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Poll: Best active holiday
If you've been on an outdoorsy or active holiday I'd love to hear about it. It doesn't even have to something that involved camping, just something that was geared towards doing something as opposed to seeing something. The Inca trail? Ship-board dive holidays? Climbing a mountain? Riding Camels through the Sahara? Hiking the Appalachian Trail?
What did you do? Did you go it through a tour company or by yourself? Would you recommend it to others?
I'm trying to talk H into a week and a half long trek through Papua New Guinea next year but am looking for other options.
Re: Poll: Best active holiday
I am still drooling over GillC's trip to Antarctica.
Are you talking about the Kakoda track?
We did the Inca Trail in Dec and loved it, there are also a lot of other hikes in the area.
Tassie has a lot of walks, we did Bay of Fires, but Maria island, the Overland Track and Freycient are also popular.
Seeing you didn't get to the Sounds in NZ, the Milford Track is also meant to be great, but very popular and requires a lot of pre-booking I think.
We are hoping to do Mt Kili next year, I have also been interested in doing something in the Himalayans.
That's exactly it. You put the idea in my mind and now I can't get it out. Ideally I'd like to do the trek to Everest's base camp, but I figure that 16 days at serious altitude isn't the best choice for my first real camping experience.
Haha! It wasn't that active! It just required a lot of pretty cool gear!
However, I loved the bit of Patagonia I got to explore at either end. Great scenery and hiking opportunities, and it's well-suited to back-country exploring and back-country skiing if you're into that (I'm not really a skier). The entire tourism infrastructure in Ushuaia feels like it's based on active holidays.
There were a lot of shorter active trips in China. Camping on the Great Wall; multi-day treks on the sacred mountains like Hua-shan; horseback riding and yurt stays in Inner Mongolia.
Svalbard has lots of active day excursions like trekking, kayaking, etc, but you usually have to return to Longyearbyen by nightfall because of the bear threats.
I've also been eyeing a few multi-day kayak trips that look pretty cool (the one in Greenland being literally cool)!
We did a trip to Costa Rica a few years ago - went hiking, rafting, and canyoning, saw cloud forest, volcanoes and beaches. It was a great trip, perfect mix of activity combined with relaxing in between adventures.
We also went down to Patagonia a few months ago and went backpacking in Torres del Paine, in Chile (my browser is being weird and won't link to the posts, but they are on the first page in our blog, link below) Then we went into Argentina, a few hours on a bus, to hike on a glacier (also in the blog, though further back in the posts), and hike in El Chalten, which has ended up being some of our favorite mountain hiking ever. Both those places are very doable as an inexperienced person, and you won't need a guide.
You could do the Inca trail as well, though personally I preferred Patagonia.
Many years ago I did a 10 day bike ride across Ireland with a company called Experience Plus. They run trips all over the world, walking, biking, food related...some are much more active than others. They are pricey (for our budget) but worth every single penny.
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Do you like animals? We spent two weeks in Namibia and one week in Rwanda. In Namibia, we brought our camping gear and camped out most nights but did not do any back packing (just car camping). There are some great hikes to do. You can hike the sand dunes at Sossusvlei (we did this and it was awesome), or the Fish River Hiking Trail (we didn?t get to this area), or hike the Waterberg Plateau (we didn?t have time to do the full hike ? it takes 4 days ? but wish we could have done it). Plus, lots of safaris (I am an animal lover so I really enjoyed seeing all of the game).
In Rwanda you can do chimpanzee trekking. For us, this was a really intense hike down steep hills with no paths but it just matters where the chimps are. We also did gorilla trekking which was probably one of the greatest experiences of my life (we plan on going back within 5 years because we want to do this again). There are also a couple of volcanoes that you can hike up to. We did this and the scenery was beautiful.
Mine too! Just never enough time to do everything!
If you go to Australia, I would suggest going to Lord Howe Island and hiking Mt. Gower. It is a tough hike and the views are incredible. I also thought the snorkeling there was better than the Great Barrier Reef.
I think you can do a hiking trip across the interior of Iceland. When we went, we did a tour into the interior and the absolute isolation of the place was amazing. If we had more time, we would have done a hiking trip. It was one of the most unique landscapes that I have ever seen.
Riding camels through the desert in Egypt, swimming amongst sharks and stingrays in Bora Bora, hiking around on Mount Fuji, and climbing a glacier in Iceland are at the top of our list as favorite activities.
- In Egypt, we booked a private tour where we were driven out from Giza, and out into the dunes in safari-style jeeps. They spun around, and slid us all over the dunes. It was incredible. We then mounted camels, and they took us amongst several pyramids that are known to the locals, but not often seen by tourists. It was amazing. I didn't realize just how many pyramids there were. They are really scattered all about in the desert.
- In Bora Bora we went out to a popular sandbar where you can swim amongst the stingrays and sharks. We did something similar in Moorea, but Bora Bora was much more intense. The water was anywhere from 3-4 feet dee, and the rays were massive. Larger than any I have seen. Black tip reef sharks swam around us, and amongst the pods/schools of stingrays. Those guys were roughly 4-7 feet long. Against, amazing, and breath-taking. I still can't believe how many sharks we swam with! A few even brushed against us!
- I always imagined Mount Fuji to be massive. Don't get me wrong, it's a large mountain. However, it's more famous/perfectly formed in shape, than grand in size. We drove up to the 5th station (where the road stops) and hiked around. It was fall, so the air was crisp, and the views spectacular. Due to the elevation, the hiking was a bit more stressful on the body. It's such an accessible area, though, that I would suggest anyone visiting Tokyo take a day trip out to mount Fuji.
- Iceland is full of activity. We did SO many things in Iceland. The highlight of activity there, and something I hope to do once again, was climing a glacier. We had a guide, and he provided us with all of the equipment we needed. We stapped on harnesses, spiked shoes, and helmets, and walked across the glacier for a few hours. We then came to a steep include, and climed up. It was steep - I'm not even sure how high. Maybe 50 feet? We used ice aces and our spiked shoes to climb up. I thought it would be easy, but it was so difficult. I felt like the queen of the world once I got up to the top. Proud of my climb, and enjoying the view. I still can't believe I have climed a glacier! Anyone who visits Iceland and is physically able, must do this!
Another vote for Patagonia, although as you say it's your first time camping I'd suggest not doing the W or Circuit treks in Torres del Paine. We just did a one day trek up to the lookout point to see the towers (http://bit.ly/oVWoro) which was awesome and not too hard, and you can either camp or sleep in a hostel-style refugio. Then combine that with some time in El Chalt?n, Argentina, again doing day treks.
I haven't done the W/Circuit, but a friend who just did the W and who is in decent shape and has camped before said it was harder than she was expecting, and just in terms of organizing food and your stove to cook everything plus the weight of your backpack it might be a bit of a challenging first camping experience.
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I forgot about Lord Howe. The best thing about Mt Gower is it's a day hike and you can stay here after
That's the advatage with the ones i listed for Aust and NZ, no need to carry anything other than your clothes and a day pack, plus beds in most cases overnight
If you like desert hiking then http://www.larapintatrail.com.au/ looks interesting, and you would fly through Darwin which isn't that far from KL....
Now I have to rethink our African trip, because Fish River Canyon wouldn't fit in
We've done several "active" holidays, mainly because DH doesn't like to lay around the beach!
Costa Rica is a country just begging for you to just get off your butt. We backpacked and rock climbed different parts of China (southwest, mainly). We do a skiing trip almost every year somewhere - this year was Taos, NM. Even our honeymoon was pretty active, snorkeling, kayaking, and cliff diving. Our trip later this month will be a week in a cabin in West Virginia hiking, rock-climbing, kayaking, and fishing.
We've hiked the Virginia Appalachian Trail, and was planning on doing MD this year but now that I'm pregnant, not sure.
Most of our vacations are active; since we travel to surf.
My biggest recommendation is Swell Surf Camp in Cabarete, Domnican Republic - recently Included in the Top 10 Surf Camps in the world. It's not just surfing, you can kite surf, SUP, yoga, spin. And to top it all off they make you feel like family.
I'm passionate about this place, so if you're interested at all, just ask me about it.
Other locations are... Outer Banks, costa rica, Mexico, Oahu....
Great Explorations bike holiday to the Tour de France in 2004. It was pricey, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. They do tours all over the world, and I'd definitely do another one with that company. They do some trips that are more strenuous than others, and even within groups, you might sub-divide into those wanting even more activity than others.