We get it. You’ve avoided cruises because the idea of being held captive on a crowded boat with piles of unhealthy food, cranky retirees, and a bad DJ doesn’t sound all that appetizing. But you’re missing out. These days, there are plenty of smaller ships with the ability to travel where cars, trains, and planes can’t, acting as mobile base camps with unparalleled access to mountain biking, backcountry skiing, surfing, and more.

Sri Noa Noa

Indonesia

The best surf breaks in the world are often the hardest to reach. Enter the , a sailboat that hosts small, customized tours to empty breaks around Indonesia’s East Indian Archipelago. The Sri Noa Noa fits up to six people in airy teak cabins, and you can either book the whole boat or join an open cruise. When you’re not surfing, you can hike through national parks, snorkel ultramarine waters, or catch fish right from the boat. The daily rate includes three meals a day. For an extra fee, an onboard pro photographer will capture your adventures. (From $200 per person per night.)

Ice Axe Expeditions

Antarctica

On the 13-day Antarctic Peninsula ���ϳԹ��� Cruise, taking place this November, you’ll snowshoe among penguins, sea kayak with whales, and backcountry ski rarely visited peaks with the help of certified guides and a Zodiac boat to shuttle you ashore. The ship’s two decks of cabins fit 132 guests. Along the way, you’ll learn from onboard experts about the history, biology, and geology of the snow-covered southern continent. (From $10,995 per person.)

Austin ���ϳԹ���s

Australia, Baja, Botswana

Small-ship cruises with carry just a few dozen guests, meaning the empty beaches of Western Australia’s Kimberley Coast stay mostly empty. For eight days, you’ll hike to the top of waterfalls, go mud crabbing, and swim in isolated ponds before catching the sunset from the observation deck, glass of Australian wine in hand. Other destinations include island hopping in Bali or game spotting in the deltas of Botswana. (Trips start at $2,990 per person.)

Aqua Expeditions

Peru, Cambodia, Vietnam

Want to avoid seasickness on the open ocean? is for you. The cruise company offers three-to-seven-night adventures on two of the world’s most iconic waterways: the Amazon River through Peru and the Mekong River in Cambodia and Vietnam. Skiffs take passengers ashore for off-road biking excursions and jungle hikes. But with suites featuring floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the water, plus amenities like an outdoor hot tub, fitness room, and locally sourced meals, no one will blame you if you stay aboard. (From $3,825 per person for three nights.)

UnCruise ���ϳԹ���s

Alaska, Panama, Costa Rica, Hawaii

The size of the small ships in the fleet is key: The 120-to-232-foot vessels can travel narrow passages that large vessels can’t, and they anchor in small bays so you can explore scenic spots via kayak or paddleboard. Destinations include southeast Alaska and Glacier Bay National Park, the rainforests of Panama and Costa Rica, and Hawaii’s emerald isles. Onboard, view wildlife or the night sky from observation decks, participate in a topside yoga session, and dine on healthy meals. (From $2,995 per person for seven nights.)

BC Ferries

British Columbia

BC Ferries isn’t a cruise ship operator—the company provides transportation to coastal communities around British Columbia. But these same boats also offer multiday vacation packages. The eight-day starts in Vancouver and visits small fishing villages on Vancouver Island before heading up the famed Inside Passage to the secluded port of Prince Rupert. You’ll spend each night in onshore hotels, so there’s no sleeping in small cabins. By day, you’ll choose your own adventures, from photographing grizzlies to watching for whales. (From $1,176 per person for seven nights.)

The Rider Experience

The Grenadines

If you’re a kitesurfer, check out the . Its eight-night tour of the Grenadines aboard a 45-foot sailing catamaran includes daily kitesurfing sessions off remote Caribbean islands like Canouan, Tobago Cays, and Mayrea. Newbies can take lessons, and other activities include paddleboarding and snorkeling through turquoise waters. Or go farther afield with the Rider Experience’s trips in Greece, Egypt, and other exotic locations. (From $2,650 per person for eight nights.)

Islandhopping

Croatia, Italy, Greece

Imagine a guided cycling tour combined with a small-ship excursion, and you’ll have the idea behind . On its cruises, you bring your bike aboard and disembark to ride flowing singletrack, buff downhill trails, and winding dirt roads around Mediterranean islands in Croatia, Italy, and Greece. If you don’t have a bicycle, the boat will provide a full-suspension loaner for a small fee. The cabins aren’t lavish, but they’re cozy enough for a great night’s sleep after a long day in the saddle. (From $1,155 per person for seven nights.)

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Carina Hoang grew up in a wealthy family in Vietnam. She had a nanny to take care of her and a maid who cleaned up after her—she didn’t even wash her own hair. But when the Vietnam War broke out, she and two siblings fled the country on a boat, landing on the beach of Kuku, in Indonesia. It was supposed to be a refugee camp, but it was actually a deserted island. No food, water, buildings, people, or tools. Just sand and jungle. Produced in collaboration with , with funding from the International Women’s Media Foundation, this is a story about Carina’s decades-long struggle to leave Kuku Island behind.

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With a camera in twe, took off for Vietnam. He hit the roads of southern Vietnam including Ho Chi Minh and Chau Doc. Mesmerized by the culture, he ventured north via train to visit Hanoi, Ba Be National Park, and Ha Long Bay. Find more from Tanghe on and his .��

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In our ongoing Weekly Escape series, we aim to transport you from your desk to an incredible place in 2 minutes or less. This week we go all the way to Vietnam with . Fasoli traveled to Vietnam with his best friend. The duo crammed as much adventure into their two-week trip as they could and caught as much of those adventures on camera. Fasoli then packed it all into this incredible short edit. You can follow Fasoli on Facebook .

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By some stroke of topographic luck, some of the best roads for biking are located in the world’s top food and wine territory. Here’s where you can feed your burn like a king.

California

TerraVelo Tours
Just when glamping fatigue was setting in, TerraVelo Tours came along and reimagined the fancy camping concept for cyclists. Launched in 2014, TerraVelo runs itineraries in Utah and Wyoming, but gourmands should head to California. Start at Point Reyes National Seashore, hit Napa Valley, Highway 1, redwoods in the , and finish up with surfing on the Lost Coast in Mendocino County. Daily rides range from 20 to 89 miles. In addition to canvas tents with memory-foam beds, perks include a juice and wine bar, sunrise yoga, an in-camp masseuse, and a team of chefs preparing pork loin sandwiches and duck confit chile rellenos.

from $5,990.

Italy and Sicily

Cinghiale Cycling Tours
Andy Hamsten—the only American cyclist to win the Giro d’Italia—launched Cinghiale Cycling Tours in 1997, focusing exclusively on rides throughout Italy. Trips are geared toward more serious riders, with most rides between 30 and 40 hilly miles per day. Itineraries geared toward super-serious riders tackle mountain passes and intense descents daily. Tuscany is the classic itinerary—loaded with cooking lessons, wine tastings, and authentic restaurant meals—but Cinghiale also offers trips to Sicily and the Dolomites.

from $3,450.

France

Gourmet Cycling Travel
What happens when a former pro cyclist and a chef with Michelin-star experience team up? Gourmet Cycling Travel. The founders, cyclist Simon Kessler and chef Jonathan Chiri, personally lead every trip—in Spain, France, and Italy. Kessler’s love for the Tour de France inspired him to created a TdF Final Week itinerary, which takes riders through three regions to see three Alpine stages of the Tour, including Alpe d’Huez, plus the finish stage in Paris. Each day of the eight-day trip has options for noncyclists, so while you climb Ventoux, your companion can take a cooking class or go on a hike. The day’s adventures are exchanged back at cush hotels over lengthy, wine-fueled meals.��

, $6,495.

Australia

Gray and Co.
Gray and Co. prides itself on catering to the world’s most discerning active travelers. The guest-to-guide ratio is two to one, and trips include a full support team and accommodations ranging from villas to chateaus. Over-the-top itineraries span the globe, but food and wine lovers looking for an unexpected experience should consider Australia. Gray and Co. can craft trips for the Barossa Valley and Kangaroo Island, Tasmania and Daylesford, or Western Australia. Days include plenty of pedaling, plus stays at luxe foodie hotels like the Louise and Southern Ocean Lodge.

 per day.��

Cambodia and Vietnam

Trek Travel
If you’re a fan of Trek bikes, then you’ll definitely be a fan of Trek Travel: You’ll ride a Trek bike that’s selected to match your riding style. Itineraries span the globe and can be customized to satisfy both the hardcore and those just learning to use clipless pedals. Trek Travel’s 12-day Cambodia and Vietnam itinerary takes riders past rice paddies, temples, and beaches. Day four offers serious riders the challenge of tackling Paradise Pass, the highest pass in southern Vietnam. Each night, cyclists retire to a five-star hotel, such as Evason Ana Mandara, and days are sprinkled with visits to food markets, traditional restaurants, museums, and local villages. Bonus: Anyone who takes a Trek Travel vacation receives $300 off any 2015 5 Series or 6 Series Trek Domane, including Project One, and the Trek Emonda SL6 and SL8 models.

Argentina

DuVine Cycling and ���ϳԹ��� Co.��
DuVine Cycling and ���ϳԹ��� Co.’s itineraries are packed with fancy hotels, awesome food, and top-of-the-line bikes from brands like Cannondale and Giant. The most challenging part of the six-day Mendoza trip is avoiding a hangover. Cyclists pedal through the Luján de Cuyo and Uco Valley vineyards; rest stops take the form of wine tastings at Catena Zapata and Salentein. The trip is geared toward weekend cyclists, with daily mileage ranging from nine to 28.6. Calories burned are quickly replenished with local specialties, such as empanadas and chimichurri. At night, guests recharge in luxe hotels, including the Vines Resort and Spa, where they’re treated to a meal cooked by celeb chef Francis Mallmann.��

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The French have a term—terroir—for that sense of place that makes food or wine particularly special, and it deepens when you’ve actually experienced that place. For example, a Sauvignon blanc will always taste better after kayaking down the Loire River, just as the Loire is best viewed through that rosy lens of a few glasses of local wine.

Now that adventure travel companies are offering more itineraries that put food at the forefront, we made a short list of five trips you need to take if you’re passionate about both food and adventure. Some are all-inclusive, but you won’t find a carving station or days-old dinner rolls within a 10-mile radius of any of these trips.

You Catch, They Cook at Viceroy Snowmass

If you need a day off from the slopes, head out with the for an afternoon of hunting in Colorado’s backcountry. “The venue is a scenic hour and a half drive from Aspen, situated on over 28,000 acres of the most ideal upland bird habitat imaginable,” says Will Nolan, the executive chef at Viceroy’s Eight K restaurant. “It’s a area unmatched in the world, with its deep canyons, rocky draws, open meadows and wooded river bottoms,” he adds.

Once you’ve captured your dinner, Nolan will walk you through how to harvest and prepare it during a private cooking lesson. And if you don’t catch anything, don’t worry; you won’t go hungry. Aspen Outfitting Company’s guides will step in to help. And if even they don’t have luck, Nolan will bring whatever fowl the restaurant has on hand to cook for your dinner.

And if you’re not a hunter, Viceroy also offers a day of skiing and snowboarding with Chef Nolan, followed by an après-ski cooking lesson, no blood, guts, or bullets required.

is available with advanced reservations only. Prices start at $100 and hour, accommodations not included.

Cycle, Eat, Drink, and Eat Some More in Italy

João Correia jokes that if you lose weight on one of his trips you get your money back. The former pro roadie is serious about his food and his wine, and both flow freely during his weeklong bike tours. “I don’t care what pace you ride at, but if you can’t keep up at the table we’ll kick you out,” he says. (He’s kidding…mostly.)

Correia spent much of his pro cycling career in Italy, so he knows the roads and restaurants intimately. You’ll ride between 30 miles and 80 miles per day (on top-of-the-line Pinarellos), receive rub-downs by pro tour massage therapists. The rest of the time you’ll be at the dinner table.

“We ride and we do good riding, but I tell people that at 1 p.m. I want to be at the table, eating lunch,” says João Correia, founder of , a food-focused cycling tour company. “I joke that for every hour we ride we spend three hours at the table.”

. Full service tours start at $6,750 per person, while self-guided tours start at $2,500.

Trek and Picnic on the Pemberton Icefield

If picnicking has always seemed just a little “99 percent” to you, maybe it’s time you tried heli-picnicking. Guests at the can pay a bit extra to helicopter to the Pemberton Icefield where you’ll be served a once-in-a-lifetime picnic. While the chef is grilling lobster tails and rubbed Canadian prime rib eye steak bites, you can take a 2-3 hour trek through the glacier’s ice caves or have a private yoga session on the ice—followed by a trip to a secret hot springs.

per person, with food costs depending on the menu.

Tour Vietnam’s Markets By Bike

 has been leading recreational cyclists through Vietnam for nine years, but a few years ago the company decided to add a food-focused trip to its offerings. “It’s for people who want to be outside but who also really want to be exposed to the country’s culinary delights,” says Chris Skilling, the vice president of worldwide product for VBT.

The trip lasts 13 days and includes two cooking classes, two guided visits to markets, a noodle factory visit and a tea ceremony performed by monks. “Plus you’ll see a lot of the country’s must-see sights,” says Skilling.

The biking is definitely geared towards the recreational rider, with daily rides ranging from 15 miles to 30 miles. VBT’s clients do skew a bit older too, but that shouldn’t deter you from joining. Just know that there probably won’t be any town line sprints on the comfy—though not particularly swift—hybrid bikes VBT provides.

departs Nov. 17, last 13 days and costs $4,245 including international airfare.

Drink Whisky at the Edge of the Earth

In Scotland’s remote Orkney Islands you’ll find , a farflung Scotch whisky distillery. Highland Park was founded in the late 18th century by Magnus Eunson, a church official by day and a smuggler by night. According to local lore, he hid his product from government officials by stashing it in coffins during the smallpox epidemic, when no one wanted to lift the lid to double check what was inside. While the distillery alone is cool, the Orkney Islands are worth a trip for their unique topography and ancient ruins, including the Ring of Brodgar, a Neolithic stone henge.

There are companies that do whisky tours in Orkney, but it’s also easy to navigate on your own. Flights and ferries can get you to the islands from the mainland, although frequent bad weather, especially in winter, can delay things. While you’re island-hopping, consider traveling also to Skye Island to visit Talisker and Islay to visit Lagavulin.

Highland Park requires for its more in-depth tours. .

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Some travel for adventure, some for food. Some like to combine the two into a maelstrom of uncontrollable pleasure. For those of you who like to have your cake and a mountain to eat it on, too, these six destinations should serve you well.

Laos and Vietnam

The food in Southeast Asia is wild and diverse, and you'll want an old hand to get fully immersed in the culture of it. Go with Maxwell Holland, a based in Thailand who has been eating his way through Asia for the past 20 years. His 14-day Indochine Culinary Expedition (from $5,595) starts off with the spicy-hot, Thai-like flavors of Laos in Luang Prabang, a Unesco World Heritage Site on the Mekong River. But the trip's primary focus is Vietnam, from the milder food of the north to the complex flavors in the south, where Holland and co-leader Mathew Smith have the inside track on the best local markets, cooking schools, chefs, and restaurants.

In Hanoi, you'll make traditional Vietnamese dishes like nems (spring rolls) with renowned chef Didier Corlou at La Verticale, then spend a few days exploring the South China Sea coast as you drive down to Saigon. There, shop the Ben Thanh Market for everything from papaya to water buffalo, then make a meal with chef Phuong of Hoa Tuc Restaurant, set in an old opium factory. Holland designates plenty of time out of the kitchen to visit temples and sail the islands in stunning Ha Long Bay.

Puglia, Italy

Five hundred. That's how many miles of coastline you'll find in Puglia, which is in Italy's boot heel and dips into both the Ionian and Adriatic Seas. You'll also find copious fresh seafood, from squid to anchovies to mussels, in addition to bountiful fennel, cherries, figs, almonds, olives, pasta, and vino. Bonus: the rolling countryside and coastline are perfect for burning off the carbs on two wheels. Base out of Fasano's , an olive estate that has been in the same family for three centuries (doubles from $130). After classes in making olive oil, pasta, and bread, head to the white-sand beaches of Torre Guaceto Marine Reserve and sign up for sailing or windsurfing instruction with , then savor the catch of the day at family-run Osteria Perricci in the seaside city of Monopoli. Rather not DIY? On ' seven-day Cycling and Culinary ���ϳԹ���, you'll ride up to 40 miles a day with stops to help chef and guide Rocco Cartia gather ingredients for cooking classes in a beautifully restored 19th-century farmhouse (from $2,699).

Oaxaca, Mexico

Tortillas were invented in Oaxaca, a southerly state with humid jungles, pine-covered mountains, and empty beaches. So was tejate, a pre-Columbian energy drink made from toasted cacao, corn, and mamey seeds. And while other regions take credit for inventing mole, the sauce was perfected here. All of which is to say that Oaxaca may be the most food-rich region in Latin America. Make your own mole at (from $75), a cooking school with daylong classes in the tiny village of Teotitlán del Valle. But the real draw in Oaxaca? Mezcal, tequila’s smoky older cousin. Expert Eric Mindling leads guests on the six-day (from $995), which travels to villages where the men still drink pulque, a pre-Hispanic fermented brew made from agave, and to Matatlán, the self-proclaimed mezcal capital of the world. You’ll eat empanadas in off-the-beaten-path restaurants like Comedor la Florecita and taste mezcal from rural stills and in stylish Oaxacan bars. Ride it off by renting a Trek mountain bike and tackling the 17-mile , which climbs 3,000 vertical feet right outside the city (rentals, $40).

Southeast Alaska

Alaska? For food? Hear us out. By virtue of its sprawling size (twice that of Texas) and its residents' self-reliant ethos (the state is nicknamed the Last Frontier), Alaska is one giant countercultural foodie scene. Fly into Juneau, stay downtown at the (doubles from $89), and head straight to Tracy's , a wood hut surrounded by picnic tables near the cruise-ship docks. Order an Alaskan king crab leg ($24) steamed to perfection and slather it in butter—heaven. To taste some of the best Alaskan salmon, time your visit around the 's Taste of Cordova Seafood Cook-Off and Dinner, in Cordova (July 26–27), and stay at the nearby (doubles from $165), a refurbished cannery. From there you can kayak straight off the dock into Prince William Sound. Prefer to catch your own? At ($1,750 per person for two nights), on China Poot Bay near Homer, your guide will help you reel in and filet silver salmon or Dolly Varden char, then grill it over smoking alder. Just across the bay, perfect your cooking technique at the Cooking School at Tutka Bay Lodge, set in a renovated crabbing boat, where chef will teach you how to make Russian salmon pie ($225 per day).

Lima, Peru

​

Two words: fusion cuisine. For that you can thank the harmonic convergence of abundant Pacific Ocean seafood, Lima's explosion of superchefs, and the country's indigenous and Spanish food, influenced by Chinese, Japanese, West African, and other immigrant cultures. Base in Lima, a Latin New York City when it comes to eating ethnic; there are more than 6,000 chifa restaurants—which serve a version of Peruvian Chinese food—alone. Stay at (doubles from $450), housed in a refurbished belle époque mansion in Barranco that's just two blocks from the Pacific. Have a pisco sour at La Terraza, the rooftop lounge with ocean views, then head to , where world-renowned chef Gastón Acurio serves homegrown specialties like cuy (guinea pig) and sea bass ceviche. Some of Lima's best restaurants are located in the upscale beach community of Miraflores, five minutes from Hotel B, where paragliders catch thermals off massive cliffs that plunge into the Pacific and surfers head to the reef break at, yes, Waikiki. Rent a board and wetsuit from (rentals, $35 for an hour and a half). Afterward head to for arguably the tastiest ceviche and frothiest pisco sours in Lima.

Basque Country, Spain and France

It's all about fresh and simple here. Linked by the common language of Euskara, the 7,978-square-mile Basque region borders the Bay of Biscay and spills from southwestern France into northern Spain. Even more important than the linguistic bond is the Basque peoples' deep love of pintxos (tapas) and marmitako (fish stew), knocked back while visiting pintxo bars on ambulatory night adventures. Start in the Spanish coastal city of San Sebastián, less than 20 miles from the French border, which has more -starred restaurants per capita than any city in the world. Request a room at with a terrace overlooking La Concha Beach (doubles from $150 per night), then pintxo-bar hop through Old Town. Reserve a table weeks in advance at Arzak, the world-famous restaurant of Juan Mari and his daughter, Elena, who cook “reinvigorated Basque cuisine” like red mullet with newborn broad beans.

To link the two countries on foot, hike the GR34, an ancient footpath that starts in Spain, follows the Basque coast into France, and ends 360 miles later in Brittany. Or go with ' eight-day Basque Country Bonds eating-and-hiking adventure (from $3,090). You'll hike, meet local farmers, and, if you're lucky, eat and drink with the male members of Gaztelubide, San Sebastián's most prominent txoko, or “savory society”—one of many ancient clubs where men still don't allow women to prepare the food. Women can, however, eat it.

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Dan Austin

Age: 36

Organization:


The original idea was straightforward enough. While planning a bike ride through the Cambodian countryside in 2006, Austin, an author and documentary filmmaker, and his brother, Jared, a pedia­trician, decided they wanted to donate their bikes to a local orphanage. Then they found out the orphanage housed 88 kids. “It was like this lightning bolt,” says Austin. In just five days, the brothers, with the help of Web-savvy friend Nick Arauz, founded a nonprofit, launched a Web site, and linked it up to PayPal. “Being able to accept donations online easily and securely was a tremendous help,” says Austin. Each bike costs $88, and by the time they got to Cambodia, they had all the money they needed to buy bikes for every orphan. “When you buy a bike, we give your picture to the child,” says Austin, “and then we take a picture of the child with the bike holding your picture and give it back to you.” It’s a winning strategy: Over the past three years, 88bikes has given away several hundred bikes to children in Uganda and Peru and has projects under way in India, Nepal, Vietnam, and Ghana. One of the main keys to 88bikes’ success is understanding the limitations of social media. “We’ve got a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter page—all that stuff,” says Austin. “But you’ve still got to take time to chat with people and forge one-to-one connections.”

Tim DeChristopher

Tim DeChristopher

Age: 28

Organization:


DeChristopher is facing two federal felonies, ten years in prison, and $750,000 in fines. Last December, he bid on, and won, close to $1.8 million worth of oil-and-gas rights near Utah’s Arches National Park. The crime: He couldn’t pay. He’d bid in protest of any drilling. “We didn’t get the Civil Rights Act because the last bigot in Mississippi stopped being racist,” says DeChristopher, an economics student at the University of Utah and climate-change activist. “It was because people stood up and were willing to go to jail.” In February, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar shelved about 80 percent of the land parcels DeChristopher bid on, and DeChristopher has since founded the nonprofit Peaceful Uprising to promote nonviolent protest. In the coming months, he and pro bono lawyer Pat Shea, the BLM director under President Clinton, will make the precedent-setting argument that DeChristopher’s action was designed to slow climate change and therefore falls under the lesser-of-two-evils defense. If DeChristopher wins, climate-change protestors have a legal shield. Despite the gravity of his situation, DeChristopher recommends acting for climate change in any way possible. “It’s terrifying,” he says, “but sometimes you jump off the cliff, then build your wings.”

Reza Baluchi

Age: 36


Organization:


Baluchi’s advice for those looking for a way to help? Get moving. “When you run, you have a lot of time for thinking. Think of what you can do to make the world a better place. For me, if I help people, it makes me happy.” Baluchi’s stats prove it:

43: Number of days it took the former pro cyclist and peripatetic Iranian-American this summer to run across the United States—3,300 miles from L.A. to New York, more than 76 miles per day—raising money for UNICEF.

14: Number of New Balance shoes he wore out during his cross-country run.

15,000: Number of calories he burned per day.

38: His resting heart rate.

11,720: Number of miles he ran around the perimeter of the U.S. in 2007, raising money for a Denver children’s hospital.

49,000: Miles clocked on a goodwill bike ride through 55 countries that ended at New York’s Ground Zero in 2003.

85,000: Miles he plans to cover, on foot and in a specialized paddleboat, on his five-year, human-powered journey to all the world’s countries. Along the way he hopes to become an ambassador for peace—meeting with world leaders, helping schools and local organizations, and inspiring others.

Brad Ludden

Brad Ludden

Age: 28

Organization:


While Ludden may be photographed with his shirt off more than Matthew McCon­aughey—Ludden was on ���ϳԹ���‘s cover in 2000, and a few years later Cosmo named him Bachelor of the Year—he’s not just a pretty torso. The pro kayaker’s idea: Build a cancer patient’s confidence by teaching him or her to kayak. After his aunt was diagnosed with breast cancer, Ludden founded First Descents in 2000 to provide what doctors call the other half of recovery—the emotional cure—to young cancer patients. Ludden has now taken 600 of them, ages 18 to 39, down rivers. “A week on the water reminds them that they’re not fragile,” he says. Past participants tell him that kayaking restored their courage, allowing them to bridge the gap between treatment and daily life. Though he’s still kayaking intense water—Ludden recently filmed the documentary The River Ward in Madagascar—he’s changing focus. “More and more, I find fulfillment in teaching people,” he says. So what’d he do with the $10,000 Cosmo gave him for the bachelor title? Promptly donated it to First Descents. “Share your passion with somebody in need,” he says. “It’ll make both your lives better.”

Geoff Tabin

Age: 53

Organization:


Tabin’s life was transformed when he saw a team of Dutch physicians in Nepal cut into a local blind woman’s eye. “At that time in Nepal, it was accepted that their eyes turned white from cataracts and then they waited to die,” says Tabin, who was there to climb Mount Everest. “Seeing this woman restored to sight was incredible.” In 1995, Tabin, along with Nepalese doctor Sanduk Ruit, started the Himalayan Cataract Project (HCP) in Kathmandu. In addition to facilitating the mass production of inexpensive lenses used in cataract surgery—the same procedure that costs thousands in the U.S. can be done by HCP for $20 in Nepal—Tabin and Ruit have trained more than 100 local surgeons. Now, after 15 years and hundreds of thousands of eye surgeries, Tabin is looking to bring the same high-quality, low-cost treatments to sub-Saharan Africa. His goal: to eliminate preventable blindness, a condition that afflicts some 45 million people worldwide. “I still receive great satisfaction from standing on top of a mountain, but it’s pretty minimal compared with watching a patient regain their sight,” he says. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

Eric Greitens

Eric Greitens

Age: 35
Organization:
Greitens’s résumé is hard to believe. Twelve-time marathoner with a 2:58 best. Champion boxer. Aspiring mountaineer. Rhodes scholar. Oxford graduate. Author and photographer (his humanitarian work in Rwanda, Bosnia, and Gaza, among other places, was published as a book of essays and photographs). College professor. Navy SEAL. Four tours (in Iraq, Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, and Africa). A Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. A White House Fellows program. But the reason we chose him out of more than 600 nominees as Reader of the Year? His work since his tours. After a suicide truck bomb hit his platoon in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2007, Greitens visited his wounded teammates and other marines in military hospitals. They all said that when they recovered, they wanted to continue to serve, in uniform or out. The St. Louis based Greitens then partnered with a few veteran friends and used his own combat pay to start The Mission Continues, an organization that trains wounded vets for leadership roles in their communities. He’s since put 31 vets through the program. Greitens, an ���ϳԹ��� reader for years, still finds time for six workouts a week, and he’s writing a book about service. “I think people end up benefiting from serving as much as those they aim to serve,” he says. Here’s more, in his own words.

One of the most influential people in my life was my first boxing coach, Earl Blair. He taught me that every single person is capable of tremendous courage if they’re given the right circumstances, the right training, and the right encouragement. When you challenge someone, you let them know you believe in them.

In SEAL training, I learned it’s actually easier to be a leader. When you’re leading a team, your thoughts are always on them. No matter how much I was hurting, no matter how tortured I had been, there was someone hurting worse than me. You don’t have time for your own self-pity.

I take time every single morning to exercise. It’s really important for me to get my head and spirit right before I start the day’s work. I work very long hours, but when I go home, I’m home. When I’m on the mountain, I’m on the mountain. I do not constantly BlackBerry.

My two favorite marathons were the New Jersey Marathon, where I broke three hours, and the Shamrock Marathon, which we ran in Fallujah, Iraq. It was the first marathon where they start the race with a briefing about what to do in the event of incoming artillery fire.

I want every single wounded or disabled vet to be welcomed home and seen as an asset. This year, we want to have 100 wounded or disabled vets as Mission Continues fellows. At some point, if we’re tremendously successful, the organization will grow larger than me.

Clare Lockhart

Clare Lockhart

Age: 36
Organization:
Lockhart’s inspiration came in 2002, when the guns had fallen silent–briefly—around Kabul and she was standing amid the rubble. “There was no guidebook on how to rebuild a country,” says Lockhart, who was part of a team setting up the new Afghanistan government. So the New York-based London native wrote one. First she co-founded the nonprofit Institute for State Effectiveness, in 2005; three years later, she published Fixing Failed States, which outlines how citizens from war-torn countries can organize their societies, economics, and politics. “I wanted to enable the people to empower themselves,” she says. By the time she was 30, Lockhart had visited as many countries, earned a history degree from Oxford and a master’s from Harvard’s Kennedy School, and practiced law in London. Now she’s provided more than $800 million in grants to 23,000 villages in Afghanistan through her National Solidarity Program, and she spent the better half of the past three years traveling on foot, horse, jeep, or helicopter to many provinces in Afghan­i­stan. “The people are rebuilding schools, medical clinics, and government facilities in their vision of the country,” she says. Lockhart emphasizes that you don’t have to work abroad to create positive change. “Volunteer locally,” she says. “The closeness of that interaction makes the feedback immediate.”

Ben Horton

Ben Horton

Age: 26

Organization:


Horton is many things: adventurer, photographer, activist. Just don’t call him a photojournalist. “Photojournalism is about presenting a story straight, without personal input,” he says. “For me, I want to influence the story. I want to create change.” To that end, Horton has traveled to the world’s wildest and most endangered landscapes—including the Arctic in spring 2008 as part of Will Steger’s Global Warming 101 expedition—to document those environments with his camera. He then publishes and exhibits the images to persuade the public, politicians, and big-time philanthropists like Richard Branson to protect them. “If you present scientific data to a group of people, not many are going to get it,” he says. “But if you put a picture of a landscape in front of them, all of a sudden they have a personal experience with it, and they’ll become inspired to save it.” Says Horton: “Everybody has their own medium, whether it’s writing, music, computers, or artwork. Use it to create change.”

David Rastovich

Age: 29

Organization:


You wouldn’t peg Rastovich to star in a thriller. The man’s a freesurfer, which means he gets paid to surf exotic waves for promotional films. Not exactly a high-stress gig. And yet there he is at the climactic moment of the year’s most talked-about documentary, The Cove, paddling out to cause a ruckus in a sea of dolphin blood. In the scene, Rastovich leads a crew of five wetsuit-clad activists—including movie stars Isabel Lucas and Hayden Panettiere—into a clandestine Japanese dolphin slaughter, disrupting the killing with a board circle. “The fishermen flashed the propeller at us and hit the girls in the legs with the boat hook,” says Rastovich, who was born in New Zealand and lives in Australia (and now has arrest warrants out for him in Japan). “Rasta” became interested in marine conservation after giving up contest surfing at age 20. Four years later, he started the nonprofit Surfers for Cetaceans to mobilize an athletic community not exactly known for monkeywrenching. Two days after the group formed, Rastovich was surfing at a local break when a shark bore down on him and a dolphin nosedived in, butting the shark away. “That was all the confirmation I needed that I was on the right path,” he says. Next up? Kayaking down the Australian coast, from Byron Bay to Sydney, alongside the humpback whale migration. The goal: Pressure the Australian government to enforce whale-sanctuary laws in the Antarctic waters where Japanese whalers hunt. “The government made a promise to help out and hasn’t delivered,” says Rastovich. “We’re going to make them honor their word.”

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The thought echoes in my head like a command from a bureaucrat’s megaphone: It is the duty of the honorable bicyclist to maintain a safe speed and proper distance from comrades while riding in group formation. There are 11 of us, descending an unnamed pass in the northwestern corner of Vietnam at 20 miles per hour. The diesel-dank city of Lai Chau is a few miles back; the valley village of Pa Tan is about 30 miles ahead. It’s day four of our trip, and by now, after several days of dodging tiny minivans and flatulent motorbikes and Chinese dump trucks, we’ve learned that bikes are at the bottom of the vehicular food chain.

So why haven’t we heeded our guide’s warning and slowed down? Before I can convey this thought to the group, Kim, a 39-year-old Bay Area software marketer riding just ahead of me, realizes she’s going too fast, jams on her front brake in a state of pre-hairpin panic, crosses up her mountain bike’s front wheel, launches over the handlebars, and face-plants. Hard.

I dismount, yell “Rider down!” and rush over to help. Kim’s fair complexion has turned green. Her eyes are closed, lids fluttering, and she’s moaning like Beavis coming down from a sugar high. Luckily, she manages to walk away with only a few cuts and bruises. The next day, she’ll feel good enough to ride.

We’re in Vietnam with Roadmonkey ���ϳԹ��� Philanthropy, a startup travel outfitter owned and operated by Paul von Zielbauer, who lives in Brooklyn and, until recently, was a full-time reporter for The New York Times. Roadmonkey’s mission can be summed up like so: Lead a group of paying clients on a killer outdoor trip that also involves several days of Peace Corps–style do-gooderism. This is Roadmonkey’s inaugural outing, a nine-day, van-supported 300-mile bicycle tour, followed by four days building a playground at an orphanage where the majority of the children have HIV.

I’ll come right out and say it: I had misgivings about this trip. I’d looked into pay-to-volunteer vacations in the past, not just as a client but for a possible career move. “Voluntourism,” as it’s often called, sounded like a meaningful way to travel and, perhaps, a half-decent way to make a living, at least compared with the one I’ve eked out as a freelance writer. But I wasn’t quite convinced. Volunteer vacations seemed like an excuse for Westerners to catch an adrenaline rush, safely slum it in some beautiful but poverty-stricken corner of the world, and then preen with false humility over syrah and tapenade back home. What could I accomplish that a low-wage Vietnamese laborer couldn’t, besides letting others know that I’m an up-with-people kind of guy?

For starters, I could raise money through my own social networks, as each of my fellow tripmates was expected to do. That money would go to one of the Vietnamese orphanage’s primary backers, the New Jersey–based nonprofit Worldwide Orphans Foundation (WWO). One e-mail blast, one Facebook posting, and four days later, I’d raised about $800, much of it from people I hadn’t spoken to in a decade. Then I caught a flight to Hanoi to see for myself if Roadmonkey’s brand of voluntourism was a noble niche within the travel business or a form of philanthro-washing that would leave me feeling unfulfilled.

MAN, THESE KIDS are cute—especially this one little dude, Lanh. (Because Lanh is a minor under government care, I’ve changed his name.) I first meet him in the kids’ sleeping quarters at the orphanage, near the city of Ba Vi, about an hour west of Hanoi. The orphanage, essentially a courtyard with several rooms on its perimeter, was once the health center of the adjacent Ba Vi prison, a low-security facility for drug offenders and prostitutes about 100 yards away. Lanh has been at Ba Vi for about two years. Like all but a few of the 60 HIV-positive kids here, he appears surprisingly healthy. Because he is.

“With the right treatment, there’s no reason children born with HIV can’t live a full life,” says Linh Do, the 34-year-old Vietnamese American who runs WWO’s operations in the country. As she explains, institutions like the orphanage are essential to providing rural health care in Vietnam. Of the country’s 63 provinces, only a handful are fully equipped to handle pediatric HIV, and the few communities that can aren’t always tolerant of the disease. In some cases, she says, “we get kids who come from good, loving families in villages that are too far from good treatment. Ba Vi is their only choice.”