano (regular oregano will also work)
2 tablespoons��, chopped
Zest and juice of one medium orange (about ¼ cup)
2 freshly squeezed limes (about ¼��cup)
2 pounds��pork butt, shoulder, or loin
5 garlic cloves, pressed or chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
¼��cup chicken stock
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper

Instructions:��

Combine seasonings, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, orange juice, and lime juice in a bowl, and whisk together until combined. Put your pork cut in a Crock-Pot, and pour the seaoning mixture over it, flipping the meat��to make sure it’s coated on all sides. Add the garlic, onion, chicken stock, cilantro, and bay leaf. Cook on low for six to eight hours (the longer, the better)��until the pork pulls apart easily.��

Once the meat is done, shred it and spread it on a baking dish, add salt and pepper, drizzle two tablespoons of cooking liquid on top, and toss to coat.��Put the tray on the middle rack in the oven under the broil setting for about 15 minutes, and cook it until the pork is crisped but not dry.��Pull it out at the halfway mark to drizzle another two more tablespoons of cooking liquid over it.

Serve in warmed corn tortillas topped with more fresh lime juice, cilantro, and pickled onions; over rice and beans; in a burrito;��or devour it straight from the pan.��

New Zealand: Pavlova��

Aussies will claim this dessert as their own invention, but any self-respecting Kiwi will tell you who it really belongs to. This recipe comes from a Kiwi grandmother I stayed with near Wellington (thanks, Nana Jackie!), and it’s still a mystery to me how something with so few ingredients can taste so damn delicious. It’s especially ideal��for the current food-shortage situation, as it requires no flour or yeast, just lots of sugar, eggs, and a decent mixer.

Ingredients:��

For the Meringue:��
4 large egg whites
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cornstarch
½��teaspoon cream of tartar

For the Topping:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons��confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Fresh fruit of your choice��

Instructions:��

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.��

With a standing mixer (or a handheld mixer if you want an arm workout), beat the egg whites until soft peaks form, about five��to ten��minutes at high speed. Add half the sugar, beat for another 30 seconds, then add the remaining��half. Continue beating until stiff peaks form like little snowy mountains (you should be able to hold the whisk upright). When in doubt, beat some more. Add the vanilla extract, and beat for another minute. Fold in the cornstarch and cream of tartar using a spatula.

Spread the mixture in a roughly��eight- or nine-inch circle on the baking sheet, making sure the outer edge is��relatively tall.��Pop in the oven, and immediately reduce the heat to 200 degrees. Bake for about 90 minutes, until it appears firm and dry. Try to not open the oven at all during the baking process.

While the meringue��is baking, pour the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla into a��mixing bowl and beat on medium-high speed until medium peaks form��or the cream has a nice, thick texture. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Turn off the oven, and let the meringue��completely cool inside it (this could take several hours). It’s important that you don’t skip this��last step: if you do, the nice golden crust formed by the caramelized sugar will crack—not that I know from experience or anything.��

Top with cream and fruit.

Asia: Wahyu’s Special Ramen��

My friend Wahyu, a ranger who I worked with doing forest conservation in Borneo, Indonesia, showed me how to take an ordinary pack of instant ramen and turn it into��something I’d��constantly crave long after returning to the U.S. I’ve since added some other��ingredients and adopted a new egg-cooking technique from another friend. But just a few basic foods, including tomatoes, onion, and garlic, make a world of difference.��

Ingredients:��

1 cup water
1 onion, diced
1 fresh tomato, diced
4 garlic cloves, diced
1 package instant ramen noodles and its flavor packet (or, if you’re a purist, use fresh ramen noodles and chicken broth, altering the cooking instructions accordingly)
1 tablespoon��oil (preferably sesame)
1 tablespoon��fish sauce (substitute soy sauce if you can’t find it)
Additional vegetables (bok choy and mushrooms work particularly well)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon��diced fresh ginger or powdered ginger
Sriracha or other chili sauce��to taste

Instructions:��

Boil water in a kettle or pot. In a separate pot, sauté the onion, tomato, garlic, and ramen flavor packet together in sesame oil��until the tomatoes are soft and have broken down completely��and the onions are translucent.��Add the boiling water to the pot with the sautéed veggies, along with the fish sauce and any additional vegetables. Cook until the vegetables are just soft, then add the noodles. Let them soften for��two minutes.��

Crack one egg into the mixture, whipping it until the egg has almost dissolved into the broth. Separate the yolk and white of the second egg, setting��the yolk aside to use shortly. Add the egg white, whipping it��until the broth becomes creamy.��

Turn off the heat, but leave the pot on the hot burner. Add the egg yolk into the still boiling liquid, cover, and wait about 30 seconds, until the yolk is set but still runny. Pour out the contents of the pot into a bowl, carefully scooping out the intact yolk last.

Turkey: Chicken Hot Pot

Senior travel editor Erin Riley kindly brought me a tray of this when I was having a rough week recently, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about—or making it—since. The original calls for rooster, but because��I’m not yet living my best life as a full-blown homesteader, I’ve been using chicken. While the more authentic version calls for Turkish , which uses sun-dried peppers, this��recipe works just as well with the regular paste found at most grocery stores.��

Ingredients:

1 pound��chicken breast, cubed
1 pound��potatoes, cubed
4 to 5 medium tomatoes, chopped
3 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons��red bell pepper paste
1 teaspoon��red-pepper flakes
1 tablespoon��dried oregano
¾ cup olive oil
Salt and pepper��to taste

Instructions:��

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all of the ingredients in a large bowl until fully combined and your chicken pieces are thoroughly coated. Transfer the mixture to a casserole dish or Dutch oven, and bake for an hour and ten��minutes.��

This goes especially well over rice and with some homemade cacik, or Turkish .��

North Africa/Middle East: Shakshuka

���ϳԹ�����director of event marketing Nicole Barker (my other roommate—Santa Fe is a small town) spent a few months in the Middle East eating this deliciously eggy concoction, and it’s been in her breakfast rotation ever since. But in our house, we have it for dinner, because it’s quarantine and the rules no longer matter.��

Ingredients:��

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced
1 large red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
⅛ teaspoon ground cayenne (or to taste)
1 28-ounce��can whole plum tomatoes with their juices, coarsely chopped
¾ teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
¼ teaspoon black pepper, plus more as needed
5 ounces��feta, crumbled (about 1¼��cups)
6 large eggs
Chopped cilantro, for serving
Hot sauce, for serving

Instructions:

Heat an oven to 375 degrees. Warm��oil in a large skillet (preferably cast-iron) over a medium-low flame. Add the onion and bell pepper. Cook until very soft,��about 20 minutes.��Add garlic and cook until tender, one to two minutes, then��stir in the cumin, paprika, and cayenne, and cook for another minute.��Pour in the tomatoes, and season with the salt and��pepper; simmer until tomatoes have thickened, about ten��minutes. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if needed. Stir in the crumbled feta.

Crack your eggs into the skillet over the tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer the skillet to the oven, and bake until the eggs are just set, seven to ten��minutes. Sprinkle with cilantro and hot sauce, and serve.

This can be made without the feta, but I wouldn’t skip it—the cheese��turns into nuggets of ooey goodness in the oven. While the dish can be eaten on its own, it goes especially well over some sort of flatbread or regular toast.��

Italy: Pizza

Yes, you could just buy frozen pizza. But since visiting Sicily last September, my now spoiled taste buds refuse to accept it as even a less than worthy substitute. Why go with DiGiorno when you can make a big batch of dough and sauce ahead of time, stick the dough in the freezer, and essentially have pizza on demand for the duration of quarantine? This recipe came from my mom, who got it from the Italian owner of her local pizza place in New York. It��was also approved by my Sicilian grandmother, who has gotten us kicked out of multiple restaurants for arguing with the chef. Inside tip: Having trouble finding yeast or flour? Check with your local pizza place. To make extra cash, many of them are selling their stock.��

Ingredients:

For the Dough (makes two to three large��thin-crust pies):��
1 package dry��instant yeast (or 1.5 ounces fresh yeast)
1½ cups warm—not boiling—water (about 100 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit—just turn your sink faucet up to full heat)
3 teaspoons sugar
1½ teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
4 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for coating
4 cups flour

For the Sauce:��
½ yellow onion, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped
1 16-ounce��can tomato puree
Salt and pepper to taste��
1 teaspoon��oregano

Toppings:
Mozzarella or Parmesan cheese

Instructions:��

Combine the yeast and warm water in a large bowl with a pinch of sugar to activate. Stir together until yeast is dissolved. Add the rest of the sugar, salt, garlic and onion powders, and olive oil. Stir some more.��Add the first two cups of flour, mix with a spoon, then toss in the third cup and mix with the spoon.

Add the last cup of flour. But this time, knead the dough with your hands until it’s adequately infused with all of your pent-up stress and no longer sticky.��Pour a good amount of olive oil (don’t skimp) all over the sides of the bowl, and coat the ball of dough thoroughly. Cover the bowl with three or four dish towels, and let it rise for about 30 minutes.��

In the meantime, make the sauce. Saut�the onion until translucent, add the garlic, and cook one to two minutes more. Then add the tomato puree, salt, pepper, and oregano. Cook over low heat for 15 minutes, then remove from the heat, and let it sit for the flavors to meld.��

After the dough has risen, punch it down, and plop it on a well-floured work surface. Form the dough into a log, and slice it in��half or into thirds, depending on how big you want your pies.��

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees, letting your pan or pizza stone heat up within it.��Take one piece of dough, and flatten it out on your work surface. Working from the middle outward, use your fingers to stretch it��while flipping it over from time to time to��work the opposite side. For a thin crust, stretch the dough��until it’s just about translucent; it will seem almost too thin. If you get holes, simply pinch the edges of the hole together and fold some more dough over it.

Transfer the dough to your preheated pan or pizza stone. Ladle the sauce over the top from the middle outward in that fancy way you see pizza chefs do it on TV. Add cheese (fresh mozzarella and a bit of Parmesan are my favorite) and any toppings you’d like—as long as it’s not pineapple, lest you risk being haunted by the ghosts of 10,000 Italian nonnas.��Bake on the bottom rack of the oven until the crust is golden brown and the bottom is crisp, about 12 to 15 minutes.��

Any extra dough can be saved in the fridge for up to a week��or in the freezer just about indefinitely. If you do make a pie out of the premade dough, first bring it to��room temperature before you start stretching.��

India: Masala Chai

There are few things I miss about the year I spent living in Boulder, Colorado. But the one thing I’m really hankering for is the chai at , which was within walking distance of my apartment. My cravings for its spicy, flavor-packed conconction have only gotten stronger since lockdown; in my most desperate moments, I have dreamed of making the six-hour, totally irresponsible drive there just for a cup. Then, while scrolling through social media one night to quell my existential dread,��I saw someone prepare��homemade chai, and my world changed.��

Ingredients:��

1 fresh gingerroot, peeled
1 teaspoon��cinnamon
1 teaspoon��cardamom��
1 teaspoon��black peppercorns
1 teaspoon��nutmeg
½ cup water
½ cup half-and-half, milk, or whatever your preferred dairy substitute is—just make sure it’s creamy��
1 tablespoon��loose-leaf black tea
Sugar to taste

Instructions:��

Crush up your ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, and peppercorns with a mortar and pestle. If you don’t have one, you can use the back of a wooden spoon and a small bowl.��

Bring the water to boil in a pot, and��add the ground��spices (or stick them whole into a strainer and seep it in the water). Simmer for about 15 minutes.��

Remove the pot from the heat, and add in the black-tea leaves. Let it seep for five to ten��minutes, depending on the desired strength.��

Put the pot back on the stove over low-medium heat, and add your milk, cream, or bougie substitute and sugar. Stir occasionally, making sure the mixture doesn’t boil.��Once the��top of this becomes frothy, remove the pot from the heat, and let it sit for another minute or two before pouring through a strainer into a mug. If you’re less of a klutz than I am, pour the mixture from a height above the mug to help aerate it. Enter chai heaven.��

Carribean: Cuban-ish Rice and Beans

If you’re like me and always have a ten-pound bag of rice and approximately 18 cans of beans in your pantry, you know, just in case a global pandemic hits, you should be well equipped for this dish. I ate some version of it virtually every day as a broke college student in Florida—and regularly now��as an only slightly less broke editor during quarantine—and it’s a wonder what some simple additions can do to break up the starchy monotony. Breakfast? Put an egg on top. Extra hungry? Throw in some slow-cooked carnitas (see above). I cook everything together in the same pot, because the rice absorbs the bean and tomato-juice flavors and… who am I kidding? It’s so that I have fewer��dishes to do.��

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons��oil��
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon��chili powder��
1 teaspoon��smoked paprika
½ teaspoon��cayenne pepper��
1 jalapeño or other hot pepper, chopped (optional)
1 red or yellow bell pepper, chopped
3 garlic cloves, chopped or crushed
½ cup chicken stock (or water)
1 cup white rice, rinsed in a colander until the water runs clear
1 16-ounce��can black beans, or soaked and cooked dried beans
1 can diced tomatoes

Instructions:��

Heat oil in a pan over medium-low heat. Sauté the onion until translucent, then add the chili powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, jalapeño and��bell peppers, and garlic, and cook two to three minutes more. Add the chicken stock and rice, and turn the stove’s flame up to medium heat.��Add the beans and tomatoes, without draining. Stir, bring the whole mixture to a soft boil, then turn down the heat to a simmer and��cover. Cook until the rice is tender and most of the liquid has been��absorbed—what you want��left is a nice, thick sauce.

Serve with some freshly chopped tomatoes, hot sauce, avocado, egg, cilantro, cheese, sour cream—whatever you want. You’ll never regret making a double batch and having it in your freezer for days when you’re between grocery runs.��

The post 9 International Dishes to Cook If You Miss Traveling appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

When it comes to your time and money, signing up for an in-depth skills course shouldn’t preclude going on a dream trip. By traveling to one of the countries below, you can get world-class certification in anything from scuba diving to mountaineering, often for less��than you would pay in the United States. Plus, these classes offer the opportunity to connect with a destination on a much deeper level by interacting with local guides and participants��and to see parts of an area��you may not��have otherwise.��If you’re taking this time to reassess your career path or set some new outdoor��goals, here are four affordable course options��to consider for your next work-play adventure.��

Scuba Diving in Honduras

Having time at home is actually a great opportunity to begin working toward��your introductory open-water diver certification. Both the (PADI) and (SSI)��offer eight-to-15-hour online classes starting from $150, which knock days and dollars off your on-the-ground training.��

Once the textbook learning is out of the way, it’s just a matter of finding the best place to get in the water once it’s safe to travel. SSI and PADI have thousands of dive centers around the world. PADI even sells its own to popular locations, such as the��Indonesian island of Gili Trawangan or the Red Sea town of Dahab��in Egypt, for less than $1,000 a week��before plane fare.

While Koh Tao, Thailand, is known as the budget dive factory of the world, it may not guarantee the best value for money. The��small��island houses about 70 dive schools, most offering one-��or two-day courses (from $350) in the shallow, crystalline waters.��Despite its range of outfitters, the sheer number of newbies the��area��attracts means you may not��get the personalized instruction you need at an affordable price.

For high-quality and affordable instruction, we recommend��Central America. The Honduran islands of Utila and Roatan are inexpensive and��short flights��from the United States��(from $350 round-trip from major U.S. cities) and boast some of the healthiest coral in the Caribbean. Expect to pay around $300 for your open-water certification at��any of the local dive shops.��

, a PADI five-star dive center in Roatan’s southwestern tip, maintains a small student-to-instructor ratio and charges only $230 for those looking to complete the open-water portion of their certification, compared to $350 for the whole course. And just because you’re learning doesn’t mean you can’t have a bucket-list experience: the center is located near some of the island’s famous wall dives, which, in addition to an abundance of coral, offer the chance to see manta rays and hammerhead sharks.��

Mountaineering in South��Asia

Typically over a minimum of five to seven days, a good mountaineering course will cover rope work, scrambling, orienteering, crevasse rescues, route and risk assessment, snow and glacier traverses, and group communication. In the United States, you can expect to pay between $1,500 and $3,000 to complete the certification with a reputable outfitter.��

However,��budget-minded peakbaggers can learn the basics among some of the tallest mountains in the world. Our pick: the Himalayas in northern India. Permit fees��are low or nonexistent, and the area offers plenty of accessible peaks.

Check out the highly reputable Uttarkashi-based�� (NIM).��Its Basic Mountaineering Course costs $800 for 28 days of instruction, which includes food, accommodation, and equipment. The last is important—if you’re a beginner, you’ll likely want to avoid the up-front investment of buying your own gear so you can use the training as a chance to learn what works for you. The course begins with training on equipment and��techniques at about 4,200 feet��and ends with a two-week trip to between��14,000 to 16,000 feet into the Himalayas for hands-on experience with techniques like self-arresting, belaying, and using ice axes and crampons. The school also offers special women-only courses. While class sizes are bigger than many similar courses in the United States—between six and��eight people versus four—the quality of instruction is solid: NIM is funded by and trains the Indian military, which is known for its mountaineering prowess.��

Yoga Teaching Training in India

Most immersive yoga teacher training courses (or YTTC) include lodging��and food, which makes countries with a low cost of living more affordable places to��study. While there are a number of affordable locales that specialize in YTTC, from Thailand and Indonesia to Costa Rica, the most coveted classes tend to��be more expensive because��they often fly in instructors from abroad. So why not go straight to yoga’s��birthplace in India, where a saturated market has resulted in competitive pricing? It’s easy to find a 200-hour YTTC for $1,000 or less. Compare that to Bali, where the same course��can cost upwards of $5,000, or the United States, where monthlong programs start at around $2,500.��

If you want to study in the actual birthplace of the practice, head to the northern city of Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world. Situated in the Himalayan foothills along the Ganges River, the town is home to the top-rated ($1,000 for 29 days), which includes lessons in vinyasa, ashtanga, hatha, and meditation. Or try��, which��has brand-new student dorms ($1,059 for 26 days).��Both programs lead to a Yoga Alliance Certification, an internationally recognized ticket to teach.

Canyoning in France

Even if you have no aspirations of guiding, there’s a strong argument to be made for taking a comprehensive canyoning��skills course. (See��the film 127 Hours, starring James Franco as Aron Ralston, who is forced to cut off his own arm after becoming trapped in a canyon.)��

“Canyoning is not like rock climbing, where you can buy a harness and a chalk bag and go to a gym and start,” says Andrew Humphreys, an international canyoning instructor and owner of . A highly technical sport, canyoning requires a variety of baseline skills and gear just to get started.��

The first thing to note is the difference between canyoning and canyoneering: the former involves water, such as��rappelling��through waterfalls, while the latter generally refers to dry canyons.��Check the of the��skills you need to acquire to be a proficient canyoneer, including basic knots and setting up rope anchors, as well as��a list of��certified instructors around the world. Programs in the United States��range from $130 to $220 per day��but often don’t cover water skills.��

For an affordable course abroad,��Humphreys recommends France. At , an center in the commune of��Niaux in the south of France, about 500 miles from Paris, you’ll join the ranks of more than 100 independent canyoneers��and 35,000 beginners who have learned under the tutelage of expert Rod Strum. Its eight-day Autonomous Canyoneer��training is priced at $950 (less than $120 per day)��and includes all the basics recommended by the American Canyoneering Association, plus additional��techniques like rappelling through waterfalls.

Prepare for your trip with an online training program from . Developed by Humphreys and other instructors, it offers free modules to teach the basics of canyoning through instructional videos and interactive video coaching.

The post Get Outdoor Certifications for Less in These Countries appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

The Evo flagship store, which is usually bustling with people buying skis, boards, and bikes, is around the corner from my house in Seattle. It’s��in the same building as a skate park and two of the best restaurants in the city, across the street from a very good dive bar��and my go-to coffee shop.��

On Monday morning, the whole block was quiet, and when I went by Evo, the shop was technically open but eerily empty. By noon, the retailer, which started as an online shop��but now has five brick-and-mortar stores across the country, announced that it was closing all of its locations until at least March 29 in response to the spread of the coronavirus. “There’s no playbook for this one,” Bryce Phillips, Evo’s founder and CEO, told me. “If you had asked me 48 hours ago what our plan was, my answers would have been completely different.”

In the U.S., Seattle is ground zero for the COVID-19 outbreak, and we’ve been dealing with the fallout since late January. The city is also home to major outdoor retailers and brands like K2,��Outdoor Research, and REI, all of which are trying to figure out what to do in the face of the virus. My ghost neighborhood is a reflection of what’s happening—and what’s likely to continue—in the outdoor world, particularly as we all make split-second decisions based on ever changing government directives and a spiraling economy.

VF Corporation, parent company of the North Face, Smartwool, Vans, and more, has temporarily shut down its U.S. businesses, after closing stores in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia starting last month. Patagonia is shutting down all operations through at least March 27, and REI has closed its 162 stores for the same time period. (Both brands��will continue to pay employees, and REI will continue to fulfill online orders.) “Our decisions are grounded in the belief that there are more important things than business right now—we owe that to one another,” REI president and CEO Eric Artz said in a .��

Of course there are much more important things than business. And, yes, it feels a little callous to think about gear at��a time like this. But this isn’t just about whether or not you can get a new down jacket. According to the , the outdoor-recreation industry makes up 2.2 percent of the economy. In 2017, it contributed��more than $412 billion, more than both agriculture and mining that year. A hit to the outdoor-retail market spirals out into other sectors of business. Like so many parts of the service industry, retail is a web connected to jobs, income, childcare, and health insurance. When strands are removed, the whole thing starts to fall apart. Social distancing over the long term could be devastating for people whose livelihood depends on in-person interactions—many hourly workers stand to lose their jobs, and many retailers are likely to shut their doors for good.

“It goes beyond retail. It’s the devastation that’s happening for people who really don’t have the ability to take the hit,” Evo’s Phillips said.

In the outdoor world, especially in seasonal sectors like bikes and watersports that depend on spring sales, that harm could be devastating. The retail advisory firm is predicting that this could be a record year for permanent retail-store closures due to coronavirus. that up to 15,000 retailers could close in 2020, a significant increase from the previous record of 8,069 in 2017.

In this pandemic climate, where time span, severity, and impact are still all up in the air, retailers��from giants like REI��to family-owned local shops are struggling with what to do to keep their employees, customers, and businesses healthy, especially when they’re not sure how long a shutdown might last. They don’t want to close too soon��and miss out on tenuous revenue, but they don’t want to be holdouts when human health is at risk.��

“There is no getting around the fact that the only way to try to limit the spread of the virus is to do further damage to the economy,” New York Times economic reporter Peter Goodman said in Monday’s episode of , which covered the coronavirus-related financial downturn. “If we don’t do that, this pandemic is going to kill a lot of people and do economic harm.”

In light of those impacts, larger retailers��like Evo or REI��have more flexibility to keep paying workers and planning for the future. In an internal memo to staff, Phillips said he felt good about Evo’s financial standing, even in the face of a likely��recession, and that the company will continue to pay workers for their scheduled hours. Smaller independent shops can’t be so sure they can say or do the same. Adam Jaber, owner of , a ski and bike retailer that has locations in West Dover, Vermont,��and West Springfield, Massachusetts, said they’ve decided to shut the Vermont shop��and limit the hours and services in Massachusetts. People can return rentals��and pick up online orders, but employees��won’t be fitting boots��or doing anything else that requires close contact.

Jaber said��they’re trying to ride the line of being helpful to their communities��without endangering their customers or staff. The shops are small enough that he doesn’t think any of his employees will be devastated by a few weeks off work, and he said his family has offered to step in and help the workers who might struggle if the shop stays closed for an extended period. But they’re still figuring out how to run the business as they roll into bike season. He added that��they’re trying to follow ��and keep their eyes on long-term planning. “The idea is that people won’t completely end their lives, at least for now, so if that means getting someone on a bike, and that I need to go in person to get them a bike they ordered, it seems like the right thing to do,” Jaber��said. “To stop that seems counterproductive. We want to make sure everyone is good mentally, too.”

Thinking ahead is the hard part, because everything is changing so quickly. No one is sure if the shutdowns will last weeks or months, how severe things might get over time, and how long it will be before their output overwhelms their income.

Retailers are still trying to figure out the playbook��and make day-by-day decisions. At Evo, Phillips said��they’re still fulfilling online orders, as long as it continues to make sense for its��staff, because it’s helpful to have a major stream of income still coming in. At its��online distribution center, in Sumner, Washington, the company is implementing creative ways to keep workers healthy. Evo has��created a PTO bank, where salaried employees can contribute paid time off��to hourly workers. Those days can be used in lieu of sick days for folks who aren’t able to work in light of the virus. “They can reach out to HR and say, ‘I lost my childcare, and my spouse is out of work,’ and use some of those hours,” Phillips said, adding that he’s been overwhelmed by how much people want to help��and how quickly his team members have tried to protect each other. Other retailers, like Amazon, haven’t been as thoughtful, and workers are unhealthy conditions.

As outdoor people, we’re constantly addressing risk. Running a business in the face of a pandemic feels like traveling in avalanche terrain: How can you make good decisions with limited information? Even if your choices don’t hurt you��or your party, how could you impact someone else? Everything slides downhill, and retailers are making decisions based on rapidly changing forecasting.��

That’s because we don’t yet know what the COVID-19 curve is going to be like in the U.S. The only thing we do��know is that social distancing helps prevent the spread��and that, in the long term, it’s incredibly important to , to keep as many people as possible safe. As in any risky situation, it’s better to be lame and safe than bold and dead. That calculus becomes so much harder when people’s livelihoods hang��in the balance, but retailers say they know that the exponential spread isn’t worth risking.

We’re facing dire economic times. As the virus spreads globally, the retail economy can be an indicator for how the world reacts. closed its China offices and retail stores February 7. Now its��offices and 90 percent of the stores in that country are back open. Retail-store traffic is down significantly from last year, but the company said��it’s improving. That’s likely going to be the story across the globe, as we come out the other side of COVID19—whenever we do.��

I’m antsy. But I’m also grateful that my neighborhood currently feels dark but safe, and that will be important to remember when this is all over. Retailers are banking on that. Like restaurants, hairdressers, and every other service sector, it will be crucial to infuse money into the retail industry when it’s safe to do so. It just remains to be seen how long businesses will be able to hang on.

“This is going to come to an end at some point, and people are definitely going to remember how businesses reacted,” Colorado Ski Shop’s Jaber said. “I’m not exactly sure how to define it, but we’re trying to be on the right side of it.”��

The post How Coronavirus Is Impacting the Outdoor Industry appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

As a neurotic 27-year-old New Yorker with a cocktail of mental-health issues—a�Գ澱��ٲ�, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and hypochondriasis—travel seemed impossible for most of my life. I grew up desperately wanting to see the world, but any time I’d get close to planning a trip, I’d chicken out before booking the flight. I soon grew tired of letting my anxiety confine me to an increasingly small comfort zone, and knew I had to make a drastic change. So at 23, I quit my job and took a two-month trip to Southeast Asia.

When I first set foot on the plane, I was convinced that everything bad that could happen to me would happen. I thought I’d get kidnapped, mugged, or trapped in a foreign country, that a single mosquito bite would mean a malaria diagnosis. Four years later, I’ve been to 21 countries and don’t plan to stop traveling any time soon. Along the way, my perspective was��completely rewired to the point that anxiety no longer dictates my life at home. I’ve learned that I’m far more daring and independent than I ever thought possible.

Last year��I started the��website����as a way to show others with mental-health issues that travel is not only accessible��but far less intimidating than you think. Here are my five go-to methods to��managing my anxiety on the road.

Plan—But Don’t Overplan

When you have anxiety, heading into an unknown environment means your brain works overtime to prepare for the worst-case scenario. It’s important to remember that this isn’t inherently bad��but an evolutionary skill meant to help you avoid danger. Unfortunately, this means pre-trip anxiety wants to stop you from leaving, because your brain equates the uncertainty inherent in going to a new place with an imminent threat. While there’s no cure-all for preventing this, I find that plenty of preparation eases the fear of the unfamiliar.

Start with your route. I always plan a rough itinerary ahead of time that includes my entry and exit points for the trip and the sites I want to see along the way. This is based on my time frame, with a breakdown of approximately how long I plan to spend in each place. I also make a budget using the average costs��of one night of accommodation, three meals, and one activity per day. In addition to researching what to see and do, I look into smaller but important items such as the currency-exchange rate, visa requirements, and health information. Despite having the details nailed down, I usually only book my flights in and out and my first hostel, so I have the option to change course. Having a solid point A and point B gives me a sense of control and direction, while the overall flexibility removes the pressure of sticking too closely to a plan and the stress that comes when it inevitably goes off course. It’s usually easy enough to find domestic flights or hostels at the last minute.

Over the years, I’ve learned that the best advice comes from fellow travelers, not the internet. Talking to others who have been where I’m going offers me peace of mind, knowing that they came back in one piece, along with valuable recommendations on what to see, do, and eat. Whether they’re friends, family, friends of friends, or a friend’s ex-girlfriend’s brother, personal accounts always get me much further than any Google search.

Once on the ground, I use a select few travel apps to make communication and planning easy. My must-haves usually include for easy and reliable accommodation booking, for international calling and texting via the internet, and for offline directions.

Pack Your Essentials and Don’t Worry About the Rest

Packing gives me a lot of anxiety, and for good reason. The items in my backpack represent the familiar things I can bring with me from home, sort of like a child’s teddy bear. For most people, this leads to a tendency to overpack. But keeping track of too many things can be more of a burden than the risk of not having something you need, especially when most things—from clothes to toiletries to earbuds—will be easy enough to find��regardless of where you go. The things that are more difficult to replace that��I always��keep on me are my contact lenses, passport, wallet, and phone.

Of all my essentials, my contact lenses are what cause me a comical amount of stress when I travel, because I’m functionally blind without them. I always pack at least ten��extra pairs of contacts as well as my backup glasses, just in case I happen to rub my eye and lose one along the way. Give yourself more space for a��few extras of the important things,��even if you likely won’t need all of your supply. This is especially the case with medication—talk to your doctor about getting enough to last you for your trip and then some.

Believe It or Not: Socialize

I was surprised to discover that social interaction is paramount to keeping my anxiety in check while I’m on the road. Making friends with other travelers is a great way to create a makeshift comfort zone when I’m so far outside mine. It’s also an excellent grounding tool, because it forces me to step outside my ruminating mind and be in the present.

Some of you are probably thinking, But I have social anxiety!��Well, so do I. However, I’ve found tremendous camaraderie with other travelers after finally getting��the courage to break the ice. In fact, during��my 61-day solo trip to South America, I spent less than one day by myself because I took the initiative to chat up strangers every step of the way, starting with my first��hostel. I’ve found that the benefits of these friendships are worth the five minutes of discomfort at the outset. Never underestimate the power of a simple hello; it can change the whole trajectory of your trip.

It helps to remember that the standard rules of socializing don’t always apply during travel. People are friendlier because they often don’t want to do things alone and welcome the company. Hostels, group tours, and hiking trips are built around fostering this sort of interaction.��Despite what your brain might tell you, people want to talk to you. Because you are all in similar circumstances and will likely share experiences, you have preprogrammed icebreakers. They can be as simple as “Where are you from?” or “Where have you been so far?” to asking for local recommendations.

Be Your Own Therapist

On your trip, you won’t have your usual support system on speed dial. It’s easy to get overwhelmed in moments of stress, and it’s just as easy to get mad at yourself for feeling that way. Instead of crumbling, use this opportunity to practice some of the techniques you’ve learned in therapy. For me, that takes the form of daily meditation, sitting quietly by myself and listening to a five-minute guided recording. While doing your usual full-on meditation, workouts, or yoga to decompress would be ideal, it’s not always possible on the move. So make mini models of your typical coping techniques, and don’t beat yourself up when you can’t stick to your routine.

Occasionally, however, these practices may not feel like enough. For those moments of panic, I keep these reminders��in the notes app on��my phone to��help me reframe my perspective when the stresses of travel start to feel like too much:

Travel in today’s world is not a complete cutoff from your life at home.

Regardless of how remote a place might seem, odds are that it’s possible to find an internet connection that will allow you to stay in touch through apps and social media.

Your trip isn’t permanent.��

Any time I start to feel overwhelmed, my obsessive brain tries to make me think that my trip is a lifelong adventure that will certainly end in disaster. It’s important to keep in mind that your trip is a temporary discomfort, and that you will be back home again soon.

The point of a trip is to enjoy it.��

While it might not always feel like it, your trip is meant to be fun and exciting. If you find yourself hating it, it’s not fulfilling its purpose and you’re not obligated to continue. If that means going back to a city where you felt more comfortable, you shouldn’t feel guilty about doing so. Remember that the only one forcing you to stay is you.

There is no shame in feeling scared.

There’s this misconception that being��scared while abroad is in some way a negative reflection on you. If you ever begin to feel shame about that fear, remind yourself that you’re doing something that many people are too afraid to do. You’ve already done the hardest part—getting on the plane in the first place.

Have an Exit Strategy��

Whenever I travel, I make sure that I have enough money in my bank account to book a flight home at a moment’s notice. I’ve never actually had to return before my planned departure date, but it’s extremely comforting to know that I have a panic button I can push��at any time. Yes, it’s an expensive safety net, but at the end of the day, your mental health should always take precedence.

Despite that, I implore you to try to stick around. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve almost booked a flight home. But I always give it a few more days and find that the patterns of my mind change with time. Force yourself to talk to one new person and explore one new place each day. Single, small steps out of your comfort zone eventually add up. In my opinion, travel is immensely worth all this fuss, because as someone with anxiety, I’m going to worry anyway. Why not do it on a beach in Thailand?

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