An enthusiastic transplant from the East Coast, Michael Zocco loves spreading joy about Austin, Texas, as a fantastic running city. “It’s a very special community,” says the co-city lead for the Endorphin Running Club, Austin Area. Zocco and his co-lead, Makayla Bassi, host group runs every Monday evening and occasionally other weekdays, plus long runs on Saturdays. Whatever the day, the message remains one of inclusivity and positivity through running.

“Our goal,” says Zocco, “is to expand as much as possible, where we can get people from all different paces and experience levels to be able to share that same space: endorphins.”

Zocco says he loves how other running groups and clubs around town offer group runs throughout each week. “That makes Austin so special,” he says.

The majority of runners in Austin head to the multiuse trail around Lady Bird Lake, which is actually a segment of the Colorado River. Teeming with runners and other recreationalists, the ten miles of smooth path along the waterfront is a testament to Austin’s health-and-fitness-loving vibe.

Routes

: While the official name for this ten-mile path around Lady Bird Lake is long, the trail that circumnavigates a dammed section of the Colorado River is casually referred to as Lady Bird or the Lake Trail. What makes this highly trafficked route special, Zocco says, is how it allows runners to connect with each other. “You realize there are a lot of people who care about the same things you do,” he says. “And for everyone who loves recording their runs, it’s a perfect ten-mile loop, so it’s great for training.”

: Running on this 1.5-mile road between Lady Bird Lake to the Texas State Capitol is “just super iconic,” says Zocco. “People do out-and-backs up and down Congress for the city scenery.”

: Just outside the city, in the Texas Hill Country, is Tejas, home to trail races and ultramarathons. The terrain is flat but beautiful—and peaceful. “You can hear a pin drop there,” says Zocco.

More options: The Barton Creek Greenbelt heads just over seven miles past limestone cliffs and the creek. For a bit of rugged terrain in the city, the Shoal Creek Hike and Bike Trail veers off Lady Bird Lake for three miles. And don’t miss Barton Springs, a pristine natural spring connected to Lady Bird Lake that welcomes swimmers year-round—summer group runs often start and finish there, and runners take a dip to cool down afterward.

Events

: With a full marathon, plus a half and a 5K, Austin Marathon weekend each February is “like the Super Bowl of the running community,” says Zocco. “The visibility of running, of health and wellness in general, is at an all-time high that weekend,” he says, “and everyone comes out to either run or support the event.”

: Taking place every January, this half marathon drops more than 300 feet in elevation from start to finish. “A lot of people like to PR that race,” says Zocco. “It’s a special event.”��

: This event is in its 45th year and features a half marathon, 5K, and kids’ mile. The half wraps around Decker Lake on hilly roads, serving as a hearty training run for those working toward a spring marathon.

More Options: The Zilker Relays, held in Zilker Metropolitan Park, bring together teams of four, with each team member running 2.5 miles. The kicks off in September with the CASA Superhero 5K and leads up to February’s Ascension Seton Austin Marathon and Half Marathon. Many runners sign up for all of the monthly events, earning perks like a Distance Den bag drop and snack area post-race, plus a special all-event finisher’s jacket.

Resources

Clubs

: Part of the nationwide group, this chapter meets for weekly runs led by Zocco and/or Bassi to celebrate community while running along Lady Bird Lake.

: Hosting group runs open to all paces, this female-led club also connects its members to other running events throughout Austin.

: This club for all ages and paces organizes group runs and a host of events, including the Daisy 5K, the Decker Challenge Half Marathon, the Austin Distance Challenge, and the Zilker Relays.

Stores

: With locations at Circle C, Gateway, and Seaholm, Fleet Feet Austin provides shoe fittings and apparel, “family-like” training, and group run sessions.

: Just off the path around Lady Bird Lake, this store hosts group runs, gait analysis, and nutrition consultations, plus a curated selection of fashion-forward running footwear, apparel, and accessories.

: This locally owned shop, located in the Far West Retail Center, specializes in gait analysis and shoe fittings.

Independent since 1906,����empowers people through sport and craftsmanship to create positive change in communities around the world.

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Envision a well-known band and the slosh-fest that typically ensues on tour. The traveling circus would include flowing booze, folding tables lined with greasy grub, and a revolving door of trippy characters getting lit backstage all night.

Well, that’s not how rolls. Formed in Sydney in 2010 and composed of the singer-guitarist Tyrone Lindqvist, keyboardist Jon George, and drummer James Hunt, the alternative electronic music trio has a touring regimen that is about as disciplined and health-centric as it gets. It wasn’t always that way, but things changed three years ago.

Today the group is at a career peak. In 2021, Rüfüs du Sol’s latest album, Surrender, topped charts globally, and in 2022, its anthemic jam “Alive” took home the Grammy Award for best dance recording. As of late April, the guys have again, playing in Colombia and sites including Monterrey and Mexico City, Mexico; then major festivals in Europe; and, starting August 1, seven stops in the United States at locations ranging from Boston to Charlotte, North Carolina.

The heart of the tour, the group’s curated festival , scheduled to run May 4-7 and 11-14 outside San José del Cabo, Mexico, will bring artists like DJ Tennis, Carlita, WhoMadeWho, and Dixon for two weekends of jams and health-minded options like yoga, meditation, and breath work.

Rüfüs Du Sol has a vibe that can span two worlds. Its indie-electro beats with deep house undertones are a soundtrack for a head-bobbing, feel-good night at a dark club—but also, as I recently experienced during a multi-day trek in the Great Smoky Mountains, a cloudless hike in a pine-clad national park. The music is that adaptable and infectious.

In April just before the tour commenced, I sat down with the three band members, who Zoomed in from Austin, Texas, to talk travel and wellness, including their favorite spots, highlights from the road, and Frisbee golf.

���ϳԹ���: You’ve been touring for more than a decade. How has your regimen evolved?

James: We’ve made some really good changes, just to make things more healthy, more sustainable, and we want to come out of a tour feeling fitter than when we go into it. It used to be the other way around. We’ve brought in a lot of structure, wellness practices, and breath work. We do ice baths when we can after each show, we take ginger shots before we go onstage, we’re working out, and we have a trainer touring with us. So we have a really good sense of routine built into touring now.

What sparked it?

Tyrone: We’d been touring pretty hard. We’ve been a band for 13 years now, and we made a bit of a switch three or four years ago. Things got busier the more successful we got. We had success in Australia, then the U.S. Things were getting more exciting and the tour schedule more intensive, and we were writing at the same time. The balance of health and wellness with working was definitely not where we wanted it to be.

COVID, in some ways, was kind of a big gift for our mindset. It forced us to stop touring and gave us the opportunity to reconnect. We were actually in Joshua Tree [in Southern California], starting the writing process for Surrender, and we got to process a bunch of stuff that we hadn’t really talked about. We were trying out different things like meditating, exercising as a unit, doing saunas and little cold plunges. And we were building a structured work environment, where we would work for eight hours instead of working till an idea was done. We shifted and gave ourselves a clock-in and clock-out. It brought up a lot of fear and anxiety, like, Are we going to be able to make music like before without working around the clock? But we’ve made it.

Surely there have been some crazy workouts and wellness experiences over the years. Do any stick out in your mind?

James: Well, we just did one about two hours ago here in Austin. Our trainer put us through a pretty brutal leg session. There’s a sense of camaraderie of getting through that intensity together. It breeds a good sort of bonding. You’re lifting each other up.

Jon: One of those memories for me was the last Sundream Baja festival. We weren’t staying in a fancy hotel, but on-site [the venue is between the beaches and desert], which was really cool, with all the energy going on. We had a trainer there again, and we were in the back of one of the villas and just all trained really hard together, sweating it out in such a beautiful setting.

How do you recover after a long tour?

James: There’s always an adjustment period after so much overstimulation. You’re going between different environments, traveling, playing shows with tens of thousands of people, and having a pretty strict exercise routine. That adjustment always takes a few days, but it definitely helps to do some of the same wellness activities that we do on the road. And I always find that doing cold therapy, like the ice plunge, is a really good way to regulate.

For this tour, is there a particular place you’re really looking forward to exploring?

Tyrone: I’m pretty excited to go to Monterrey, in Mexico. We’ve never been there, and my wife’s father’s family is from there.

Jon: Yeah, I’d say Monterrey and Guadalajara [also in Mexico] are up there, along with Medellín [Colombia].

Let’s touch on tours past. What is your favorite place to play and why?

Tyrone: Recently, we went home to Australia and played a bunch of shows. I definitely have a newfound respect and appreciation for Australian crowds and being in Australia, especially having lived over in the U.S. for many years [with a home base in L.A.]. I missed the food for sure. Red Rocks [amphitheater in Morrison, Colorado] is up there. We’ve played there a lot and it has so much history. It’s just so stunning.

Jon: Red Rocks is an amazing experience from the stage. You’re looking up at the crowd rather than down, and they seem so close. It has a very special energy.

Is there a particular activity you’ve really enjoyed while on the road?

James: In 2016, just after we put Bloom out, we had tour dates through the summer, and we discovered Frisbee golf—this game we’d never heard of. We’d be playing [where we had] shows in places like Michigan and Colorado in the beautiful summer weather. We became obsessed—it is a pretty sick way to see different parts of the country.��

Any specific place in the U.S. you enjoy?

Jon: Austin is pretty great. It was one of the first places we played in the U.S. Every time we come here, everyone is so nice. We’ve spent some time rehearsing here at the start of a tour, did South by Southwest, and spent about a week. Everything is just so fresh here.

James: During the pandemic, me and Jon and a bunch of our friends went to Big Sky Country—Montana—because we couldn’t go back to Australia. We had a sort of Friends’ Christmas, and that was sick. The mountain ranges in the U.S. are just unparalleled.

Looking ahead, what is it you want out of a travel experience?

Tyrone: I’m really looking for family-experience travel. I’ve really gotten the experience of seeing new places, having new memories, and eating new cuisines with the guys, and I’ve cherished that. I’m looking forward to a version of that with my wife and son in the future, too.

James: I definitely love meeting people in different parts of the world, connecting with people who live there or someone who’s been there for a little while, the people who know the places to eat and the local hole-in-the-wall spots.

Jon: We’ve developed a lot of friends all over the world while touring, so it’s really cool to be able to have that inside knowledge and a more local experience in different places. But I also love that there is still so much more to see.

Jesse Scott resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and covers the intersection of travel, food, and music. He’s interviewed Metallica, The Killers, and Steve Aoki, and written about outdoor adventures ranging from hiking in the Grand Canyon to exploring coffee farms in Colombia.

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If you’ve taken a free yoga class on YouTube in the past couple of years, there’s a good chance you did downward dog or crow pose with instruction from Austin, Texas-based YouTube personality Adriene Mishler. Mishler has been running her free channel, , since 2012 and, thanks to her approachable teaching style, calm demeanor, and a pandemic that sent everyone scrambling for at-home workout videos, she now has over 10 million subscribers.

Mishler’s goal isn’t to be a global yoga celebrity (although she is); instead, the former trained actor and Adidas ambassador wants to make the practice available and accessible to everyone. She teaches yoga for chefs, teens, writers, gardeners, those struggling with social anxiety—basically, it’s yoga for the people, and none of it feels preachy or exclusive or like you need to know anything about it before you click play.

She’s also the co-owner of , a studio where you can donate anonymously or not at all, depending on what you’re able to contribute. Mishler spends much of the year traveling around the world teaching classes and hosting retreats for thousands of aspiring yogis, but she loves coming back to her hometown. We asked her for some of her favorite places around Austin.

Urban ���ϳԹ���

“The loop around Lady Bird Lake, referred to as the hike-and-bike trail, has Austin soul. I love to wake up, put on comfy clothes, get a coffee, and to take my dog, Benji, for a walk there. That is an ideal morning—to breathe in nature right in the center of the city.”

Neighborhood

“Growing up in Austin, I have special connections with several neighborhoods and the different stages that they served in my life,” Mishler says. “Right now, I am loving East Central Austin for its growing scene of local businesses, artists, and the farmers’ market at . It’s close to the Hike-and-Bike Trail, and a zip to central, South Congress, downtown, and even the west side.”

Workout

“I love being outside for cardio and mindful movement in nature,” Mishler says. “That, and practicing yoga at my east side studio , as well as taking breath-centered pilates at .”

Happy Hour

“I love a spontaneous outdoor glass of wine with a loved one at or . Both have a great selection and are run by beautiful souls who care about the earth and our community,” Mishler says.

Coffee Shop

“ and , both on the east side of Austin. My go-to order is an eight-ounce Americano and both spots serve it right and include good community energy with the service,” Mishler says. “I also enjoy breakfast at my longtime favorite vegetarian spot, . I have the Ren breakfast tacos with a potato hash cake for breakfast, but really the whole menu is good. Don’t forget to treat yourself to a cool hibiscus tea.”

Tacos

“ is operated by a pair of straight-up brilliant humans, and the food is somehow a blend of non-pretension and brilliant works of art. I love the vegetarian tacos that rotate, as well as the breakfast taco, obviously” Mishler says.

Souvenirs

“ is my go-to place for a gift for a friend or loved one,” Mishler says. “It’s a beautiful curation of amazing product that feels like it really supports and honors the makers. I’m able to find things for all ages and all types here.”

Weekend Detour

“I still love to take it out west,” Mishler says. “We go to West Texas at least once a year. It is a bit of a drive, but it’s exactly the drive that does it. A chance to slowly unplug, look up, out, and appreciate the sky.”

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Walking might be the . OK, it’s not as flashy as its cousins, running and hiking, but that a moderate walk is just as effective at battling high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart disease as a vigorous run or an uphill trek. And it does the job with a lower risk of injury. Some even suggests that walking can make you more creative. One of its��advantages��is that you can do it just about anywhere, but some routes��are more beautiful than others.��Here are ten��of the most scenic trails that��allow access greenery without leaving the��city.

Spanish Moss Trail
Beaufort, South Carolina��

Charleston gets all of the love, but the smaller coastal town of Beaufort, an hour and a half to the southwest, has just as much southern charm, with a fraction of the tourists. And it’s incredibly walkable, thanks in part to the , a ten-mile paved path that follows the former Magnolia rail line through the best of South Carolina’s Low Country��landscape. The trail starts in an old rail station near Depot Road and carries you over creeks, through expansive wetlands, and amid��stately neighborhoods shaded by live oaks thick with the iconic Spanish moss.

Jack A. Markell Trail
Wilmington, Delaware��

This paved path combines culture, history, and wildlife on its eight-mile journey from downtown Wilmington to the historic town of New Castle. Start��at , explore��open-air markets and seafood restaurants, and��finish��at New Castle’s , a sprawling green space on the Delaware River with a new pier that overlooks��a replica of a��Swedish merchant ship from the 1600s. In between, the trail dips into the , one of only a handful of urban wildlife sanctuaries��in the U.S., home to��a 212-acre marshy��preserve��for fish and other fauna��in the heart of the state’s largest city.

Boardwalk Trail at Lady Bird Lake
Austin, Texas��

The ��isn’t like anything else in Texas. It’s a 7,250-foot-long concrete pedestrian bridge hovering above the water on the edge of Lady Bird Lake. The views are stunning—you have the lake itself, full of people��in kayaks and on stand-up paddleboards, as well as Austin’s skyline just beyond the shoreline—but walking this��boardwalk is also a��deep dive into��an exploration of��Texan��culture. Keep an eye out for an installation of 36 bronze western-style belts integrated into railings etched with song lyrics from Texas artists.

The Scioto Trail
Columbus, Ohio

The first greenway to be built in Columbus, follows the river of the same name for more than 12 miles, connecting the city’s neighborhoods with its expansive park system. The most beloved stretch of the trail is the Scioto Mile, which cruises along the downtown waterfront through a series of green spaces and city landmarks. Keep walking��and you’ll hit , a wildlife sanctuary where thousands of migrating birds make a pit stop��on their way south. The 120-acre park, which has its own system of walking trails that pass beneath the tree canopy and through restored wetlands, features one of the largest free-climbing walls in the nation��a massive man-made arch covered with holds set against the��backdrop of the Columbus��skyline.

The California Coastal Trail
San Francisco, California

This is one of the most dramatic in the country, spanning 1,200 miles along the Pacific Ocean. For a shorter option, focus on the 2.4-mile section near the Presidio, in San Francisco, which hits a collection��of the city’s landmarks. Start on the south end of this segment, and you’ll pass the rocky bluffs of Baker Beach right out of the gate before hitting the Marin Headlands and ending at the Golden Gate Bridge. The��shoreline is a near constant companion and a number of connecting paths meander into the Presidio.

Bert Cooper Trail
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma��

Ten��miles north of downtown Oklahoma City,�� is a 2,500-acre reservoir with a yacht club and a lighthouse. The forms a 9.5-mile loop around the lake and offers lots of��water views. Birders in particular love this trail because Hefner marks��an important stopover for migratory species. Start at , at��the southern end of the reservoir, and amble��through forested areas and neighborhood streets. Be sure to walk the peninsula out to the lighthouse, which makes for the perfect picnic spot.

Lakefront Trail
Chicago, Illinois

On one side of the 18-mile-long , you have Lake Michigan, unfurling into the horizon like an inland sea,��and on the other, you have the city of Chicago and its towering skyscrapers. You could spend an entire day along this trail, bouncing from beaches to parks and back again. Just make sure you hit , with its��traditional Japanese garden and��a koi pond, as well as the , a 100-acre park full of prairie grass and trees.

Lafitte Greenway
New Orleans, Louisiana��

This 2.6-mile ��opened in 2015, and in just a few short years, it has become a��major artery for pedestrians and cyclists moving about New Orleans. The paved path runs from the French Quarter to the neighborhood of , offering a string of nature in the heart of one of the South’s most vibrant metro areas. Shaded by live oaks, bald cypress, and pecan trees, the route passes along the Saint��Louis Canal before crossing over Bayou Saint��John. From the northern trailhead terminus, it’s a quick walk to the 1,300-acre City Park itself, full of green space and wetlands, while the southern��terminus is��, on the edge of the French Quarter.

The East Coast Greenway
Washington, D.C.

When it’s eventually completed, the will run for 3,000 miles from Florida to Maine. More than 30 percent of this massive walking and biking trail is currently built, and some of that��passes through Washington, D.C. It cuts through��the National Mall and crosses the Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River into Virginia, where it connects with the . While the capital’s monuments��are big attractions, be sure to make stops along the trail at the ��and the , the oldest continuously operating public garden in the country,��with more than 65,000 tropical and subtropical plants.

The High Line
New York City, New York

If there’s such a thing as the most famous U.S. greenway, it’s . This elevated trail, a repurposed��abandoned freight line on��Manhattan’s West Side, is an infusion of nature in the most populated��city in the country. The 1.45-mile bridge is designed��with public art, interesting architecture, and edible gardens. Various overlooks give you a bird’s-eye view of some of the borough’s most iconic neighborhoods, while certain sections feature��a full canopy of trees, providing an escape from the cityscape. Hang out on lounge chairs on��the sundecks, enjoy views over the Hudson River, and catch a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

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The spirits industry is keen to position itself as sustainable. But a��bottle of alcohol��made via a solar-powered distillation process doesn’t undo the fact that all the raw materials for that drink were grown, harvested, and trucked to the distillery, turned into liquor, and then, finally, hauled away to the store. That’s a lot of energy for something auxiliary to survival.

At the same time,��expecting everyone to swear off booze to fight climate change (as fossil-fuel companies continue refining oil and global capitalist leaders fly all over the world in private jets) seems unlikely. It also feels a bit cruel. If we must watch our world burn, can we at least have a cocktail��to take the edge off?����

Here’s one solution: let’s drink more spirits made from salvaged ingredients. This is not a new idea. “Rum goes back to sugar-refining plantations in the Caribbean,” says Henry Tarmy, one of the cofounders of the����in California. Molasses was a by-product of the sugar-refining process, and the refineries had more of it than they knew what to do with, he says. Someone discovered that you could ferment and distill the stuff, and thus, a bar star was born. God bless human ingenuity.��

Here are four spirits made from salvaged ingredients worth adding to your liquor cabinet.

Caledonia Spirits��Gobo

Not too far from ’��headquarters in Vermont, a local farmer grows burdock, a root used in Japanese cuisine. The farmer has no trouble selling the beautiful roots, but he approached Ryan Christiansen, the company’s head distiller,��and asked if he’d be interested in the gnarly ones. “I laughed out loud and said, ‘That sounds like a terrible idea, but let’s try it,’” he remembers. Because Christiansen thought its earthy flavor wouldn’t work in a spirit, the original plan was to distill the fermented burdock to neutral. But just for kicks, they stopped and gave it a taste halfway through. “The flavor blew us away. It produced this spirit that shocked us.��It’s almost like a tequila or a mezcal.”��

Misadventure Vodka����

Have you ever looked at packaged bread or the��baked-goods aisle at your local grocery store and wondered what happens to all the stuff that doesn’t get sold? For corporations working on a massive scale, water, salt, flour, and yeast are so cheap that it’s more lucrative to bake too much than miss a sale because a shelf is empty, says Sam Chereskin, one of the founders of��. Which means a ton of bread and doughnuts get sent to food banks.��And��since food banks try to offer��people��the most nutritious food possible,��white bread, cookies, and cakes usually��do not work for them, says Whit Rigali, Misadventure’s other founder. Much of that starch ends up in landfills, creating a ton of methane as it decomposes.��

So Misadventure, located in greater��San Diego, is doing that water-to-wine thing but with trash-bound cookies. It’s taken��100,000 pounds of unwanted carbs and turned them into bottles of��vodka. The only problem the company has��run into with the��method is all the plastic packaging—it takes a tremendous amount of time to pull the baked goods out of their wrappers. Misadventure��runs 2,000-pound batches of bread, cookies, and bagels, each of which results in a full 200 pounds of plastic waste. In the company’s defense, it’s��not creating this waste (it was landfill-bound anyway), but it’s still a nightmare to see it in those quantities, Chereskin and��Rigali say.

The bread is turned into “bread soup,”��pasteurized (in case any of it is��moldy),��fermented,��and then distilled. Because it’s vodka, doesn’t taste at all like onion bagels or cinnamon toast—its distilled until it’s smooth and completely neutral.��

Ventura Spirits Company Strawberry Brandy

Strawberries may be delicious, but tons of them never make it to market. Maybe they ripen too late in the field, or they’re too small or ugly. Sometimes they’re frozen for smoothies, but then the smoothie company discontinues the flavor. Or maybe they get��frozen��but the freezer malfunctions just long enough to make them unsafe to sell. That’s when the Ventura Spirits Company swoops in. Since 2014, the craft distillery has been creating spirits using ingredients found along California’s central coast. “We asked ourselves, What would we be drinking if distilling had been developed here in our part of the world?” says Henry Tarmy. The answer is strawberry brandy, of course.��

Tarmy wants to stress one thing: this is a true brandy, a strong spirit that’s more like whiskey than a fruit liqueur. “We ferment strawberries into wine and then distill that,” he explains. However, they don’t take the distillation process so far that it goes neutral, so��there are clear strawberry notes in the final product. “It’s like vanilla notes on a whiskey,” not sweet, but definitely noticeable, he says. Finally, they age the spirit for four years in either French oak wine casks or recoopered barrels. is something that makes a truly unique old-fashioned.��

Desert Door��Texas Sotol

In arid West Texas, few things grow well. But Sotol, a distant cousin of agave,��thrives there. The spiky plant is found everywhere on ranches, but there’s little farmers can do with it, says Courtney Hickey, marketing manager for��, an Austin-based distillery.

Sotol contains carbs, and cutting the plant back doesn’t harm it��at all. If you leave the roots intact, they��regenerate, says Hickey. This is different��from agave, which dies after harvest and which farmers often grow in giant monocultures. And Desert Door doesn’t farm sotol; it’s all wild-harvested off existing ranches.��

The idea to turn these wild plants into booze came from family lore. One of the company’s founders remembered an uncle rambling on about moonshining sotol plants during Prohibition. So��they tried it, and it worked. The final product is like a mix between a desert-inspired gin and tequila, says Hickey. The company also has an oak-aged option, which adds some spice and oak notes. The original version is perfect in a margarita or paloma. The oak-aged sotol makes a great hot toddy. Desert Door isn’t currently selling online, but you can find its sotol in Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, Colorado, and Nevada.��

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There are plenty of reasons to travel in March, when most places across the country begin to emerge from��their winter hiatus. It’s also the month for��early-season campground openings and great late-season skiing. While Spring Break will mean some fares may be pricier and some places more crowded, we’ve found some��six trips that will avoid both.��

St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

The Cheapest Flight You’ll Find to a Tropical Island

This month, you can fly roundtrip from New York’s JFK airport to St. Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, for around��. While it’s the most commercialized of the three islands, it’s still possible to find a slice��for yourself, especially at this time when the busy peak winter season is winding down.��Since Hurricane Irma hit in 2017, many hotels have undergone major restorations, including the hillside����(from $274), where the pool overlooks the main bay and harbor,��and the higher-end����(from $685), which reopened last year. The island’s size makes it possible to hit all the main sights over the course of a long weekend: scuba dive, walk the white sand beaches of Magens Bay, paddle through a mangrove lagoon, and bike along the waterfront in Charlotte Amalie Harbor.

Austin, Texas��

The Best Festivals in One City

Austin comes alive in March, when the world converges for its annual , or SXSW, festival. This year, the 10-day innovation event��will��take place March 13 to 22 and feature��an interview with Judd Apatow and Stephen Colbert and a talk with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine about the future of space exploration. Meanwhile don't forget about ,��which happens March 14 to 28, to watch bull riding, barrel racing, and live music.��Cool off in between events by SUPing or kayaking the Colorado River around the edge of downtown or head three miles west to Zilker Nature Preserve, where the large swimming hole known as����attracts swimmer year-round.��Stay at the new��(from $290), which opened in February with a massive rooftop deck, or grab a bunk or private room at����(from $60), an upscale hostel in a historic 1890s railroader hotel.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming

The Most Reliable Late-Season Skiing

Jackson Hole��closes for the season in mid-April. But in March? There are usually powder days aplenty. Plus, the��town hosts a raucous spring party, the annual , from March 26 to 28, which has free concerts (Bob Weir is headlining this year) and après-ski parties. Stay at the����(from $45), which opened in January with shared rooms and bunks, making staying in downtown Jackson more affordable than ever.

Bali, Indonesia��

The Coolest New Hotel

When Ronald Akili, an Indonesian��art collector,��launched�� on the sands of Seminyak, Bali, in 2010, he tapped into a growing desire for gathering places that went beyond lounging. At Potato Head, you can do yoga, join a cardio training session on the beach, listen to live music, view art, eat good food, take a surf lesson, and learn about woodcarving all in one place. Starting in March, the club will also offer lodging. ��(from $130), a hotel designed by the acclaimed Dutch architecture firm OMA, opens this month as part of the creative community��with 168 rooms and a beachfront pool. The stylish spot also has an art gallery, skate park, sustainability lab, recording studio, and underground nightclub. You’ll make it right before the start of peak season in April, when flights and hotel rates surge. For now, ��from New York to Denpasar, a city 30 minutes northeast��from Seminyak, are as low as $730.��

Zion National Park, Utah��

The Campsite You Need to Book Now

Zion National Park opened up reservations for their popular�� (from $20) on February 21. These spots fill up quickly, so book now to secure a site. Located near the park’s south entrance, the 117-site campground is situated along the Virgin River and has easy access to hiking on the Watchman Trail, the Archeology Trail, and the paved Pa’rus Trail, which parallels the river. From camp, you can also easily hop aboard the Zion Canyon Shuttle System, the bus that takes you to other iconic spots around the park.

Mendocino, California��

The Spot to Catch the Whale Migration

In the winter, gray whales migrate south from their feeding grounds in Alaska to mate and have babies in the warmer waters of Baja, Mexico. A mid-way spot along that route? California’s Mendocino Coast, which is such a good place for whale spotting that the area hosts a every March, right around the time the whales are passing through. As part of the��, there’s a bluegrass concert, guided whale walks at Mendocino Headlands State Park, and chowder and microbrew tastings. Stay two nights at the����(from $195) anytime during the month of March, and you’ll score the third night free.

The post The Best Places to Travel to in March 2020 appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

We’ve all been there—you’re huddled onto the crowded summit of a popular peak, at the base of that iconic waterfall, or crammed into a tiny pullout along that scenic road through a well-known national park, and everyone is snapping the same photo. You followed the masses and found yourself a beautiful vista. Well done. Now��wouldn’t you like a little solitude to go with the view? It’s time to get off the beaten path. Here’s where to go.

Austin, Texas

Where the Crowds Are: Congress Avenue Bat Bridge

Over a million Mexican free-tailed bats live under the�� in downtown Austin, and��all summer long, the creatures flock from the bridge around sunset in search of food. It’s quite a sight. But you won’t be alone—hundreds of people gather there, in kayaks on Lady Bird Lake or on the grassy hill alongside the bridge.

Go Here Instead: Old Tunnel State Park

Eighty miles west of Austin is��, home to three million of the same bat species found under the famous bridge. You can watch from two different observation areas while state-park staff give presentations on summer evenings. Get there early to be one of 70 people to score a spot in the lower, close-up viewing area (entry costs $5).

If you’re set on seeing the bats in Austin, do it from the lake:�� hosts kayak bat tours. Or stay at the�� (from $199), across the lake, and watch the bats leaving the bridge from the hotel’s rooftop pool deck.

Seattle, Washington

Where the Crowds Are: Gum Wall at Pike Place Market

You have to know where it is, tucked into a hidden alley downtown underneath Pike Place Market, but once you’re there, you and hordes of other spectators will get a��look at one of the weirdest public art installations ever—a 50-foot-long wall spackled with other��.

Go Here Instead: Olympic Sculpture Park

If outdoor art is what you’re after, skip staring at spit-covered bubble gum and head to the waterfront��. With nine acres, it’s downtown’s largest green space, and it’s��filled with massive works of art. The Seattle Art Museum leads hourlong tours, or you can explore on your own. Plus, the park is��free, open from sunrise to sunset, and easy to find. There’s also��a waterfront path that cuts��through the grounds, a great option��for running or biking.

Glacier National Park, Montana

Where the Crowds Are: Going-to-the-Sun Road

There may be no more scenic route��in America than the 50-mile��. It crosses the Continental Divide through the park, with�� of glaciers, waterfalls, mountain goats, and snowcapped peaks. But midsummer��you’ll be on the clogged roadway with a lineup of tour buses, RVs, and motorcycles.

Go Here Instead: Camas Road

For a panoramic drive through Glacier National Park without the crowds, veer toward�� from West Glacier. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it curves around Huckleberry Mountain (stop for a hike to Huckleberry Lookout), then leaves the park on the dirt North Fork Road toward the off-the-grid community of Polebridge, 13 miles away, following��the banks of the North Fork of the Flathead River. The�� is worth a visit��for huckleberry bear claws.

Maui, Hawaii

Where the Crowds Are: Sunrise at Haleakala National Park

So many�� want to watch the sunrise from the top of the volcano in Haleakala National Park��that the park service started requiring�� to drive up at dawn. It’s a beautiful way to start your day—if you don’t mind a bunch of other cars and Instagrammers alongside you.

Go Here Instead: Wilderness Cabins at Haleakala Crater��

The National Park Service maintains three��rustic backcountry cabins on the Haleakala Crater, accessibly only via trail. You’ll start at 10,023 feet above sea level, atop the volcano, and hike down into the crater, to 7,000 feet, covering roughly four miles to reach the closest of the three cabins or nine miles to the farthest one. You’ll need a�� (from $75 a night), but that’ll guarantee you a bunk in a cabin with minimal crowds.

San Francisco, California

Where the Crowds Are: The Golden Gate Bridge

On a visit to San Francisco, it’s pretty much mandatory that you walk across the��, an iconic 1.7-mile span that connects the city with��Marin County, to the north. But you won’t have the place to yourself. In fact, ten��million people visit the bridge every year

Go Here Instead: Marshall’s Beach

Located within Golden Gate National Park, sandy Marshall’s Beach is adjacent to the bridge on the San Francisco side, so you can still snap a photo of it��shrouded in morning fog—without the mobs of people. To reach the beach, hike a half-mile along the��, where you can spot dolphins��as you descend to the ocean.

Juneau, Alaska��

Where the Crowds Are: Mendenhall Glacier

When massive cruise ships roll into Alaska’s capital city, many passengers disembark and board tour buses bound for , the only glacier��in the state��that can be reached via road. We’re not talking about just a few people—around one million cruise-ship passengers visit Juneau each summer, and the glacier sees around 500,000 visitors annually. (Most stick to the visitor��center, so you can take a walk and avoid the crowds.)

Go Here Instead: Mount Roberts

Juneau is surrounded by mountains covered in lush, green trees and�� that see minimal traffic. Ride the�� ($35 for a round-trip ticket), which departs from downtown and soars through a rainforest to an elevation of 1,800 feet; from here, if you hike a half-mile, you can have��a��view of the Chilkat Mountains to yourself. Or skip the tram entirely and hike the�� that climbs nearly 4,000 vertical feet up the mountain.

Niagara Falls, New York

Where the Crowds Are: Niagara Falls State Park

The oldest state park in America,�� is home to such wonders as American Falls, Bridal Veil Falls, and Horseshoe Falls. It’s also a predictably popular sightseeing spot, especially in the summer, when busloads of tourists show up to gawk��at the nearly 3,160 tons of water flowing over�� every second.

Go Here Instead: Taughannock Falls State Park

Located 150 miles east of Niagara Falls, near Ithaca, 750-acre�� has one standout feature: a�� that’s nearly 50 feet taller than Niagara Falls. Hike the Gorge Trail along Taughannock Creek, which is less than a mile to the base of the falls, or the North Rim Trail for a bird’s-eye view. If you’re set on seeing Niagara Falls, head to the lesser known viewpoint within the park: , accessible via a pedestrian bridge with great panoramas��of American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls.

Aspen, Colorado

Where the Crowds Are: Maroon Bells

Called the most�� peaks in Colorado, the 14,000-foot��, ten��miles west of Aspen, are stunning. Due to midsummer crowds, there’s now a public bus you have to ride midday to reach Maroon Lake (or you can bike there). Most people hike the one-mile round-trip Maroon Lake Scenic Trail, which skirts��the lake at the base of the peaks.

Go Here Instead: Castle Creek Road

For a breathtaking ride��to majestic vistas, drive��or bike the 13-mile, paved Castle Creek Road, which��passes the historic Toklat Lodge and��. The�� is well worth a stop for lunch or dinner on your way, and you’ll have��stellar views of Star Peak and other pinnacles in the Elk Mountain Range.

Acadia National Park, Maine

Where the Crowds Are: Cadillac Mountain

You can drive to the top of 1,533-foot��, the highest point in Acadia National Park. You’ll score a picture-perfect��view of the sunrise as well as��all of Frenchman Bay and Mount Desert Island from there, along with a bunch of other people. Some 400 cars a day drive to the summit with the same idea in mind��and battle for limited parking spots.

Go Here Instead: Sargent Mountain

The second-tallest mountain on Mount Desert Island,��1,373-foot����sees way fewer people and still has amazing views. No roads lead to the summit here, however; you’ll have to hike up either the North or South Ridge Trails or the more difficult Grandgent Trail. Or hire a rock-climbing guide from the��, and they’ll lead you to sheer faces within the park without a soul in sight.

Las Vegas, Nevada

Where the Crowds Are: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

This��, just 17 miles west of the Las Vegas Strip and��run by the Bureau of Land Management, features a gorgeous 13-mile drive through sandstone bluffs and is home to numerous��hiking trails. But the place gets visited by some�� a year.

Go Here Instead: Spring Mountain Ranch State Park

You’ll get similar views at��, five miles south of the Red Rock Canyon visitor��center, but with a fraction of the people. Once a working ranch, this 520-acre park has hiking trails,�� on a grassy meadow, and an old blacksmith shop and cabin that you can tour.

Crater Lake National Park, Oregon

Where the Crowds Are: Crater Lake National Park

Welcome to the deepest lake in the United States and Oregon’s only national park. Of the many visitors who flock to�� each summer, most drive around the lake and visit one of two visitor��centers. Another popular option? Riding bikes along the rolling roadway of��33-mile Rim Drive, which circumnavigates the crater.

Go Here Instead: Paulina Lake

Located outside of Bend, Oregon, 80 miles north of Crater Lake, high-alpine�� was also formed by a crater, but it doesn’t have the cachet of its national-park sibling. You’ll get turquoise waters and trails for��hiking��and mountain biking. Don’t miss the primitive Paulina Lake Hot Springs, tubs alongside the lake’s northeastern shore made of driftwood and filled with geothermal water. Book a cabin (from $126) on the shore��at .

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Imagine tree pose in an aspen forest or pigeon on a white-sand beach, and you’ll immediately understand how being outside in a stunning setting can elevate your yoga practice. That’s why we’ve rounded up some of the best locales around the world for an open-air��yogi��vacation, whether you’re a lifelong practitioner or someone just getting into the game. And they happen to be near some awesome adventure terrain, too.

Aspen, Colorado

Five days a week during summer, you can partake in $5 outdoor yoga sessions��, where you’ll be treated to views of the Elk Mountain Range and blooming wildflowers. Get there by riding the Silver Queen Gondola (lift-ticket prices apply) or hiking a 3.1-mile trail that climbs 3,200 feet to the top. The Aspen Center for Environmental Studies also offers summertime�� for a $10 suggested donation on its 40-acre nature preserve downtown. Or book a suite at�� (from $199), which has yoga classes at the confluence of the Roaring Fork River and Castile Creek.

Santa Fe, New Mexico

��leads guided treks into the Santa Fe National Forest, where you’ll climb to a mountaintop, then set up a temporary, open-air yoga��studio atop a peak for an hourlong guided class. The�� also has regular��yoga classes on its grounds all summer. Stay in a casita at the�� (from $399), set on a 57-acre property just ten��minutes from downtown Santa Fe’s historic plaza. Guests can practice yoga and meditation at an on-site yoga tepee and deck built on a spiritual vortex once identified by a shaman. During winter, the hotel offers yoga outside in the snow.

Beech Mountain, North Carolina

In the winter, Beech Mountain Resort has skiing and snowboarding. But the fun doesn’t stop when the snow melts. One of the main summer draws?�� atop the mountain’s 5,506-foot summit, which takes place every weekend June through September for $12 a person. Stay at the�� (from $300), located 22 miles away near the town of Blowing Rock, and you can take outdoor yoga classes at its��wellness center, with panoramic views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

East Serengeti, Tanzania

has access to a private, 10,000-acre swath��of Tanzania called the��. Most people come for wildlife-spotting expeditions��and guided nature hikes through the savannah. But the camp’s new, specially-built yoga platforms might be worth a visit of their own. Do downward dog and warrior’s pose in the middle of the grasslands��while giraffes and zebras wander in the distance. Teachers lead classes, or you can stretch on your own. From $5,490 for eight days

Homer, Alaska ��

From May through September, guests get delivered to�� via a water taxi or chartered flight. Located at the mouth of a fjord nine miles from the seaside town of Homer, the family-owned, 11-acre property has six guest cabins, a sauna, hot tub, and, you guessed it, a spectacular yoga deck where instructors lead morning sessions overlooking Kachemak Bay as bald eagles soar in the distance. Whip up three-course meals at the lodge’s cooking school in your downtime, or head out to sea kayak or��hike the trails in��. From $5,695 for three nights

Bavarian Alps, Germany

The resort of , nestled in a stunning region of the Bavarian Alps just��60 miles south of Munich, is known for its spa and wellness offerings, including yoga retreats. You can enjoy��daily classes with mountain views in its spacious studio,��or take your child’s pose outside, overlooking a neighboring lake and the sky-scraping peaks. The resort is also home to a��renowned��bookstore and has a concert hall with regular classical-music and jazz performances.��From $566

Austin, Texas

You’ll find outdoor yoga all over the Texas capital.�� is a studio with rooftop yoga and free��hourlong vinyasa classes in��Republic Square Park. Even Whole Foods has rooftop sessions��in partnership with��.�� caps off treks into the surrounding state parks and nature preserves with gentle classes and trailside mindfulness exercises. And the�� (from $205) hosts a free�� outside in an amphitheater on its grassy lawn.

Oahu, Hawaii

(from $269) sits on a North Shore peninsula and has five miles of coastline, 12 miles of beachfront hiking trails,��several outdoor yoga classes each day, and hosts��,��a four-day retreat each spring with top yoga instructors, DJs, and workshops. Or stay at the (from $645), on the island’s west coast, for white-sand beaches and rolling mountain ranges��plus yoga outside at scenic Pohaku Point.

The post The World’s Dreamiest Spots for Outdoor Yoga appeared first on ���ϳԹ��� Online.

Whenever I’m feeling down in the mouth, I get in my car. For the seven years I lived in central Texas, I drove the spaghetti-bowl highways or the ranch roads of the Hill Country. I listened to bad country radio. But if I really needed to get out, to just go, I’d drive west until I was in the desert.

In the late spring of 2015, I had to get out of the house. I felt allergic to everything in Austin: the pollen and dust, the swarms of bugs, my cats, their fleas, my agoraphobic neighbor, my friends. When the class I was scheduled to teach was canceled three days before summer term began, I took it as augury and drove west by myself for eight hours into the Chihuahuan Desert. It wasn’t going to be a long trip, a few days in Marfa on the way to the , where I could only afford to stay a day.

I’m not entirely sure when it happened, but sometime in the early 2010s, I found myself feeling contaminated, overrun by a toxic world. Austin’s population was swelling from half a million to two million people, most of them tech-company transplants; oil from the Deepwater Horizon disaster was spurting into the Gulf; and I seemed to be floating in a perpetual cedar-fevered heat wave.��If I had to identify the point where my interest in cleansing turned obsessive, I’d say it was around the time of the turmeric. For a week or so that April, I drank so much turmeric—turmeric tea, turmeric smoothies—that it dyed my teeth and tongue and countertops bright yellow. One night I spread it all over my face, a homemade turmeric mask that I found on the internet, and my skin was stained��yellow after I washed it off, and my towels and pillowcases and shirt and sink were all left the color of highlighters. My face in the mirror the next morning was still yellow. Turmeric is supposed to be one of those miracle substances. Anti-inflammatory, anticancer, anti-everything.

The desert and the hot springs called to me. They sounded like just the cure for what ailed me, physiological and otherwise.

About 100 miles outside Austin, I realized I had forgotten ice for my cooler. It was 95 degrees. I also needed more water, gallons of it, considering how few places there are to stop on I-10. I pulled into a gas station in Segovia, a Valero that advertised with red stickers on both sides of every surface: “Bakery Inside.”��The whole place was piled with pastries.

I got my water, my ice.��I loaded everything into the cooler. As I slammed the trunk shut, I knew already what I’d done: my keys were in the trunk.

So was my phone.

I went back inside the gas station. The attendant, a kid, let me stand behind the counter with him while he rang up customers who paid zero attention to me. I was a sweaty woman in cutoffs dialing the numbers of every locksmith in the county from a phone book. When the locksmith was “on my way in 45 minutes,”��I abandoned my resolve and immediately bought a pack of cigarettes, a Drumstick ice cream cone, and a few scratch-off lottery tickets for company. I was irritated, and one of these things had to be my solace. The attendant told me that everyone has done this at least once, locked their keys in the car, which is baldly untrue.

In the shade of��a picnic table outside, I watched baby birds nesting in the halogen light posts. I wrote “so far this trip = not as relaxing as hoped” in a small notebook I found in my purse. Eighty-five dollars��later, around 4 P.M., I was back on the road.

I got to after dark. Everything was closed, though the town’s main street looks that way even when everything is open, due to the lasting vision of minimalist artist Donald Judd, who bought half the buildings on the strip and whited out all the windows. Behind some of the blank windows lurk Warhols. I pulled into a��dirt parking lot at the El Cosmico��hotel and campground��and used a noisy wagon to wheel my bags and a stack of books through the otherwise soundless night to my tent. Emily Dickinson’s , Gretel Ehrlich’s . Marcel Proust and Dorothea Lasky. I dropped my belongings and grabbed a��red towel and my bath salts, went directly to the outdoor bathroom, and took a bath staring up at cloudless purple sky. I waited for my mind to catch up with my body, to realize it was no longer hurtling forward at 80, 85, 90 miles an hour. I tried to slow down.

On the edge of Marfa, El Cosmico is a pristine desert getaway that just barely saves itself from cuteness with the absolute apathy of its staff. For the middle of nowhere, it was crowded with road-trippers. I was staying in what’s called a safari tent, which could also be called glamping. It would have been more glamorous if the beautiful white canvas tent didn’t smell like mildew.

I spent two days munching on Cheetos��followed by two nights cooking elaborate vegetarian meals (which, I think, balanced out) in the outdoor kitchen, accompanied by stray cats who ate my tempeh when I wasn’t looking. I was alone, and I could eat what I wanted, when I wanted. This is a freedom that solitude awards me. Sometimes Twizzlers are detoxifying in their own way.

El Cosmico was lovely, and it was dusty. When I arrived at my tent, my sandals left four dust footprints across the wood floor. I promptly put my shoes outside, though it soon became clear that there was no contending with this dust. I woke up the first morning to find a thin layer of grit on the copy of Proust I fell asleep reading, and I could feel sand between my teeth.

Sweating in a hammock, I thought��of the time��I’d just moved into my 1927 duplex in Austin and��decided to scrub its��two old southern porches. I started by sweeping away the dust and cobwebs with a broom. I came back with a wet rag and some cleaning��spray. Soon it became clear that I would need a bucket, because my rag turned black almost instantly.

I tell this story to introduce the fact that I found myself trying to clean the outside. And the moment I realized this, I started to wonder: What, exactly, was so dirty? I’ve never felt the need to clean the rest of the outside—the lawn, the fence, the sidewalk, the driveway, trees, grass. Not once. Where does it stop? Where can it stop? This is another way of asking that question ecologists always bring up about throwing things away: What is “away”? There is no away, they intone. Where did I plan to put all this dirt, where do we plan to put all our toxins once we’ve released them from our bodies and things and spaces and cordoned off everything that touches us from further contamination? I felt like Danny Tanner, vacuuming his vacuum cleaner.

Cleaning is a way to keep things under control. The power of dirt, the chaos of clutter, is, for many people, the source of a basic fear that governs behavior. At some point��it occurred to me that I may have left town simply to get away from my stuff. My house and its many reminders of my identity, my past selves. My messes.

My first hot day in Marfa, every single visitor wound up at Balmorhea, a swimming hole a short drive away. Its sign boasts that it’s “the world’s largest natural spring fed swimming pool.” While I lounged in the pool on several $5 Styrofoam noodles, I heard each new person show up at water’s edge and ask if this was��the natural spring. Seeing the concrete ledges, they wanted to know what parts of it were, in fact, natural. The woman who sold me the noodles assured every visitor that the spring’s bottom would be “actual earth.” Now, before getting in, they wanted to make sure this earth was also natural.

As I paddled along, I was beginning to realize that Marfa, this tiny nowhere town, was still too busy, too full for me. I was overcome by the desire to get further out.

For the rest of the afternoon, I escaped the sun and the heat of my tent to bask in the air-conditioning of the Marfa public library. In a book called Taking the Waters in Texas, I read, “Today’s resorts are most associated with leisure and recreation. The term, however, also implies a place where one turns for help, a final solution. One ‘resorted’ to the waters when all else failed.” As I drove the stretch of Highway��67 to Chinati��Hot Springs, I wondered what I was trying to solve, why I had resorted to this.

I drove two and a half hours toward the Mexican border from Marfa to a bright green valley carved in rock between mountain ranges, home to��the mineral waters of Chinati��Hot Springs. No other cars passed me on the drive. Eventually, I was on a rocky gravel road with no signs or lines, and I stayed on this road for over an hour. My phone had no signal, I had no map to check. I had nothing to do but keep driving. It occurred to me, in my semidelirium—and I semideliriously recorded it as a voice memo into my phone, which I could find no trace of later—that this is what the desert helps me remember: I am at once completely alone, completely vulnerable to this waterless terrain, and totally empowered, sufficient within it. I have several gallon jugs of water, I have air-conditioning. I am an anomaly.

Finally, spotting a hand-painted tile sign from some other era marked with an arrow, I pulled through the open gate and parked my car. When I walked into the office, Mattie, the caretaker, asked me��if I had come��by myself. “You didn’t even bring a dog?” she said, looking��baffled. I smiled broadly. Already my feelings were swelling in the air out there, making me suddenly certain I’d been headed there all my life.

The very first thing I did was take a dip in the hilltop pool, which used to be a cabin but��is now flooded with 22,000-year-old water,��water that has never emerged from the ground to be recharged, that was surfacing for the first time as I floated in it. I soaked��beside Tony, who Mattie said had been living in the pool all day. We were the only people out there—the springs still require a pilgrimage only a few of us choose to make. The isolation made the place feel even more special, cleansing, soul reviving. Later in the evening we were joined at the campfire by John, a living,��breathing, swearing cowboy who’d been out on the range for 25 days and needed to sleep in a bed. John said that the water, which I learned is chock-full of lithium, had saved his life:��“If it wasn’t for that water, me and Charlie woulda shot each other.”

Tony took me for a drive in his truck to the Pinto Canyon road. As I rode through the valley, along the ridge, the sun set behind us, and everything looked completely different by the minute. Quickly, it became clear how completely alone we were. A thunderhead sat on the horizon, behind mountains, but never moved closer or further away. Mexico was visible at all times. The fires whose smoke I had��breathed��in Austin the year before had burned out here, all along the border. Mattie told me you could see them��from the pool.

In the desert, the air sucks all the moisture from your body. I��barely felt��myself sweating in the hundred-degree day, with the sun more powerful than any I’d previously experienced. Sunscreen has zero effect. The only protections are long sleeves, long pants, large hats, and shade. Everything evaporates instantly. Skin has no way to resist this environment. It’s too soft and too moist to withstand, so it quickly dries, hardens, thickens. There is something deeply satisfying to me about this discomfort, this feeling of being sucked dry by the very air.

The water at Chinati felt oddly charged. I took my first hot bath before bed, around 12:30, under the stars in my own private horse trough��fed by the hot springs. All my skin tingled.

At the hot springs, I did nothing. I decided to stay an extra night, unplanned. I didn’t have to worry about whether or not my debit card would support this decision until checkout. I was so far from the push and pull of my daily life that I forgot to call Adeena, who was watching my cats. When I reached her that evening, she was panicked. She had called El Cosmico and found out I had checked out yesterday, then she called the hot springs but��no one answered. I told her on the phone that everything just fell away. That I forgot. I spent an entire day moving from one tub to the next, up and down the hill. I read and wrote some notes, but mostly I stood or sat in water that is heated geothermally, a heat that is old and constant. I floated the way Tony taught me, with my heels hooked to the edge of the pool, my body utterly still, my eyes closed, keeping my nostrils above water by breathing in a very shallow range, my body rising above the surface as I inhaled, sinking to the tip of my nose as I exhaled. I could not remember the last time I did this little. I took the waters. I allowed them to permeate my skin, my sunburn, my bee stings and bug bites. I soaked. Marinated, even. Incubated. In my head I tried to describe the perfect temperature of this water. All I could come up with is that it felt like submerging my body in my body.

I kept coming back to the description I’d heard in a yoga class of tapas, deep meditation��achieved through asceticism or hermitism or just plain isolation. Its��Sanskrit root is the word for heat; Iyengar interprets it as “to blaze, burn, shine, suffer pain or consume by heat. It therefore means a burning effort under all circumstances to achieve a definite goal in life. It involves purification, self-discipline and austerity.” Like the Greek root for pure, pyr/pur, which means fire, it corresponds to the earliest, most fundamental way to cleanse: heat. The way the teacher described it, tapas can be any kind of suffering that leads to a release, a relinquishing, a ridding of residues that are referred to in yoga classes as all that which does not serve you—be it physical pain or irritation;��emotions like anger, fear, or sadness;��or toxic buildup from an unclean diet or lifestyle. Tapas is the burning you feel in your muscles, the discomfort of sitting still with your own thoughts and feelings, and if you endure it, you will be relieved of what ails you. You can burn yourself clean. Dry yourself out. In this way, yoga—but any especially thoughtful exercise, really—can be seen as asceticism turned inward. The actionlessness of tapas is one of the most important aspects.

Detoxification of all kinds is a framing process, a ritual with a clear beginning and end, a sense of completeness to the removal, the desire for which derives from our basic fear of indefinite, indeterminate states, like dirty dishes. Cleansing, then, is spending time in this in between, abiding through the transition. Submerging yourself in it to await transformation or rebooting. It was only weeks after my trip that I could look back and see myself in the murk and mire of major change, within which—within the desert—I never know how close or far I am from the edge until I reach it.

Back from the springs the following week, drinking detox tea I’d bought in Marfa, anise and cardamom, while the Roomba hummed and vacuumed my three-room house in incomprehensible patterns, I still thought about the water. I missed it intensely. I brought as much as I could back home with me, to give to friends as a cure-all. They laughed with me about the lithium content that keeps everyone out there so happy, but I wasn’t kidding. I went to McCoy’s Building Supply and bought myself a steel horse trough, what would amount to a failed attempt to recreate the springs in my backyard. It soon became a mosquito habitat. Like before, I busied myself with cures and remedies and destinations and projects, but I was starting to learn that I really just needed to sit still.

Cleansing is an unfolding, an allowing to unfold. To become clean is to slip into a state of stillness, actionlessness. I was rubbing handfuls of aloe all over my body. I was trying to prevent scarring. I tried to salve my heart through my very skin. Do we pray in times of need because it, too, takes us out of the realm of swift, decisive action and reaction, requires that we stay in one place for a moment, find stillness?

The hot springs are far from everything. The nearest store is a gas station at least an hour’s drive away. There’s no cell-phone service, no internet. I’ve never been someplace so isolated. When I called to book my stay, I informed Dianna, the owner, that I’d be coming alone. I asked if I should be worried about safety. “Oh honey,” she said, “not out here.” We allow ourselves to forget this simple fact, that our bodies are susceptible to everything that surrounds them, but such awareness is always available in moments of stillness. In removal, pause, there is time for heat deep below the surface to remake what’s already there.

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Howler Brothers clothing honors the soul, passion, and timeless style of water sports with updated modern design influences taken from waves, water, geography, fashion, and art. Their clothing performs well and looks great too. Here are some of our favorite pieces.��

Kameron Hoody ($95)

Featuring a marled cotton blend fleece with a smooth outer and fuzzy interior and a durable cotton/nylon blend at hood and yoke, ��has the potential to become your new favorite hoody. Handwarmer pockets in the front and a zippered stash pocket in the lower back are utilitarian, which drawstrings and leather cord stoppers add a touch of style.

Harker's Flannel ($89)

It's hard to improve the classic flannel, and the best part about ��is that it doesn't try to be something it's not. It fits and feels like your favorite fall layer, just with a few unique style touches like diagonal stripes, handwarmer pockets, and custom metal buttons.

Rounder Vest ($135)

Although it takes its cues from classic western styles, ��uses modern materials like water-resistant rip-stop outer shell fabric to resists tears and abrasions and repels water, custom snap hardware, and lightweight Primaloft One insulation.

Roadrunner Shell ($125)

Most shells ���ϳԹ��� reviews are highly technical and look great when you're in the mountains, but not so good as a casual layer. ��bucks this trend. It's a well-styled shirt jacket cut from a sturdy cotton chambray with a durable water-repellent coating and loads of pockets.

Howler Brothers Snapback ($30)

A bit larger than a standard mesh back hat, ��features a taller crown with a snapback closure, a pliable flat brim with glare-cutting navy underneath, and rooster patch on the front.

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