As the cold settles in, we’re thinking about those places we know will have sun, blue skies, warm turquoise waters, and amazing adventures all winter long. Start dreaming and maybe scheming. We’ve made it easy for you by choosing the top 10 places to go, along with the best things to do there. See you on the beach.

Hike Coast-to-Coast in Costa Rica

Since Costa Rica became the spokesmodel for ecotourism in the 1990s, its natural treasures—the cloud forests of Monte Verde, the gently active Arenal volcano—have attracted millions of visitors every year. But you can still escape the crowds. a 174-mile trail stretching between the Caribbean and the Pacific, was completed in 2018 and showcases largely untrodden parts of the country, like the coffee-growing region of Tarrazú and the Indigenous territory of Nairi Awari.

Funded by the nonprofit Mar a Mar Association, the 16-stage route spans four provinces and half a dozen or more microclimates; borders protected areas; and passes through remote villages, Native lands, and more than 20 towns that receive little benefit from conventional tourism. Trekkers can eat with locals in their homes and sleep in family-run lodges, campsites, or boutique hotels set on farms with hot springs.

Expect to hike between four and twenty-four miles per stage, cross rivers, and do plenty of up and down—more than 70 percent of the route is hilly, with a peak elevation of upward of 19,000 feet. If you push the pace, you can complete the whole thing in 11 days. But if time permits, allot 16 days so you can tack on experiences like whitewater rafting the Pacuare River or visiting the Pacuare Nature Reserve’s turtle hatchery.

You could technically go it alone, but given the trail’s isolation, a guide is advisable. Five local outfitters, including Urri Trek and Ticos a Pata, operate group and individual trips, and their naturalist guides will school you in the unique flora and fauna, like purple tibouchina flowers, massive guanacaste trees, glasswing butterflies, and broad-billed hummingbirds. —Jen Murphy

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On November 25, 2019, Chris Carney and his two-man��crew,��Pete Brown��and Jun “Sumi” Sumiyama, set off from Japan on their way to Hawaii in a 42-foot sailboat, the Coco-Haz III.��They had four weeks to cross the world’s largest ocean. The boat’s owner, a retired Japanese dentist, needed the trip done in a hurry—he’d lose a boat slip he’d rented if it��didn’t arrive in time. Carney didn’t think they��would make it on schedule, even if everything went right. But things went far worse than he imagined when two catastrophes left them stranded in the middle of the sea.

Here is Carney’s story, as told to ���ϳԹ���.

It was morning when it happened. I got��my raingear on and went��up on the deck to��make some changes to our course. I stuck my head up, and I couldn’t believe it—the mast was gone.

One of the shrouds that connected it to the ship just broke, I guess from metal fatigue. I’ve been sailing most of my life, and not only has this never happened on any boat I’ve been on, but I don’t know anybody else who’s had this happen to them, the mast just snapping like that.

It was December 19, and we were about a thousand miles from Oahu, Hawaii. We had lots of fuel, so we thought we could just motor in. The next day, a storm hit us. The seas were at 10 to 13 feet, nothing too dangerous. But as soon as night fell, there was one wave that went by, and we all looked at each other thinking, Whoa, that was a big one.

The next wave��didn’t just roll us, it picked us up and threw us. We landed upside down in the sea.

It was incredibly violent. What they show on TV, when the camera goes up and down and things are falling? It doesn’t do it justice. Stuff was flying everywhere. The battery came blasting out of the engine compartment and shot through the cabin like a rocket. We got thrown around pretty good, and we were all bruised and cut. Sumi hit his head. We didn’t know how bad it was until later.

The three of us were standing on the ceiling, and the water was coming in fast. At first it was��shin-deep, and then it came up to our knees. In no time��it was at��our thighs. The hatch was up in the front, underwater. I kept picturing what that would be like, opening that hatch and coming out on the surface during a storm. We would be in the middle of the ocean with nothing.

I was sure that this was��where we were going to die, right here in this storm, in this water. I was thinking, God, this boat’s got to right itself. Sailboats are designed to flip back over if they roll, but you never know what’s going to happen��at sea.

Finally, it did roll. But even though the boat was upright, we were waist-deep in water, with the storm sending in more every time a wave broke over us. The engine was flooded. Most of our fuel went into the ocean. We lost our navigation, all our electronics, nearly all of our fresh water—everything. We were dead in the water and adrift.

We did our best to bail. The waves were slamming into us, and��the hull started to crack. If we had a breach, the boat was going to sink in about 30 seconds.

The storm didn’t break, and it was miserable. We were cold, and everything was wet. No dry clothes, no dry beds. We went on starvation rations, like five almonds per day. By rationing what little water and food we had left, we thought we could make it maybe 40 or 50 days. I had never seriously faced my mortality before. Everyone knows they’re��going to die. But they don’t think that they are going die in 50 days.

The storm finally broke after 36 hours. We estimated that we had about 700 miles to go, so we rigged up a makeshift sail from the boat’s Bimini top, kind of like a convertible top for a car. With that, we could make one or two knots, but if the current is one or two knots against you, you’re not going anywhere.

At that point, our biggest issue was morale. Each of us was entertaining our worst fears. Sumi kind of withdrew. He had a severe concussion, and he was sleeping 18 hours a day. He became very silent.��Pete, who’s��from Tennessee, kept coming up with these songs on the banjo. They were pretty morose. He was singing about how he’d never see his family again��and how the sea was going to get him.

I gave us about a 10 percent chance. Pete was giving us much less. We had a compass��but no maps and only a moderate indication of where we might be.��Dead reckoning is a sketchy way to navigate;��it’s just guessing the direction you’re going and how fast you’re traveling, but that’s what we did. The wind rarely shifts in that part of the ocean, so we used little ribbons tied around the boat to see where it was coming from. At night��we relied on the feel of the wind on our cheeks. We thought we were at about 24 degrees north latitude when the rogue wave hit, so I figured that if we got down to 21 degrees, we might end up in the shipping lanes.

During the days, our time was occupied by tinkering with things. One guy would be driving, one guy who had been on watch the night before would be napping, and the other would be tinkering. Nothing we did could get that engine working. The satellite phone was wet, so we put it in rice at first and then dried it��in the sun. To no avail. It never did get working.

Out of the 15 or so flashlights we had on board, only one was fully waterproof, so it was the only one that survived. At night��you could use the moon and the stars to navigate. But occasionally��you’d have to look at the compass. So that flashlight was key.

One night��Pete fumbled for the flashlight and knocked it into��the ocean. It was floating in the water, and we were heading away from it. Pete jumped in and swam. He was getting pretty far away from the boat. When he found it, he put it in his mouth, but the light was facing him, blinding him. He couldn’t see to swim back. I tried to wake up Sumi so I could go in and help, but he was in a trance, still concussed. I was screaming to Pete:��“Swim to my voice!” I was thinking I’d have to turn the boat around and go back for him. But he swam hard and made it. His tooth was chipped from biting down on that flashlight.

Two days later, we finally had some luck. The wind magically started coming from behind us, and we made headway. Each day��I would wake up and think, This a beautiful day to get rescued.

By day nine, we were feeling pretty good, and we were all inside trying to figure out how much drinking water was left. I started thinking we had spent too much time inside, and I popped my head up, and there was a freaking ship—right there, just a half-mile away.��We sent up rockets and smoke bombs��and stood on the deck screaming and waving. But it didn’t see us��and just passed by.

Pete was supposed to have been��up on deck at that moment. He felt pretty bad after that. He’s normally not a potty mouth, but he started swearing, saying, “This is a fucking shitshow.” It was the first ship we’d seen in three weeks, and it just went right by us.

But at least we knew that we were in a shipping lane. That gave us some hope.

Sumi started to feel better. His hand and head were both numb, and he was still concussed. But he was sleeping less and more upbeat. He was driving the next day when we saw a second ship.

It was a container ship called Nobility. It was a long way off. So��we ripped the mirrors from the bathroom and used them to reflect the sun to signal the ship. For the longest time, it didn’t see us. We thought it might just pass us by, like the last one. Luckily, it eventually changed course, slowed way down, and blew its horn.

This was December��29. The Coast Guard had been searching since��the 24th and was��going to cancel the search on the 30th. The Nobility was headed to Korea. It took the Coast Guard about four hours to find the Kalamazoo, a Good Samaritan vessel that could bring us to Hawaii instead. It came up alongside us. They threw ropes down and tied us up.

I was reluctant to leave. I had never abandoned a boat in the middle of the ocean. You know how they say captains should go down with the ship? There’s an element of shame attached to not completing your voyage.

If I thought there was a 10 percent chance that we could find Hawaii, I probably would have said, “Let’s just take some water and we’ll be on our way.” Pete felt the same. He said, “Our mission is a failure.” But if we died out there, then our mission would have definitely been��a failure.

We climbed on the Kalamazoo at sunset. The first thing they gave us was some steak and potatoes, which was their Sunday meal. As we ate, we laughed about our twist of fate. Just a day before, we were pretty sure we were not going to make it.

If someone finds themselves in the same spot I was in, I would say to use your noggin. Make your best guess. Say, “This is our plan, and let’s stick to it.” That’s��what we did. After ten days, we were only eight miles off our guess of where we were.

While we were lost, I thought about how much I love my family. I’ve got a two-year-old son and a girlfriend in the Philippines. Thankfully, he will never have to say, “I never knew my father. He died when I was two, lost at sea.” Now I’ve got a chance to watch him grow up. I cherish the time that I have to spend with them. Maybe I took them for granted before? I don’t know.

My girlfriend has said she wasn’t worried. She said, “You promised me you’d come back.” Isn’t that what everybody says?

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Shaped By the Ocean, from and , profiles 18-year-old surfer Eduardo Alciso, who is trying to make a name for himself in the world of surfing while putting food on the table for his family.

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In our ongoing Weekly Escape series, we aim to transport you from your desk to an incredible place. This week: Siargao, Philippines. Filmmaker��Colin Sygiel travels the world licensing aerial footage, and this was his first drone video while based in Siargao. Find out more about his��aireel project and follow him on��Vimeo .

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Overcoming a natural or man-made disaster isn’t something most of us plan for when we book a trip. But being prepared for just about any scenario (from hurricanes to riots) can not only save your vacation—it might just save your life. How five ordinary travelers fared in five extreme situations:

Survivors celebrate being rescued from the collapsed PGG-Wrightson in central Christchurch, New Zealand after a 6.3 earthquake on February 22, 2011.

A chalkboard in Boracay, Philippines, shortly after the passing of Super Typhoon Haiyan.

Earthquake

When Lara Giles met a friend for lunch on February 22, 2011, they hadn’t even made it to the Christchurch restaurant before the ground started to shake. Giles, who was visiting New Zealand from Great Britain, was unfamiliar with earthquake safety precautions and started to run. She was intercepted by a local who ordered her into a doorway and told her to “drop, cover, and hold” to shelter herself from crashing debris.

When the quaking stopped, Giles said she had no idea what to do next. “It looked as if a bomb had been detonated,” she says. “The apartment block next to where we were standing had collapsed.” Mobile phone circuits were overwhelmed and she had no way of reaching her nine-year-old daughter who was with family in the city’s outskirts.

Staying Safe
In hindsight, Giles should have stored nonperishable food and water in her rental car. “We didn’t have much in our motel, and the tap water was contaminated,” she says. Giles, who was visiting Christchurch with the thought of emigrating but opted for shake-free Brisbane,��Austrailia, instead, has since made a few changes to the way she travels. She now keeps essentials, such as travel documents, phone numbers, car keys, and emergency money on hand, and she’s buffed up on her first aid skills. She and her family also have also discussed how to find each other if they ever lose communication.

Super Typhoon

A super typhoon was the last thing��Hamden, Connecticut, author Norm��Schriever��expected when he arrived in the remote beach community of��Boracay��in October 2013. The Philippines (unlike other regions) doesn’t have a predictable cyclone season, so when��Schriever��noticed storm comments on social media, he began tracking the weather obsessively. “The numbers were impossible–300-kilometer-per-hour winds and 25-foot seas,” he says.��Schriever��says when the storm, named��Haiyan, became imminent he tried to catch a ferry off the island, but there were hundreds of people at the terminal ahead of him. Then the Coast Guard suspended the rest of the sailings.��

Staying Safe
A savvy traveler,��Schriever��prepares for every trip by emailing himself vital information such as pin numbers, medical insurance, and passport information, which allows him to access the information from anywhere. He also carries a backpack of essentials and makes a point of knowing where the hospital, police department, and local storm shelters are. With the storm approaching, he charged his electronics, wrote an update for friends and family, and headed to the ATM to take out as much cash as possible. Then he stocked up on water, food, flashlights, toiletries, lighters, and candles—as well as rum and cigarettes to use for trading—and hunkered down in his third floor apartment.

��Schriever��says he was one of the only foreigners with a local SIM card who could get internet on his phone. “So I started posting updates about the condition of the island, and trying to connect people here with their loved ones abroad, to let them know they were safe and OK,” he says.��

Street Protest

The Gifford family, from Bainbridge Island, Washington, was five years into an idyllic round-the-world sailing trip when they arrived in Thailand. Not long after Christmas,��Behan��Gifford started to hear rumblings about political protests and street violence in Bangkok. She was unable to gather local news due to the language barrier and unreliable internet, so she enlisted a politically savvy friend back home to send daily updates. The��Giffords��also started talking to local people. “We’d ask��tuktuk��drivers, the lady we bought vegetables from, and whoever we could share enough language with: What do you think about the situation? Do you think it could turn violent?”

Staying Safe
As the unrest grows, the Gifford family—who is still in Thailand—has��strengthened ties to locals. “Be known, be friendly,”��Behan��says. “If you're in need of warning, someone who you've shown kindness will probably return the same.” The��Giffords��also steer clear of areas with political activity and decided on a multi-level exit strategy, from carrying a��phrasebook��and paper street map so they can navigate away from protests, to ducking into shops and alleys if the situation seems dangerous. They even have a plan for getting out of the country. “We’re fortunate that Malaysia is only a few days sail away.” They’re also paying closer attention to the U.S. Embassy’s advice, which encourages visitors to plan ahead by keeping a week's supply of cash, a full charge on mobile devices, and stocking a two-week supply of essentials such as food, water, and medicine.

Wildfire

While hundreds of campers were recently evacuated from fires on��Stradbroke��Island in Queensland, Australia, local Liza Armstrong recalled her family’s own brush with wildfire a year earlier. The��Armstrongs��had ventured to Tasmania for a two-week holiday, when “we listened to the radio and discovered the place we were meant to go was blocked by fire,” she says. Not ready to abandon her holiday, Armstrong began looking for a safe alternative. The family set off for the new destination, keeping their headlights on through the smoke and monitoring conditions as they traveled.��

Staying Safe
Australia’s normal bush fire season lasts four to six months and can be extended by a month or two either side during periods of drought—making fire a fact of life in the steamy country. Bruno��Greimel, from Rural Fire Service Queensland, says this means travelers should store safety gear in their cars (water, food, heavy clothes) and keep themselves informed. Dozens of fires can be burning at any one time, and��grassfires��can spread quickly and jump highways.”��Greimel��says visitors should also make themselves aware of fire bans that can restrict the use of barbecues and campfires.

Polar Vortex

When Taylor Kennedy started his journey from his home in Victoria, British Columbia, to a photo seminar in Washington, D.C., he thought the early January weather might be a problem and checked in with his airline. Reassured that “all was clear,” he set off on the first leg to Calgary, Alberta, only to arrive and find the next flight was delayed. “Then at 1 a.m., it was��cancelled,” he says.

Even before retrieving his checked bags, Kennedy started looking for a hotel. “I called a few and went back to the first one, which had a price of $110 two minutes before, but was now $169.” Kennedy, who ended up stranded for two days in frigid Calgary, was grateful he had adequate warm clothes. But other travelers he met didn’t: “One girl was going to the Philippines and didn’t have a jacket or warm shoes.”

Staying Safe
Disrupted air travel isn’t the only way travelers are caught off guard in record cold. Drivers often discover their cars aren’t adequately winterized, and in some cases don’t start. During winter months, car owners should keep the gas tank half full, change the oil, and check the tires and battery. An emergency kit, ice scraper, tire chains, jumper cables, and warm clothes should be stashed in the trunk, along with matches, bottled water, and snacks.

Apps for Safer Travel

• ��from the U.S. Department of State is a free app that provides country information, travel alerts, travel warnings, maps, and U.S. embassy locations.
• ��gives information on how to find the closest embassy; the information is stored on your device in case you don’t have a connection.
• ��is just one of many apps created by a travel insurance company. Not only does it help you locate your policy details, it provides destination-specific information including language, laws, customs, and travel alerts.
• ��rather than having to remember the 911 equivalent number for every country, this app does it for you.
• ��provides an app that will help you prepare for and survive any disaster, from tornados to earthquakes.
• ��has a “Follow-Me” feature that shares your location with a select group of contacts if you’re concerned for your safety. It also has an SOS button that sends a panic alert with a link to your location.
• To keep your devices charged (while monitoring the radio and providing emergency light) throw an����in your bag. The little device is powered by both a hand crank and solar panel.

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The 5 Best Christmas Celebrations ���ϳԹ��� the United States

When you’re spending Christmas abroad, it’s hard not to yearn for��the little traditions of home, from the way the family exchanges presents to the obnoxious songs on the radio. Instead of being lonely, though, think of your time away as a chance to bask in the yuletide traditions of other cultures. The folks in these five foreign destinations put stateside celebrations to shame, whether with the light shows they put on display, the parties they hold in the streets, or the free concerts they perform in their ancient churches.

• San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
  
• Bethlehem, West Bank
• Manila, Philippines
• Lapland, Finland
• Florence, Italy

Christmas Destinations: San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

Just about any time of year is perfect for visiting San Miguel de Allende, a colonial-era mountain town in Mexico’s belly button. But show up in December, and you’ll be treated to a month-long Christmas party. The celebrations begin in full on December 16, with a giant procession through town. Fireworks and live bands enliven the events, which center around the plant-filled main square, called the jardin. Because everything closes down on Christmas Eve and Christmas day, book a room at a downtown inn, like the 18th-century villa , to celebrate with other travelers (rates start at $150 a night).

SIDE ADVENTURE: The locally owned bike shop Bici Burro in town rents bikes and offers laid-back mountain bike tours of the surrounding villages and mountain peaks. One of it’s best rides takes you through oak forests in the on old, winding mining roads (tours start at $30).

Christmas Destinations: Bethlehem, West Bank

Remember that one Christmas story about the three guys bringing gifts to a baby in a manger? In Bethlehem, you can go back to where it started. The narrow streets of this ancient hillside city are packed and crazy during the holiday season, but that’s the point. Travel back through time in the Old City to observe midnight mass on Christmas Eve in Manger Square, or cram into the Church of the Nativity, built by the Romans roughly 1,700 years ago.

SIDE ADVENTURE: Bethlehem’s significance in history dates well before the baby Jesus, as you’ll see if you go south of town to hike around . These stone reservoirs received biblical mention and supplied water to Jerusalem nearly 3,000 years ago. An afternoon’s hike will take you around the pools, past the Ottoman garrison Murad Castle, and into the surprisingly verdant, inviting town of Artas. The pools are accessible by taxi.

Christmas Destinations: Manila, Philippines

As one of the few largely Christian cities in Asia, Manila knows how to put on Christmas with style, mixing faith with festiveness—and lots and lots of colored lights. The people who live here take full advantage of the holiday season, which they call Paskong Pinoy, with decorations going up as early as September. People in the city begin religious observations of Christmas on December 16, by attending pre-dawn mass, and don’t stop until January. Take a ride down Policarpio Street, lined with light-festooned mansions. Check out the creepy but amazing moving Christmas Show mannequins at the mammoth . And walk through the living Nutcracker display at the .��

SIDE ADVENTURE: Visit the in Cubao and pig out on fresh seafood, cooked to order. The market stays open until 11 p.m..

Christmas Destinations: Lapland, Finland

Instead of hoping for Santa to find you while you’re overseas for Christmas, you can always find him instead by heading north of the Arctic Circle. Rovaniemi, the capital of the snowbound Lapland region of Finland, claims to be the home of the Jolly Old Elf. You can meet him at just north of town, where you can take a dogsled ride, go to the reindeer farm, and walk into the underground, indoor theme park to hop on a magic sleigh ride.��

SIDE ADVENTURE: The snow base is always deep at , one of Europe’s best under-the-radar ski resorts. Though you wouldn’t go to northern Finland just to snowboard or ski this resort—unless you’re competing in one of the World Cup events held annually here—it’s worth a day’s detour to tackle the expert trails on the 800-foot-vertical slopes of the mountain’s north face.

Christmas Destinations: Florence, Italy

Let the crowds pack into Rome and the Vatican on December 25. Instead of joining them, head to Florence, where you’ll be one of the few tourists there to enjoy the festivities. The city erects Christmas markets in the main plazas where you can buy ornaments or taste Italian holiday treats from the bakery stalls. Each church in town painstakingly creates a nativity scene, all worth admiring, and most put on impressive free Christmas concerts. Maybe the greatest tradition in town is sipping a cup of otherworldly (and insanely expensive) Florentine hot chocolate at in the Piazza della Signora.

SIDE ADVENTURE: Every winter the city creates the on the right bank of the Arno River, a cold-weather wonderland complete with a skating rink and a 200-foot-long slope for skiing, snowboarding, and tubing. It may not measure up to the big mountains of the Alps, but on the plus side, the park is surrounded by bars and cafes.

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Salvation Comes at a Price

Survival

Hefty bills: the scary new trend in rescues
On a warm morning this past April, Scott Mason set off on what was supposed to be a day hike on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington. The 17-year-old Eagle Scout packed a bivy sack and some extra clothes and consulted Forest Service rangers about his route. But well into the hike, he sprained his ankle, opted for a shortcut back to the trailhead on a path that was covered in snow, wandered off track, and promptly got lost. He spent three nights out before a rescue team found him.

It was all fairly typical, until Mason got a bill from the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game: $25,000, the largest such tab in state history.

New Hampshire is one of eight states that charge for rescues, and in June legislators had eliminated a cap of $10,000 while also requiring only that a person had demonstrated “negligence.” Mason’s shortcut had apparently outweighed the fact that, once lost, he’d done everything right, from sleeping in a rock crevice to starting a fire by igniting hand sanitizer. According to Howard Paul, public-information officer at the National Association for Search and Rescue, such laws are increasingly popular, as is enforcement, which has historically been lax. Oregon, California, Hawaii, Maine, Colorado, Idaho, and Vermont also look to charge the rescued in certain situations, despite strong opposition from the SAR community. Charley Shimanski, president of the Mountain Rescue Association, argues that the fear of a bill means “people are less likely to call for help sooner or at all.” The likely results: delayed rescue, more serious injury, and a more complicated overall operation.

Your best way to avoid an SAR tab? Don’t do anything that might get you labeled as negligent, like straying from designated trails or packing inadequate supplies, since it’s the key factor in most states. But if you do get into trouble, don’t hesitate to call for help; most states have low maximum charges (Colorado’s is $300). And if you get a bill, it’s probably best to just pay it, as legal fees would likely be higher. The exception, of course, is New Hampshire, where, at press time, Mason was still fighting an uphill legal battle to reduce his payment. “Other states have a system for calculating the cost,” says Jim Moss, a Colorado-based attorney who specializes in recreational law, “but in New Hampshire, the way they decide how much someone owes is extremely arbitrary.”

The New Rules: Don’t Go Paperless

A shiny document (and a smile) can change minds.

In the fall of 2008, I joined a team of six whitewater kayakers on an expedition down the Lower Congo River. The National Geographic Society, which was filming and sponsoring the descent, gave each of us a copy of a three-paragraph letter from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s minister of public information. Basically, it read, “We’re here on official government business.” I had zero faith in its value, but I packed it with my toothbrush.

Eight days into the trip, two soldiers with AK-47’s made us lie facedown on a beach while villagers rifled through our bags. After 30 minutes, our expedition leader, Trip Jennings, was finally able to hand over his letter. When it was read aloud, the soldiers laughed then took $50 and a pair of socks and let us go.

Turns out simple documents can go a long way in many developing countries. According to Jennings, a veteran international adventurer, the idea is to convey that you have connections to important people. If you’re on a focused trip, like a serious expedition or research project, you want authentic letters from government (or maybe rebel) leaders. Contact the country’s consulate in the States and they’ll usually direct you to the appropriate official. The ideal document is written on letterhead and clearly outlines who you are and what you’re doing.

Even if you’re just traveling in a rough area, a confidently presented document can get you out of jam and it doesn’t have to be real. “Any official-looking scrap of paper works fine,” says contributing editor Patrick Symmes, who’s reported stories in crisis areas around the world and once dodged a potential hostage situation in Colombia by showing an illiterate guerrilla guard a photocopy of his passport. Veteran war correspondent Scott Anderson sometimes packs a “to whom it may concern” letter. “They come in handy with low-level officials who might be impressed by gold lettering,” he says. The trick is to give the documents gravitas heavy paper adorned with your picture, a stamp or seal, and a fancy signature and know when and how to wield them. Anderson would present them with levity in sub-Saharan Africa, where, he thinks, it’s best to treat confrontations like funny mishaps. “Understanding the culture is the key to making shiny documents work,” he says.

The New Rules: Know When to Say When

It's better to bail out than to pass away.

Team Calleva was exhausted. The four professional American adventure racers were trekking down a cliffside Chilean beach near Cape Froward, the southernmost point on the South American mainland. Ahead, the sheer cliffs met the water, blocking their way. Somewhere beyond was the finish line of the 2009 Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race. After attempts to call in a rescue failed, they stared at the 50-degree waves of the Strait of Magellan and made a rash decision: They would try to swim around the cliffs.

“It almost killed us,” says Druce Finlay, 30. The rough waters turned them back after ten minutes. “We got out and shivered all night. I couldn’t dress myself or operate my hands.”

That a team of talented professionals made such an irrational, life-threatening choice underscores just how easy it can be to let fatigue and a “save yourself” mentality lead you down a perilous path. In the ten days leading up to their ill-advised swim, Calleva had been moving almost nonstop through the notoriously brutal stages of the Wenger, sea-kayaking, mountain-biking, and trekking some 365 total miles in terrible conditions. They’d portaged kayaks 12 miles through a bog, been hammered by a snowstorm while camped on a ridgeline, and wandered drastically off-course in the dark. They ended up on the beach after opting for a misguided shortcut over a prohibited mountain pass, during which they ran out of food and took to eating berries and scavenging their trash.

Like all nine teams in the event, Calleva carried flares, a satellite phone, and a SpotMessenger, a handheld unit that can send messages indicating your location and that you’reOK or need help. But they didn’t want a rescue; they wanted to finish the race. When they finally pulled out the sat phone on the beach, it couldn’t get a signal and then ran out of power after being left on over­night. Their Spot was supposedly having problems, too, so they tried flares. No response. That’s when they decided to swim.

As the race’s director, Stjepan Pavicic, sees it, endurance athletes are particulary prone to these kinds of scenarios, because they instinctively look for an “active way out.” Callevaultimately got lucky. After two members of the team scraped their way over the cliff and managed to alert race officials with their Spot, a helicopter came to the rescue.

Self-reliance is, of course, a valuable trait for anyone venturing into the wild—but only up to a point. “Too often, the people who die in the wilderness are those who didn’t know when to turn back or call for help,” says Sheryl Olson, a registered nurse and the founder of Wilderness Wise, a Colorado survival school. “When to stop is something that should be discussed and planned before any trip begins.”

The New Rules: Cover Yourself

Heading to the wild frontier? Get insured.

On the morning of November 10, 2008, New York Times reporter David Rohde set off with his fixer/translator, Tahir Ludin, to interview a Taliban commander southeast of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital. Rohde had been in the country for only a month—and had been married for only two. It would be 221 days before Rohde and Ludin were heard from again.

For Rohde, the risk of kidnapping was part of the job. He’d been detained in a foreign country before—in 1996, when Serb authorities accused him of being a spy during his Pulitzer Prize–winning coverage of the Srebrenica massacre—but this time was different. His capture had most likely been orchestrated by the very man he was meeting, and there was a significant price for his release: a reported $25 million, at first. Word of Rohde’s abduction was slow to leak out. The Times worked to keep the story out of the headlines, fearing publicity would further endanger Rohde and Ludin, and was negotiating with the captors via a security firm. But negotiations were halting, then they stopped altogether.

Kidnapping is a constantly evolving threat for any traveler heading into an unstable area. By some estimates, there are as many as 15,000 international abductions per year—andthe hot spots keep shifting. Atop the current list is Mexico City, followed by Caracas, Venezuela. Right behind them is (surprise!) Phoenix, Arizona, thanks to an influx of drug cartels. Regardless of location, the majority of kidnappers are after the same thing: money. The average ransom paid approaches six figures, and perpetrators often have in-depth knowledge of their victims’ financials, says Katie Colberg, a response consultant at the security firm ASI Global.

Before booking a trip to a high-risk area, consider kidnap-ransom-and-extortion insurance from companies like Travelers Insurance or eGlobalHealth Insurers Agency, which will coordinate with crisis-management firms to organize your release and will often repay any financial losses, including ransoms. And if you are abducted, be patient—very few people successfully escape. “Waiting is the most difficult part,” says Colberg. “You feel forgotten.” The only place where ASI advises people to attempt to escape is Iraq, where Westerners are typically killed.

Ultimately, Rohde and Ludin decided they had to save themselves. They made their break at night, after their guards were asleep, using a rope they’d found to descend a compound wall. Back in Kabul, Ludin told reporters that their escape was a desperate gamble by two demoralized captives. Rohde has yet to tell his story, but while traveling back to the U.S., he reportedly told a colleague, “All I want to do now is stay at home with my wife and cook some pasta.”

The New Rules: Avalanches Don’t Discriminate

Just because you're in-bounds doesn't mean you're safe.

Avalanches

The prevailing wisdom goes something like this: If you ski in the backcountry, you’re on your own. You should be trained in avalanche safety and carrying all the essential gear. But if you’re skiing at a resort, you don’t have to worry about slides; ski patrol has “controlled” the slope and deemed it safe.

Not true.

Consider what happened at resorts across the West this past winter. In mid-December, Snowbird opened its iconic hike-up peak, Mount Baldy, for the first time that season. Around noon, after more than 300 people had already skied Baldy, Heather Gross, a 27-year-old Salt Lake City local, lost a ski partway down the tree-and-cliff-riddled slope. As she was hiking up to retrieve it, a snowboarder above her triggered an avalanche. Skiers and boarders screamed warnings, but it was too late. Within seconds the slide had buried Gross beneath three feet of snow and debris. It took ski patrollers and a 150-person search a little more than an hour to locate her. She died later that day.

On Christmas Day, a slide at Squaw Valley killed 21-year-old skier Randall Davis. Two days after that, 31-year-old skier David Nodine asphyxiated beneath seven feet of snow when an avalanche struck an experts-only area at Jackson Hole. Overall, the season saw the highest number of in-bounds deaths since a single avalanche killed three skiers at Alpine Meadows in 1976.Granted, the snowpack was unusually unstable last December. But, say many experts, as resorts continue to cater to skiers’ growing appetite for challenging slopes by expanding boundaries to include more-extreme terrain, skiers need to start taking an active role in reducing their risks.

“Resorts do a phenomenal job making it a safe experience, but they’re working in nature’s domain,” says Dale Atkins, a VP at the International Commission for Alpine Rescue. “They can’t guarantee safety.”

That doesn’t mean every resort skier needs to take an avalanche course. If you stick to intermediate or groomed terrain with little exposure, you can essentially ignore the risk of slides. But if you search for the steepest, gnarliest terrain, wear an avalanche beacon and carry a shovel and probe, especially on high-risk days (during major weather and the first few days after). Studies suggest that if rescuers find you within 15 minutes, you have a 92 percent chance of survival. All the ski patrollers at these resorts, and many of the locals using them to access the backcountry, carry beacons. In the incredibly rare instance that you get caught ina slide, wearing one could save your life.

The New Rules: Don’t Skimp on Your S.O.S.

When you're lost at sea, send the right signal.

Captain Nelson Liu and five of the 11 crew members of the Princess Taiping were asleep on a stormy, moonless early morning in the Philippine Sea when running lights appeared onthe horizon. The 53-foot-long wooden junk, a replica of a Ming Dynasty warship handbuilt out of cedar, was 27 miles northeast of Suao, Taiwan, its final destination on a 14,000-mile voyage. The looming lights belonged to the Champion Express, a massive tanker aslosh with vegetable oil bound for China.

At first, it looked like the big ship would pass more than a mile to port. Surely the helmsman noted the return from the Princess Taiping‘s radar reflector, detectable eight miles away. But just when the Champion Express came abeam, it turned 90 degrees—right at the Princess Taiping. The wooden boat had a tiny outboard engine, but it was stowed, and its sails were reefed, due to heavy seas. It was all but dead in the water.

“The ship’s coming at us at maybe 20 knots,” says John Hunter, a recent graduate of the University of Hawaii who’d been awakened by the commotion. “I remember thinking, This could be it. The funny thing was, I was OK with it. It’s a pretty sweet way to go.”

The 628-foot tanker heaved the junk out of the water and cleaved it not so neatly in two, the midsection exploding into shards. As the Champion Express melted into the darkness, Hunter and his shipmates clung to the partially submerged stern, up to their necks in 80-degree seawater. Two were missing: Masao Kinjo, a Japanese sailboat racer, and Thomas Cook, a professor at Humboldt State University.

Larz Stewart, a 29-year-old surfer from Honolulu, hunted for their emergency communication equipment with his headlamp. He found Captain Liu’s personal locator beacon (PLB) and triggered it. Nothing. But moments later, the ship’s emergency position-indicator radio beacon (EPIRB), which sends out a distress signal with its coordinates to a network of satellites, mystically floated into his hands. Activated, it strobed reassuringly.

In the distance, another strobe appeared. It was on Cook’s life vest. The impact had pitched the professor headfirst overboard into something blunt, opening his scalp to the bone, shattering a vertebra, and snapping his right forearm. He paddled with his good arm toward the others.”I’m here!” he shouted. “I think I broke my spine!”

Some 5,000 miles east, at the Coast Guard’s rescue command center in Honolulu, Chief Operations Specialist Peni Motu received the Princess Taiping‘s distress signal. Since the EPIRB system went live, in 1982, it’s enabled nearly 27,000 rescues at sea, including 129 in the U.S. this year through mid-September. And yet 18 percent of boat owners fail to register their EPIRBs, a crucial step that allows rescuers to rule out false alarms. Motu verified the signal’s authenticity and alerted a rescue command center in Taiwan. “Without the EPIRB, they wouldn’t have had a chance,” he says.

And they’d almost left without it. Captain Liu had brought only his old PLB, typically used to find someone swept overboard. But one crew member, Jack Durham, refused to sail without an EPIRB and had borrowed one from a friend. According to Amanda Suttles, of the nonprofit BoatU.S., which rents out EPIRBS, any sailor who ventures more than ten miles offshore should carry one. Even if you’re only kayaking the coastline, Suttles suggests you carry (and register) a VHF marine radio equipped with Digital Selective Calling, a panic button that broadcastsa preprogrammed mayday.

About three and a half hours after the collision, the drifting sailors saw a white hull appear over the waves. They whooped and waved at the approaching ship, then cheered in astonishment when a helicopter flew by with the missing Masao Kinjo in its hoist. After swimming to the bow, only to find himself alone, the resolute mariner had rigged the broken foremast and started sailing the front half of the Princess Taiping toward Taiwan.

Anatomy of a Rescue

Every year, thousands of people get lost or injured in the backcountry. This past March, while on an afternoon snowshoe in the mountains above Santa Fe, New Mexico, 52-year-old social worker Laura Christensen became one of them. As with most wilderness emergencies, a series of small but easily made mistakes put Christensen—a NOLS graduate and Wilderness First Responder with an associate's degree in outdoor education—in a dangerous and desperate situation.

Day 1, March 16, 2009 2:30 P.M. Christensen begins an afternoon snowshoe outing on one of her favorite trails (1). She tells a friend where she's going and is dressed for an aerobic hike and brings half a sandwich and a liter of water. Just in case, she also wisely packs an extra base layer, a balaclava, and a compass—but forgets the glasses she'd need to read it. LESSON LEARNED: If you're setting out late in the day, always bring a headlamp. Darkness can make even familiar terrain look foreign. And while Christensen smartly told someone where she was going, simply doing so isn't enough: You also need to tell them when you'll be back and that you'll contact them upon your return.

6 P.M. In search of fresh powder, Christensen decides to mix up her usual hike by going off-trail, meandering down a steep hill (2). LESSON LEARNED: Never leave familiar terrain without a map, especially near dark.

7 P.M.-dawn Christensen is distracted by the Eckhart Tolle book playing on her iPod and passes right over a second familiar trail (3). Darkness falls and she begins to panic. She tries to call 911 but can't get service. She begins shivering and leans up against a tree to stay off the snow but refuses to doze off. “I did everything in my power not to sleep,” she says. LESSON LEARNED: Christensen's strategy was smart: She knew her body temperature would fall if she slept and that shivering would help keep her warm.

Day 2, March 17 5:45 A.M. At first light, she begins moving again (4). LESSON LEARNED: The old adage about staying put when lost doesn't apply if the clock is ticking on your exposure (and no one knows you're missing). But avoid off-trail shortcuts. Rescuers (generally) stay on trails and will have a hard time finding you if you're not within earshot.

12 P.M. Christensen wanders into an area where trails and old mining roads go off in every direction (5). She knows she's close to a Forest Service road but can't find it. She'll spend all day wandering around looking for it.

1 P.M. She tries to call 911 again, then tries text-messaging her friends, but has no luck (6). Finally, at 2:45 P.M, unbeknownst to her, she gets a flicker of service. One text message in her outbox goes through, and a friend calls 911. LESSON LEARNED: Texts can be transmitted when calls can't. And because Christensen's text indicated where she thought she was, rescuers knew where to start looking.

4:56 P.M. After a flurry of phone calls, state police initiate the search. The first of two helicopters is dispatched to the area.

7:16 P.M. The police notify local search-and-rescue teams, and the painfully slow process of a mostly volunteer response begins.

8 P.M. On her second night out, Christensen starts walking along the path of a power line (7), hoping it will lead her to civilization in the morning. She builds a bed of branches to rest on in the dark. LESSON LEARNED: Cold ground saps heat much faster than still air. Branches and leaves can provide critical insulation.

11 P.M. Twenty-seven volunteers assemble near the trailhead (8) where state police found Christensen's car. With only a vague idea of where she might be, ten hiking teams are sent in all directions (9). Two state-police helicopters now fly overhead, but it's dark and Christensen has no light except that of her iPod's screen. Nyberg and Schaffer's team is assigned to sweep the most likely trail and sets out, shouting her name and blowing an air horn every few minutes.

Day 3, March 18 1 A.M. About four miles in, their team spots a set of snowshoe tracks winding back and forth haphazardly on a remote path (10). The tracks lead to a nexus of trails and seem to go off in every direction. It's likely that the tracks belong to Christensen, but it's not clear which set of tracks to follow. LESSON LEARNED: If you're lost, make a mess. Break branches, string rocks into arrows, scratch HELP in the mud. Rescuers are looking for clues.

1:30 A.M. Delirious with hypothermia and exhaustion, Christensen hears shouting and an air horn but thinks it's campers scaring away a bear and is too afraid to go toward them.

4 A.M. After a night of false leads, Schaffer and two other team members start following an indistinct set of tracks, calling Christensen's name. A quarter-mile later, they hear her voice (11).

Learn how you can volunteer for search-and-rescue at .

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ON THE NORTHERN COAST of the Philippine island of Jolo lies a small resort, some 30 bamboo-and-thatch huts stretching a quarter-mile along a white-sand beach overlooking the tropical Sulu Sea. People spend their days here kicking back in hammocks, spearfishing along the coral reef, or simply watching fruit bats sail between the coconut trees.

Jolo, Philippines

While most operations are civil-affaris efforts, the troops still head into Abu Sayyaf-held jungle on combat raids.

Jolo, Philippines

Filipino Brigadier General Juancho Sabban at his headquarters near Jolo City

Jolo, Philippines

Ex–Abu Sayyaf, some of whom now serve as guides

Jolo, Philippines

The village of Pansul

Nobody ventures very far from the resort. It’s paradise, after all, plus there’s the fact that the whole place is ringed with concertina wire anchored by sandbagged gun emplacements, and that you might be killed if you were to go anywhere else on the island without an armed escort. The Beach Resort, as it’s called, is officially known as Buhanginan Base, home to 125 Filipino marines and 12 American Green Berets, part of a joint Philippine-American task force formed after 9/11 to take down a terrorist group called Abu Sayyaf. The troops’ mission was to contain the outfit, a onetime jihadist faction responsible for a string of Western tourist kidnappings from high-end resorts in Malaysia and the Philippines but it was much more ambitious than that. Even before the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001, the lawless jungles of the southern Philippines had emerged as the biggest terrorist base outside Central Asia. The ultimate goal was to prevent another Afghanistan to deny that sanctuary to fleeing Al Qaeda operatives and regional groups like Indonesia’s Jemaah Islamiya, the outfit later believed to be responsible for the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings and those of the J.W. Marriott Hotel and the Australian embassy in Jakarta in 2003 and 2004.

By 2006, after four straight years of operations, the joint troops had sustained an estimated 100 Filipino and 11 American dead. And they’d contained Abu Sayyaf predominantly to a single island, its historical stronghold of Jolo. Geographically isolated, blanketed by jungle, and run by an obscenely corrupt government, Jolo (pronounced HO-lo) is a terrorist sanctuary par excellence. Its half-million inhabitants are like many Abu Sayyaf members of the Tausug tribe: desperately poor, Muslim in a country of Roman Catholics, and linguistically separated from the rest of the Philippines. But ever since a charismatic Filipino brigadier general named Juancho Sabban took command in April 2005, the joint forces were actually succeeding in winning over the Islamic people of Jolo. Using a classic “hearts and minds” strategy of about 85 percent civil-affairs projects and 15 percent combat operations, they’d turned this 345-square-mile island into the one theater in the war on terrorism where the momentum seemed to be moving in America’s direction.

“We think there is a model here that’s worth showcasing,” Major General David Fridovich, the Hawaii-based U.S. Special Operations commander in the Pacific, told reporters last spring. “There’s another way of doing business.”

Last July, I moved into a tiny hut at the Beach Resort. Jolo was unlike any war zone I had ever been in. In many ways Buhanginan Base reminded me of a tropical frat house, albeit one with its own 81mm mortar pit and an inordinately high level of scar tissue. The Filipinos and Americans often hung out, shooting hoops or mangling eighties power ballads on their guitars. Nights were, if possible, even mellower. Dinners featured whatever creature the cook could get his hands on: wild boar, goat, bonefish, a python. After the meal, we’d gather in the officers’ wardroom, a thatched hut swathed in mosquito netting, to drink brandy cut with wild ginseng and watch a heinous Philippine soap called Majika, which chronicled the tragic love triangle between two spandex-clad witches and a swinging warlock. It was must-see TV for the Filipinos and Green Berets, who used the commercial breaks to fine-tune operational plans.

���ϳԹ��� the perimeter, the scene was a bit different. Poverty seeped into every pore and up the nose. Every few hundred yards along the coastal road (the island’s only paved thoroughfare) stood small clusters of huts on stilts, constructed of bamboo, tin, and salvage by refugees from the interior who’d fled the fighting. There was no means of private transport save a precious few bicycles and dirt bikes. Families bathed and washed their clothes in water holes the color of Yoo-hoo. Yet Jolo’s is a gun culture, and many households owned an assault rifle, if very little else. During lunar eclipses and New Year’s, the sky above the capital, Jolo City, looks like the first night of Operation Desert Storm over Baghdad as folks unload flaming rivers of phosphorous-coated ordnance into the heavens to chase off evil spirits.

I spent my first week on the island accompanying the marines and Green Berets to schools and medical clinics. The picture I got was certainly of a terrorist group on the defensive, but to what degree it was hard to know. Then, one night as we were watching Majika, a Filipino major named Jimmy Larida called me over to his table. Larida was a sweet-natured operations officer built like a floor safe; I’d been hounding him for days to take me out on something sexier than a book drop. I found him sitting alone before a large operations map.

“Here,” he said, pulling out a chair. “I want to show you something.”

It was the plan for the next morning’s mission, an innocuous-sounding operation called the Upper Tanum Water Source Site Survey. Supposedly, in a hilly patch of jungle called the Tripod, there was a 50-year-old concrete cistern that collected water from a spring that was also Abu Sayyaf’s main water source. The marines intended to construct a water system off the cistern to supply about 3,000 villagers downstream, people who had long supported the Muslim insurgents. Sabban wanted to flip their loyalties.

We were taking a spigot?

With a heaviness worthy of Staff Sergeant Barnes in Platoon, Larida described past encounters with Abu Sayyaf in the Tripod, units decimated and corpses mutilated in a jungle death trap of interlocking bunkers, booby traps, and spider holes. With well over a hundred killed or wounded out there in the past three years, the marines always went into the Tripod in large numbers, or at the very least at night. But this time, an undermanned company was going in at midmorning, lightly armed, with no artillery or air support. He handed me a black leather pouch.

“My .45,” Larida said. “Take it tomorrow.”

Was he kidding? It was hard to imagine being blown to pieces on the set of a Corona ad.

“If we get overrun by Abu Sayyaf,” he warned, only half joking, “I put two clips in there, 14 bullets. Save the last one for yourself.”

“Come on,” I said.

“You’re American,” he said gravely, all but channeling Tom Berenger. “They’ll skin you alive.”

IT SEEMED A BIT THEATRICAL, but there was no reason not to take Larida at his word. Abu Sayyaf wasn’t as strong as it had once been, but it could still muster enough fighters to overwhelm 84 lightly armed men. More apropos, if five years of recent history proved anything, it was that Abu Sayyaf and Americans made a bloody mix.

The group became notorious at the turn of the millennium, target=ing tourists in the southern Philippines and East Malaysia. In 2000, Abu Sayyaf abducted 21 tourists and employees from a dive resort on Sipadan Island, releasing 20 of them months later for up to $25 million in reported ransom. On May 27, 2001, the group struck again. Three slight, camouflaged men bearing M16s burst into the beach cabin of Martin and Gracia Burnham, an American missionary couple celebrating their anniversary at the Dos Palmas Arreceffi, an exclusive resort just off the Philippine island of Palawan. The men forced the half-dressed couple onto the deck of a 35-foot speedboat and, after nabbing another American and 17 Filipinos, vanished into the Sulu Sea. Six days later they took four hospital workers, and two weeks after that they beheaded three of the hostages: a cook from the Dos Palmas, a security guard, and the third American, 40-year-old Californian Guillermo Sobero.

The Burnham kidnapping was picked up by news outlets, thanks to its tantalizing mix of vacationing Americans, sea pirates, and island paradise, but nowhere was Abu Sayyaf portrayed even remotely as a threat to national security. When it was first formed, in 1990 by Abdurajak Janjalani, a Filipino mujahedeen veteran who’d fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, Abu Sayyaf (Arabic for “Father of the Sword”) was dedicated to fighting for a strict Islamic state in the southern Philippines. It was reportedly funded by Osama bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa and trained by such veteran Al Qaeda leaders as Ramzi Yousef, the architect of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

According to U.S. intelligence, Abu Sayyaf remained a serious jihadist threat throughout the late 1990s, even after the death of Janjalani in 1998. I got a different picture from seven ex Abu Sayyaf I interviewed on Jolo, including the group’s former imam. After Janjalani’s death, Abu Sayyaf had devolved into a criminal enterprise, they told me, with ransom windfalls going directly to his more secular-minded successors, Abu Sabaya and “Commander Robot.” While Sabaya and other leaders spoke of jihad in public, the imam said, in private their aims were decidedly more temporal.

In November 2001, President Bush announced that the U.S. would send troops and aid to the Philippines, opening what the media came to call the “second front” in his war on terrorism. By spring 2002, Exercise Balikatan was in full force, with 660 U.S. Marines, Green Berets, and Navy SEALs acting in an advisory role, as the Philippine constitution forbids foreign combat operations on its soil joining the CIA and FBI personnel already in the southern islands. Using bugged cell phones, spy planes, double agents, and even a takeout pizza tracked by a drone armed with an infrared camera, the CIA took upwards of four months to locate the Burnhams and the remaining hostage, a Filipina nurse the others having either been killed, freed, or ransomed. In the ensuing firefight between Abu Sabaya’s forces and the Philippine army, Gracia Burnham was rescued; her husband, Martin, and the nurse died in the crossfire.

Up until about a year before I arrived, maneuvers on Jolo consisted largely of combat raids, with the Americans remaining on base while the Filipinos conducted battalion-size search-and-destroy sweeps backed by helicopter gunships and artillery batteries. The United States supplied Special Forces advisers, signals intelligence, and logistical support via the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force Philippines (JSOTF-P), while the Filipinos provided the manpower and local knowledge. By mid-2003, a good number of Abu Sayyaf’s core leaders were in prison or the grave.

But it was precisely during this low ebb that Abu Sayyaf was reborn on Jolo as a true international terrorist threat. With its leadership solidified under Khadafi Janjalani, the staunchly jihadist younger brother of the deceased founder, the group formed an alliance with Jemaah Islamiya, which had been all but forced out of Indonesia after the first Bali bombings. Using Jolo as their base, the terrorist partners struck back, launching new attacks, training operatives in scuba diving, and planning raids on resorts in Malaysia. In 2004, Jemaah Islamiya and Abu Sayyaf, working with a third, Manila-based group, sank the multistory SuperFerry 14 as it left Manila Bay, killing 116 Filipinos. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Philippine history.

THE MOOD WAS APPREHENSIVE on the morning of the Upper Tanum water mission, as 77 Filipino marines and seven U.S. Green Berets assembled at the Beach Resort. The Filipinos wore rosary beads and ‘do rags with their Vietnam-era jungle fatigues and soup-bowl helmets; many carried ancient M14 rifles or 35-year-old M60 machine guns. Decked out in Kevlar and armed with ergonomically engineered and optically enhanced weaponry, the Americans looked like a lost squad of stormtroopers from Star Wars.

The last two times the marines had ventured into the Tripod, in December 2005 and March 2006, they’d killed approximately ten Abu Sayyaf, but at the cost of two soldiers and another 13 wounded. Many of the marines gathered today were veterans of those battles, though it would be the first visit to the area for the Green Berets. Major Larida addressed the troops. “I would like to tell everyone that the creek we are now going to see the water is sometimes mixed with blood. Sometimes mixed with blood of Abu Sayyaf, sometimes marine blood,” he said, his voice quivering a bit. “So if a firefight starts, everyone down on that creek will be a sitting duck. So today security will have to be to the very highest degree.”

Weapons were locked and loaded, bullets clanking into their chambers. The marines pushed out a muted “Oooooooooorah,” then piled into the backs of their rusted old personnel carriers and Korean War era jeeps. The Americans climbed into their armored V-150s.

We lumbered down the coast road, past several jeepneys overflowing with passengers and an old man riding a water buffalo, and through two marine checkpoints to Tanum, a chain of hamlets that stretched two miles up into the foothills. A stronghold of Abu Sayyaf, Tanum had once been home to Ramzi Yousef, and, as recently as five months earlier, a 40-man marine detachment stationed here was harassed nearly every evening by snipers. Now Tanum’s leadership, many onetime collaborators themselves, had volunteered to lead the task force into the heart of Abu Sayyaf’s regional base camp.

Our convoy halted long enough to pick up ten local guides. The oldest, a fifty-something man wearing a 1963 Vermont Lacrosse Lions T-shirt and carrying a 12-inch blade, climbed into the jeep next to me. Sinewy as a suspension cable, he introduced himself in remarkably good English as the chief of the village of Tanum. His constituents, he said, had petitioned him to ask the marines for a water system after seeing the benefits accruing to other villages cooperating with Sabban’s men.

“But why is the Abu Sayyaf letting us do this?” I asked.

“I send one person up there other day to go find Abu Sayyaf,” he said. “Tell them the military is helping us with water project. I ask, ‘Please no problem?’ Then I receive message from them. It said, ‘We will go away from your municipal.’ “

“But why do they go away?”

“What can they do?”

“Attack us? Destroy the water system?”

“No,” he said, with a sly grin. “They know if they destroy water project, the people will hate them.”

We turned onto a muddy track, rumbling past a cinder-block mosque strangled by vines and an old schoolhouse pockmarked with shrapnel wounds. The convoy finally ground to a halt about three miles inland as the track funneled into a narrow footpath beneath an archway of coffee and coconut trees. It was humid, the air still. When the engines shut down, I heard parrots squawking.

A marine recon platoon of 26 men went first, led by several Tanum guides. Minutes later, the main body followed, only for Major Larida to halt it about 200 yards in. His radioman had passed him a message: Eighteen Abu Sayyaf had been seen a mile east of the cistern, heading our way.

Larida’s fear here was a pantakasi, a Tausug “cockfight derby.” Pantakasi occurs when men in a given vicinity with weaponry pretty much any male over 11 on Jolo are called out to swarm and annihilate a pinned-down enemy. Eighteen Abu Sayyaf could quickly multiply into a few hundred men firing M16s and swinging swords, as Larida had seen himself the previous November. He summoned one of the Tanum guides, a wild-looking young man in a baseball cap and black hair extensions who I later learned was an undercover Philippine intelligence officer. The marines began taking cover while the head Green Beret, a hulking captain from small-town Massachusetts, ordered his men to spread out. Larida finally made contact with his recon platoon, who’d just secured the hilltop above the cistern. All was quiet, they told him.

There were signs of Abu Sayyaf everywhere: a camouflaged observation post, empty packs of Astro cigarettes and Cloud Nine candy bars (both Abu Sayyaf favorites), a flip-flop, and fresh footprints. “Shit, they were just here,” a Green Beret whispered, as he fingered newly cut banana leaves on the observation post.

We had liberated the cistern. There it was, built into a sheer hillside: two cast-iron spigots sticking out of a cement box a little bigger than a VW bus. The guides rushed over. One said something to a marine. He shrugged. Another laughed. A Green Beret guesstimated flow rates, while another eyeballed the gradient of the slope and two more filmed the scene for the intel guys back at the Beach Resort. Despite any historical, religious, or cultural differences, it was pretty clear that the Green Berets, Filipino marines, and Tausug villagers all agreed that this was one damn good water source.

An odd war here, I thought. The allies just ran a major military operation deep into enemy-held jungle and without a shot took a lousy piece of concrete that anywhere else wouldn’t even garner graffiti. It wasn’t exactly like storming the Normandy beaches, but then again that was the whole point. It wasn’t just that the Green Berets and marines were winning the civilians’ loyalty; it was that they were forcing the enemy to collaborate in its own defeat.

WINNING THE “HEARTS AND MINDS” of a civilian populace is an age-old strategy: Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu preached it in the fifth century b.c.; Mao mastered it; the U.S. tried it in Vietnam and is once again returning to it in Iraq and Afghanistan. But for an occupying force, as the Americans and Filipinos arguably are on Jolo, this strategy is especially tricky.

No one has a defter touch at counterinsurgency than Juancho Sabban. Now 49, the Filipino general has a quick smile and a legendary resolve hidden beneath a soft foam build. He is both a marine’s marine and a congenital maverick: a family man (his son just graduated from high school in New Jersey) and decorated combat veteran who also helped overthrow dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986 and tried to topple his successor, Corazon Aquino, in 1989. Sabban was arrested for rebellion and mutiny, sawed his way out of a maximum-security prison with a smuggled hacksaw, and lived in the rebel underground for two years. He was granted amnesty in 1995.

A key practitioner of what the U.S. military now calls the Basilan model, Sabban first employed his version of hearts-and-minds against Islamic separatists on Palawan in 1983 and honed it fighting Abu Sayyaf on the island of Basilan in the late 1990s and again in 2002 as part of a similar U.S.-Philippine initiative. The day he took over on Jolo, he ordered his men into a hut for a PowerPoint presentation. The first slide quoted Sun Tzu: “The acme of skill of the true warrior is to be victorious without fighting.” The second showed his standing order: “Behave!”

Under the command of Sabban and his American counterpart, Mindanao Island based JSOTF-P leader Colonel James Linder, the forces drove the remaining 500 or so Abu Sayyaf fighters into the interior highlands and set about winning over the Tausug populace along the coast. (���ϳԹ���‘s request to interview Colonel Linder was denied, and he was rotated out of Mindanao last fall, replaced by U.S. Army Colonel David Maxwell.) One of the Green Berets summed up the efforts: “They were small projects in resources but ones with a big impact on the people’s lives. That’s the key to this counterinsurgency not for us to keep going to them with solutions but to somehow get these people to come to the marines for help.”

As I learned on Jolo, the campaign was noble in principle and often hilarious in practice. Traveling with a minimum force of 20 Filipino marines and several Green Berets, we would speed back and forth on Jolo’s paved road like a platoon of armed elves, delivering chairs to cheering schoolkids and visiting adult learning centers. One particularly sweat-drenched day, we headed out to an isolated hamlet called Sitio Lavnay for the turnover of a new well, one that would bring clean drinking water to 125 desperately poor families. The heavily guarded ceremony featured local VIPs in little plastic chairs, several roaming chickens, and 100 villagers gathered in the stifling heat. It opened with an acoustic version of Dire Straits’ “Money for Nothing,” blasted into the jungle on a boom box, and only got worse.

After the Muzak overture, the speeches started. A lean, clean-shaven Green Beret admonished the villagers to “take ownership of the resource,” while the marine-battalion commander thanked the dignitaries for their hard work. Unfortunately the speeches were delivered in English and translated into Tagalog, a language the assembled Tausug couldn’t really understand. During the ribbon cutting, a mongrel dog drew the event to a close by taking a leak on the podium.

But for all the ham-fisted production value, the villagers still lined up patiently to thank the soldiers. The most important event that day went little noticed. After the ceremony, the chief, a handsome man in black jeans, slipped a Filipino officer a single sheet of paper with a carefully typed list of needs. It was exactly the kind of act Sabban’s counterinsurgency doctrine was designed to elicit.

He was winning without fighting.

SOON AFTER THE ASSAULT on the cistern, I accompanied Sabban on a civil-affairs mission to the seaside village of Pansul. We rode in his beat-up Toyota Land Cruiser, sandwiched between a six-by-six truck loaded with marines and a monstrous vehicle that looked like a steel hippo with an anti-aircraft gun bolted onto its back. There were several plainclothes security officers darting around on Japanese dirt bikes, and an advance unit had already swept the road for mines. Sabban’s was probably the most valuable head on the island.

With the truck’s air thick with pine freshener and the seats slick with Armor All, Sabban talked about the war. They’d turned the tide, he felt, but all the same the progress was tenuous at best.

“As a young lieutenant,” he told me, “I discovered you get better intelligence when you are with the people. And when I was a rebel and on the run in 1990, the authorities can’t catch me if I have supporters. Who else will get the best intelligence but the civilians themselves? If they don’t want to tell on the enemy, even if area is size of basketball court, you will not find the enemy.”

Sabban pursued graduate studies at the Naval War College, in Rhode Island, so he’s thought about this a lot. “People know you are more powerful than them,” he said. “You don’t have to rub it in, but when you go down to their level, adopt their ways, they will take you in. The more you hurt them, the more they fight back. Even if they are inferior, they will find a way to get you.”

Changing minds takes cash. The U.S. embassy in Manila estimates that, between 2002 and 2006, the American aid agency USAID spent $4 million a year in Sulu province. In the Jolo area, the embassy reports, the U.S.-Philippine forces have completed more than 50 development projects roads, classrooms, wells valued at $4.5 million since 2003. This includes projects with big PR value, like the eight-day visit of the U.S. Navy hospital ship Mercy last June, but, say some troops on the island, fewer behind-the-scenes, long-term initiatives.

“I’m sometimes afraid all this stuff about Jolo being the ‘new model to win the war on terror’ is PR bullshit,” an American soldier familiar with the operations on Jolo had told me, requesting anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the media. “The money goes everywhere but where it’s going to do the most good.”

According to Sabban, the JSOTF-P has provided around $50,000 in in-kind donations to the projects he has personally directed in the last year. His largest donor, he maintains, is not the American government, not the Philippine government, not the World Bank, but a private citizen named Andy de Rossi, a slightly manic Italian expat engineer and businessman living in Manila. Through his personal aid group, the Promotion of Peace and Prosperity Foundation, de Rossi has to date given $600,000 worth of in-kind donations, his own little mini Marshall Plan. He has also donated $850,000 in development aid for Jolo in partnership with the U.S. government and the JSOTF-P, including shipping used ambulances from the United States via the U.S. Navy. (“Already, with basically nothing, we’ve performed miracles down there,” he told me in Manila.) After de Rossi, Sabban’s most generous supporters are a small network of relatively wealthy Tausug elites, whom he’d invited today to Pansul. As we drove along, I asked Sabban what he needed the Americans for. Although he deeply appreciated the U.S. efforts on Jolo, he said, he wasn’t exactly diplomatic, either.

“I don’t need the Americans here to train my men. I don’t need them here to fight,” he said. “I need the Americans here because I hope they can provide strategic investment. Because to keep the momentum moving in our favor, we are soon going to need to fund not just schoolbooks and chairs but large projects, expensive projects.”

“How much to do all of Jolo, get the place up and running?” I asked.

He thought for a few seconds. “Two, maybe three million,” he said. “That would do a lot.”

At midmorning we pulled into a heavily secured pasture, near an idyllic stretch of beach, where the marines and Green Berets were running a free veterinary and medical clinic. Tied to coconut trees were 30 or so malnourished cows and an equal number of hard-luck goats. A row of Tausug men squatted on their haunches and smoked butts while a Green Beret veterinarian, wielding a hypodermic needle the size of a caulk gun, wrestled a moaning cow against a fence. An American medic took a little girl’s blood pressure; another U.S. officer handed out posters of the USDA’s food pyramid in English.

The Tausug elite were gathered around a picnic table at the far end of the field. In addition to a marine colonel and the well-regarded local chief of Buhanginan, there were five others. One was a woman named Hadja Nur Ana “Lady Ann” Sahidulla, although most people call her simply the Princess, as her clan traces its lineage back to Jolo’s old royal family. Recently elected vice governor of Sulu province, the Princess is dark-haired, petite, and cosmetically pale; besides her involvement in politics, she’s also a local rock star (she was performing in a few days at a party for Sabban) and a gun enthusiast. The Princess’s entourage included a stylist, an effeminate young man bearing a parasol, and a bodyguard with a pearl-handled .45 strapped to his leg. She herself was dressed in a T-shirt and jeans: Sabban had only recently convinced her that, when intermingling with commoners, it was perhaps wise not to wear her traditional princess attire of flowing silks and jewels.

Also at the table was an old man in leather boots and tight jeans who’d ridden up on a 250cc Suzuki dirt bike. This was the sultan of Patikul, a quasi-religious figure among the Islamic Tausug. When he perspired, a young woman patted down his brow with a pink kerchief. The sultan was pursuing an ambitious plan to develop a half-mile of Sulu Sea beachfront into a first-class resort, a no-brainer but for the fact that Jolo was still a war zone. Finally, there was the sultan’s son, a twig with a ponytail and the personal warmth of a chained cobra. Like the Princess’s, his business dealings were veiled.

This was Sabban’s donor pool: a handful of extras from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. But the general, ever respectful, began his pitch. In total, the Upper Tanum diversion would cost $10,000. He explained how many villagers would benefit and how it would help push Abu Sayyaf farther into the hinterlands. He tried to convince them that they had a financial stake in its success. As he spoke, a subtle ballet began around the table. The Princess’s parasol bearer slipped a portable electric fan in front of her. Luxuriating in the artificial breeze, she acted as if she couldn’t hear a word Sabban was saying. The sultan feigned interest, but his son took offense at some undetectable slight. He pirouetted and, with his back to us, held his hand up, as if he were on Jerry Springer. In the end the only people listening were the marine and the chief of Buhanginan, the only two at the table without money.

A FEW DAYS BEFORE I left the island, I went out on a night ambush with ten Filipino recon commandos. We were to stake out a jungle path that Philippine intelligence believed might be used that night by an assassination team led by a high-level Abu Sayyaf named Abu Solaiman, who had recently been put on the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists list for his involvement in the Burnham kidnapping.

Armed with rifles and a single night-vision scope, our team headed out on foot a few hours after nightfall. ���ϳԹ��� the glow of the base, it was pitch dark, so I blindly followed sounds made by the commando in front of me. We trekked for about two miles, slipping into a patchwork of cassava fields, through tended coconut groves and jungle, and under a sprawling canopy of string beans before squatting for 20 minutes in what smelled like a garden of rotting cabbage. I cupped my hands over a map as our team leader, a staff sergeant from Luzon, checked, rechecked, and triple-checked it with a penlight. Around 11, we finally settled into our ambush position astride the path in thick bush, just off a stretch of the coastal road known as the Boulevard of Death, where hundreds of Philippine Army soldiers died in rebel ambushes in the 1970s.

“Now we wait for them to come to us,” the staff sergeant whispered, holding up the scope.

We sat. Even though it was a clear night and there was a sliver of moon, it was impossible to see anything. There was constant buzzing around my ears, and insects were flying up my nostrils. A lone gunshot sounded a ways off, but otherwise it was like spending eight hours in a black Hefty bag full of mosquitoes.

We returned to the base just before dawn. Sabban was in the wardroom, drinking Nescafé while Seinfeld played on TV. He was an early riser, usually enjoying a morning run with an iPod loaded with love songs. As we chatted, a man, quite tall and neatly dressed in a golf shirt and khakis, walked in. He was Erich Q. Tan, a city councilman from Jolo City, the fetid capital, where the streets are lined with sewers and hit squads of young Abu Sayyaf on dirt bikes prowl for target=s. In the weeks before I arrived, they’d killed four marines and several civilians.

Tan wanted Sabban to revamp Jolo City’s overwhelmed sewer system. This would be by far Sabban’s most expensive project to date, costing upwards of $250,000, way beyond the reach of the usual suspects. The only institution Sabban figured would cut such a check was the American JSOTF-P. After helping the councilman with a project application, he stuck in his own letter of recommendation. The process, he said, usually took months.

From the other end of the table I asked what the chances were that the project would get approved. Sabban shrugged. Tan shrugged. Neither seemed very optimistic.

“You know Richard Gere?” Sabban suddenly asked. I’d told him I’d met with the philanthropic actor once. “If I wrote him a letter, you think he’d read it?”

“Probably,” I answered.

With this the city councilman smiled and clapped his hands together, suddenly rallied.

Ever the warrior, Sabban called for a pen and paper.

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Philippines Photo Gallery


See Antonin Kratochvil’s photo outtakes from the story about the deadly island battlefield where America is actually winning the war.

LAUNCH THE GALLERY

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Once the land of pirates and explorers, the Philippines are now luring thrill seekers of an entirely different ilk: Western adventure-travelers in search of a new Shangri-la. With 85-degree weather year-round (beware the July-through-September monsoon season), 34 national parks, 580 bird species, and some 7,100 islands where you can surf, swim, snorkel, dive, kayak, hike, climb, and sweat, the Philippines certainly offer up the goods. And unlike many other parts of Asia, the Philippines make staying healthy easy: Malaria, dysentery, dengue fever, and other tropical woes aren’t widespread. Even the tap water’s potable in all but a few places. Transportation? It’s a matter of hopping a bus, jeepney, ferry, or moped to almost anywhere in the country for the price of a date to the movies. And when you arrive at your destination, a beachside bungalow will rarely cost more than $10 a night.

Cliff hanger: a 5.12 at Wawa Gorge in Montalban.

Of course the news from the Philippines lately has been disconcerting, to say the least. Don’t ignore the warnings, but know the difference between danger and paranoia. Statistics show you are more likely to be eaten by a shark or die in a car wreck at home than be a victim of terrorism in the Philippines. There are isolated places, like Jolo and Basilan, where you simply shouldn’t go. “But should you write off travel to the Philippines altogether?” says Malcolm Nance, chief consultant for Real World Rescue, a company specializing in high-risk-travel security advice. “Absolutely not.” Here’s what you shouldn’t miss:

Siargao
The Philippines’ best break, Cloud 9, off the tiny teardrop-shaped island of Siargao 500 miles southeast of Manila, suddenly appeared on radar screens around the world when an international surfing competition was held there in 1996. But the crowds are still zilch and the tempers as smooth as the beer back at Snag Miquels beachfront bar in the town of General Luna. The swell remains constant August through March, when waves come cruising in off the open ocean, slam into the shallow reef, and jack up into a green pipeline.
If the risk of splattering yourself across Cloud 9’s reef sounds less than dreamy, try the Jacking Horse break, about a ten-minute paddle north of the Cloud 9 curl. The waves—mostly rights—are half the size of those at their more famous neighbor. On those rare days when the surf isn’t up, ask around for Pirate Pete, a raucous Aussie, and join him on his daily sail to the surrounding isles. He’ll charge you $12 for the entire day.
SEAir now offers direct flights two times a week from Cebu City to Siargao for about $40 one-way (011-63-2-891-8708; ). Once you’re there, head to the town of General Luna, where you’ll find the Drop Inn, a five-minute walk from Cloud 9. The surfer hangout has comfortable rooms with bamboo-mat ceilings, patios overlooking a lush garden, and hot showers (doubles, $15 per night; 011-63-32-424-9565).

Cebu

Scenes from Shangri-la: the rice terraces of the Philipinnes.

Cebu island, a 20-by-140-mile strip of mountains and coral-sand beaches an hour’s flight south of Manila, offers diving at dozens of world-class sites, rappelling down misty river canyons, and hiking through mountains arrayed like a verdant sheet of bubble wrap.
Moalboal, a quaint one-dirt-road hamlet on the Ta–on Strait, is at the epicenter of outdoor activity here, especially diving. Expel the air from your BCD at the House Reef, a coral shelf 200 feet straight off the town beach—swim out and sink into a world of pulsating sea clams and nudibranchs radiating in nuclear hues. On Pescador Island, a federally protected marine park a ten-minute boat ride from Moalboal, walls of sheer coral plummet more than 100 feet.

Pass the time purging all that residual nitrogen by heading into the hills east of Moalboal. Here, several gorges await, including Tison Canyon. Spend a day working your way down the Tison River by jumping off 25-foot-high limestone cliffs into azure pools and rappelling down 100-foot waterfalls. Or avoid the water altogether and hike five miles through valleys of coconut palms and guava-laden jungles to Osmena Peak, at 2,300 feet the highest on the island. When you return, dine at one of Moalboal’s dozen open-air seaside restaurants, where $5 will get you a feast of fresh lapu-lapu, sweet-and-sour shrimp, and a couple bottles of San Miguel beer.
The Savedra-Great White Dive Center (011-63-32-474-0014; ) in Moalboal is a PADI five-star outfit that offers at least three dives a day, including night dives, to sites like the House Reef and Pescador Island for $25 per dive including transportation and equipment. Karl Epp, Savedra’s 37-year-old German owner, will also arrange canyoneering and hiking trips and will send someone to pick you up in Cebu City for the one-hour ride to Moalboal ($42 one-way). He can reserve rooms for you at places like the Cabana Beach Club Resort, where seaside doubles overlooking the House Reef and boils of jacks cost $70 a night.

Luzon

A skull-capped Ifugao villager.

Slightly bigger than Kentucky, Luzon is the largest island in the Philippine archipelago and home to more than 30 million people, a third of whom live in metro Manila. Ditch the city and you’ll find an abundance of mountains, limestone cliffs, active volcanoes, whitewater rivers, and tranquil bays, which make Luzon a no-brainer for adrenaline-starved travelers.
The current pulse of the country’s climbing community beats around Montalban, a dirty but friendly little mining town two hours by jeepney northeast of Manila. Here you’ll find bolo-sharp 300-foot limestone walls and the frothy Wawa River. Most of the 50 or so routes are bolted and range from 5.1 to the upper 5.12 region. Test your balance and pocket pulling up the classic Redemption (5.10), the first sport route established in the country. The best guides are Jong Narciso and his pals from Estor Pang Outdoor (011-63-2-438-4059; jongnarciso@hotmail.com), a gear shop in northeast Manila. They’re happy to show experienced climbers the local scene for free (or sell their new guidebook for $4), but be sure to donate some climbing gear, a commodity far more valuable than cash.

Ten hours by bus southeast of Manila, you’ll find a half-dozen islands in the Albay Gulf, where, with a month’s notice and about $600 per person, Gulf Marine kayaking guides Bem Redito and George Cordovilla will put together a custom sea-kayaking adventure to the islands of Cagraray, Batan, and Rapu-Rapu. The price includes five days of paddling, food, guides, transportation, and—get this—a kayak that’s yours to keep. Bem designs his own molds and can whip out a fiberglass boat in a matter of days. If you don’t want the hassle and expense of toting the boat home, use one from Bem’s modest collection, which reduces the five-day total to $100 per person. Either way, you’ll paddle under the smoking, 8,000-foot Mayon volcano, glide over coral banks, spot kingfishers and dolphins, and camp near nipa hut settlements. Gulf Marine can arrange for you to spend your first night at the Villa Amada Hotel (011-63-52-245-5121) in Legazpi, where rooms with air-conditioning and lukewarm showers go for $12 a night. Bring your own camp stove, tent, spray skirt, and paddle, as these items are scarce (George Cordovilla: 011-63-919-862-6543, pinangat2001@yahoo.com; Bem Redito: 011-63-919-752-8359, nis_red@onebox.com).
The 2,000-year-old rice terraces of the Ifugao people, in the region of Banaue in northern Luzon, are billed as the eighth wonder of the world—especially since, unlike their seven counterparts, they were built without slave power. Trek from one village to the next atop these thin, curvy terrace walls—fall uphill and you’ll land in the mud, fall downhill and you’re in for a long tumble. Start in the village of Banaue, where you’ll find guide Peter Gatik, a local legend, who can arrange a multiday trek from Banaue to any number of villages beyond. Be prepared for warm beer as your sole amenity in some of the smaller villages ($50 per night, food and gear included, except sleeping bags; contact AsiaVenture Services, 011-63-2-526-6929; ).

Palawan and the Calamian Group

Water beds: High tide at Kubo Sa Dagat lodge in the town of Coron, Busuanga Island.

Unspoiled beaches, impressive snorkeling, and towering limestone cliffs jutting out of the sea make up the Philippines’ Last Frontier, as Palawan, the long slender island 100 miles west of the main archipelago, is often called.
The Bacuit Bay Marine Reserve in northern Palawan just west of El Nido is a treasure map of tiny islands—23 of them, about a half-hour’s boat ride from one to the next. Bring a waterproof flashlight and swim through a small hole at low tide on Inabuyatan island’s western side to find a surreal freshwater lagoon full of stalagmites, -tites, and columns. Or paddle a banca along the swampy Manlag River to the south, where mangrove snakes dangle passively in the branches above, and orange fiddler crabs feast on the muck below. Off Sumisu island in the middle of Bacuit Bay you can poke around among soft and hard corals and large schools of bright fish, while Cudugman Point a few minutes south of there has a vaulted cave 100 feet high where swiftlets buzz around in an avian blizzard.
The Malapacao Island Retreat and Spa, about a half-hour boat ride south of El Nido, is the spot to stage your island-hopping adventures (011-63-48-433-4829; ). Owner LeeAnn Cruz, a soft-spoken expat Australian, offers seven-, ten-, and 14-day package stays for $760, $1,000, and $1,320 respectively. Rates include daily snorkeling trips, two massages or mud bakes a day, all meals (fantastic fish curries, calamansi juice, coconut-marinated banana-flower salad), round-trip flights from Manila to El Nido, airport transfers, and stays in an exquisite open-air bamboo cottage with private bath and hammock. Cruz also has a small fleet of two-person bancas and sit-on-top kayaks for exploring the bay on your own ($6 per day).
The waters off the town of Coron, on Busuanga Island, farther north in the Calamian Group, harbor superior diving, for which we have World War II to thank. On September 24, 1944, Admiral William “Bull” Halsey launched the longest-yet carrier-based air raid, against retreating Japanese naval forces. The result: Fourteen wrecks lie between 15 and 130 feet of water, most of them still loaded with jeeps, bulldozers, and weaponry. Scuba Venture (011-63-919-463-3408; ) in Coron offers two days of diving (two or three dives per day) for $45, including equipment rental, lunch, kayak, and snorkeling gear. Stay at Kubo Sa Dagat, a labyrinthine guest house built on stilts over a small rocky isle that’s exposed only at low tide. The inn offers unlimited boat access and fresh meals of crab and shellfish on an open-air deck directly over the water. Rates are $60 per person per night, including all meals and use of kayaks and motorized bancas (011-63-2-526-6929; ).

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