On this episode of Unpacked, host Aislyn Greene chats with outdoor travel experts, Cindy Hirschfeld and Miles Howard, about their best outdoor adventure recommendations. From hut-to-hut, cross-country skiing in the San Juans to frozen waterfalls and seaside foliage—she uncovers why off-season travel is the key to unforgettable outdoor adventures.
Transcript
I’m Aislyn Greene, and this week on Unpacked, we’re exploring the best off-season outdoor adventure because in the Northern Hemisphere, at least, it’s spring! I’m recording this from Washington, D.C., and the cherry trees are just beginning to blossom. It kind of feels like the earth is waking up. So today, we’re going to hear from two experts in outdoor adventure. They’ll share their thoughts on the best places to hike, ski, cycle, and more in the Northern Hemisphere’s spring and fall, but also surprising places to travel this summer.
First up, Cindy Hirschfeld, a Colorado-based writer and big-time skier who has specialized in outdoor adventure for the past 25 years. Cindy is a frequent contributor to the New York Times travel section and authored the book Canine Colorado. Cindy, welcome to Unpacked. I take it, by that title, that you have dogs.
Cindy: I do. I have two dogs, and they are my outdoor adventure partners, everywhere that I can have them.
Aislyn: Would you mind just telling me a little bit about your relationship with the outdoors, how it developed over the years, and how you made this essentially your career? I mean, that’s amazing.
Cindy: Yeah. I’ve loved being outdoors all my life, and so, you know, many of the stories I write are about outdoor adventure. And a lot of my personal travel, too, I design around outdoor adventure. I’m an avid skier. That’s one of my main things. So I do that at the resort, in the backcountry, at cross-country ski.
And when there’s not snow to ski, then I love to hike and climb peaks. I ride, uh, both my mountain bike and gravel bike. I love being on the water, which isn’t as common in Colorado. I do get in some stand-up paddleboarding, but, you know, if I’m traveling elsewhere with big lakes, I love getting out, I love swimming in freshwater lakes, and I’m not much of an indoor exercise person. I’ve tried it and it just doesn’t stick.
So this is also, in addition to being recreationally something I love, you know, getting outdoors is my, my gym and my exercise, too.
Aislyn: So we are particularly interested in, you know, these quote, unquote softer adventures, cycling, hiking, etcetera. So for travelers who love to travel in this way, or maybe for people who are new to it, where would you send people, in Colorado and outside of Colorado?
Cindy: You know, spring is a great time for skiing because the weather is warmer, you can sit outside on the deck and have, you know, a margarita at lunch or something. And especially out in the West, there are areas that stay open into May . . . in Colorado, uh, Breckenridge and Arapahoe Basin, Utah—Snowbird [a Utah ski resort] often stays open into May—a couple areas of California, Palisades, Tahoe, and Mammoth. And then up in Canada, in Alberta, um, where I just visited in January, Banff Sunshine Ski Area and Lake Louise both stay open until May.
So, you know, that’s a, a great time to go. This year, the Northeast—Vermont, New Hampshire, and, and Canada, Québec—they’ve had a really good ski year. So, I would also check those out for last-minute trips because I think those areas could stay open longer than they normally do.
Killington [ski resort in Vermont] usually stays open, well into April, anyway, but they’ve had a good winter. And I also think even just, you know, trying to squeeze in a trip to, to Europe, a ski trip. I’ve skied in Chamonix [in France], you know, in late April.
And then I will put in a plug: It’s a good time to consider a backcountry ski trip, which, you know, is, is, is a good thing to go on with a guide. I will, even though I don’t normally use many guides when I’m traveling, I will use a guide for a backcountry ski trip in an area where I haven’t been, for safety reasons. A couple years ago I did a great hut-to-hut backcountry ski trip in the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado.
And, yeah, which was magical. And I’m heading to Iceland in a couple of weeks to go on a backcountry ski tour there, and I’ve, I’ve never been to Iceland, and I can’t think of a better way to, to go and visit that.
But spring is also a great time to go biking. You know, whether it’s road biking, mountain biking, gravel riding, especially in areas where it might get too hot, or uncomfortably hot to bike in the summer. Moab, Utah, is kind of a classic one for that. It, it does get pretty busy in the spring—that is one caveat.
There’s a little town in very, very southern Arizona called Patagonia, which has a really great gravel-biking scene that got started a few years ago. And they have a bike shop and a lot of routes, and a really good community has sprung up around that. I will also, I will spend time out in the Utah desert in the spring doing canyoneering trips, which is something I enjoy.
And, you know, it’s a good time to visit Central America in the spring. I’ve been to both Costa Rica and Nicaragua in April, May, and it’s just the tail end of their dry season there. The rainy season usually starts sometime in May. So it’s a time when you can still be outdoors without getting sopping wet, but it’s not their, it’s not their high season, so, you know, a few less crowds, not quite as expensive.
And one of my favorite trips that I’ve done, it was quite a while ago, but it was in May to Namibia. It’s just north of South Africa, and a lot of it is very desertlike. The landscape is similar to Utah, and there’s hiking. There’s, of course, incredible wildlife viewing. But I also did a backpack [trip] there for four or five days, just with friends, along a place called the Fish River Canyon, which is kind of like their Grand Canyon. It’s immense, and you hike, you hike down this river, and you have baboons around and different wildlife, and it feels very, very remote. So, that was a great spring trip.
Aislyn: That’s a really fantastic set of, a diverse set of suggestions.
Cindy: Very, very, very—oh, you know what? OK, there’s one, one other place I wanted to mention and it’s in Colorado and it is a perfect place to get both skiing and mountain biking in one day, if you want. And that is Grand Junction, which is far west Colorado, almost at the Utah border. And it’s a, you know, sizable town. They have an airport there. And Grand Mesa, which is the world’s largest flat-top mountain, is just outside of Grand Junction. They have an amazing cross-country trail network up there—that it’s so high elevation, it’s like 10,600 feet, that you can easily ski there until the end of April, and they will keep it groomed.
And then you can go into town, and they have great mountain biking trails, accessible right from town. The river runs right through it so you can go fishing, or boating, or paddleboarding. And then, the town itself has gotten a lot more vibrant with some new hotels and restaurants.
And wine country is, is right next door. Colorado wine country. So it’s really great. It packs a lot for its size.
Aislyn: Yes. Well, you have covered ski towns quite extensively. Is there anything else that you would want to add about interacting with these places outside of their primary season?
Cindy: With ski areas, they’ve really evolved for summer in the last, I would say, you know, eight or nine years, and that is because Congress passed an act in 2011, they called it the Ski Area Recreational Opportunities Enhancement Act, which is a mouthful.
But then a couple of years after that, the U.S. Forest Service also updated some policy guidelines. So between the two of those, it made it less cumbersome for ski areas to, to request uh, development for the summer. Um, so that meant that now they’re able to offer more than just the scenic, uh, chairlift rides.
So that’s led to the development of a lot of different trails for hiking and mountain biking. You see places with mountain coasters and zip lines and a lot of summer events, like trail running races or mountain bike races. And also stuff at the bottom, like, you know, food festivals and beer festivals and concerts and stuff. So, it does make it fun that you can go and do your outdoor thing on the mountain during the day and then, you know, come down at the end and eat and drink or listen to a great band.
Aislyn: I had no idea it kind of dated back to a very specific and bureaucratic-sounding effort.
Cindy: Yeah, that really opened the door for places to, you know, some of them had started doing some kind of development, but I think those resorts were, were on private land, so they didn’t have to go quite through the same permitting thing.
Aislyn: What would you say about summer adventures, like, in the Southern Hemisphere or maybe other places that people aren’t typically thinking of as a summer outdoor recreation destination?
Cindy: So, well, summer in the Southern Hemisphere is going to lead me back to one of my favorite things, which is skiing. And I’ve been, uh, I’ve been to Chile twice in the summer. And I’ve been to New Zealand in the summer. I mean, I’m talking about our summers. And, you know, so both those times are winter.
And in New Zealand, I went there with my husband. We spent a week in Queenstown and we were able to ski at four different ski areas. But, then we rented a camper van. And we drove around the South Island for two weeks and as we got farther north on the island, it got warmer because we were getting more toward the equator.
So, once there we were able to hike, we were able to go sea kayaking. I remember a long hike we did in the pouring rain, which they consider great weather to go hiking in. So that was another destination that had a real variety of things that we could do, from the skiing to like we went and did a boat ride where we swam with wild dolphins.And it was, you know, just amazing.
Aislyn: Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Cindy: And in Chile, we, you know, I’ve been to a couple of different ski areas there. One’s called Via Nevada, which is pretty close to Santiago and another is called Portillo where you go and there’s, it’s just one hotel you stay in all week and it’s kind of like a cruise ship atmosphere in a way. But then there also, we went to this really charming lakeside, lakeside town called Pucón and there’s a big volcano there and I was with a group that we climbed and skied down the volcano, which is not as extreme as it sounds, really. And then went to this great hot springs resort that we were literally able to ski to.
So, yeah, so there’s also, there’s a variety of adventures, you know, and just when you’re going in the Southern Hemisphere, remember that the farther north you head, the warmer it gets.
Aislyn: OK.
Well, I’d like to get super practical. If you have outdoor plans, and if you want to spend any time in urban areas, how do you navigate packing for outdoor recreation, especially if there’s gear? And do you like, rent things when you travel?
How do you handle that?
Cindy: I mean, starting when I was in college, I spent a semester in France and I would travel everywhere with my friends. I had this little orange duffel bag, and if I could get two weeks of stuff worth, like, that was a major accomplishment.
And that’s still in my mind, you know, all these years later.
Aislyn: Yes. Totally.
Cindy: Um, yeah, if you can rent the bigger gear, like, if I’m going somewhere, say, to ski, and it’s only going to be a couple days, and I’m going to be doing other things, I will try to rent skis there, but I will bring my own boots, because that is harder to get a good fit on.
And for biking, you know, I have packed my bike before, which means taking it apart and sticking it in a bike box and packing. It’s a pain. So, for example, I’m going on a bike tour this summer with some girlfriends from here through the Netherlands and Belgium. And we’re going with an outfitter that is covering the bike rentals, too, including helmet and you know, and it’s not . . .
Aislyn: Awesome. Yeah.
Cindy: . . . I do usually use clip-in pedals, but it’s not, we’re just going to be using regular stuff. So it’s all taken care of, so I don’t have to worry about that. But I think one of the nice things about doing outdoor adventure stuff for travel is, you know, on the one hand, you want to be prepared, so, you know, you don’t want to say skimp on bringing something by leaving behind a rain jacket, you know, or an extra layer or something like that. But you’re also, nobody’s paying as much attention to what you wear. And people kind of expect you to be wearing, like, the same couple of biking shirts over a week or, you know, the same ski jacket and pants for a week.
So you know, I think it gives you a little more freedom because you don’t have to come up with different outfits, you know, for going out to dinner. Maybe you pack one dress.
I think that focusing, knowing I’m focused on a, on a particular activity helps me streamline.
And then I just, you know, try to take, like a couple of changes of what I need to wear for the activity for the week rather than stuffing a suitcase full of gear.
Aislyn: I, at least, have seen that there are better brands out there that offer kind of hybrid clothing. You know, something that you could wear in an athletic moment and then also wear to dinner.
Are there brands that you’ve found that you, that you feel like straddle that line?
Cindy: Um, you know, in the outdoor industry in general, that concept of what they’ll call like “trail to town” has really taken hold in the last 10 years. So I’d say, yeah, every brand offers a bit of that. But, um, I really like the brand Kühl. It’s K-U-H-L, for stuff like that. You know, also I’m lucky enough to live in a place where if you show up for something in your ski pants, like it’s not that big a deal, so it doesn’t have to look that different.
Aislyn: Totally. And that’s a good point. I would think that if you’re traveling to a place that is known for outdoor recreation, it’s going to be more casual than like, a big city.
Cindy: Often, often so.
Aislyn: Would you say that’s true?
Cindy: Yeah. And I’ve just stopped being self-conscious about what I wear.
Aislyn: I wanted to end on a more philosophical note, which is that, you know, I’ve done a lot of backpacking and cycling trips over the years, and I have found that they connect me more deeply with a place. Like, I have these wonderful sense memories of destinations around the world because I was taking it in at this human pace that we talk about.
How do you think that that has changed travel for you? And why would you advocate for this as a way into a place?
Cindy: I love, love, love traveling that kind of way. And, you know, as you mentioned, it allows you to see things at a slower pace. And I think one of the best ways, one of the best ways to, to cover some ground, but still get that slower sense of really seeing things is by biking, which is one of the reasons I’m really looking forward to this trip to the Netherlands and Belgium where I have biked before.
And you know, another thing I was going to say about it is, when you’re with a group of people and you’re doing an outdoor thing together, it creates these really strong bonds, even if you’re with people you didn’t know before. And so that hut-to-hut backcountry ski trip in the San Juans in Colorado that I mentioned before, that was two years ago now, and we were a group of I think 10 and I’m still in touch with about half the people. I saw one person from there a couple months ago when I was in Park City. I’m gonna meet up with another guy from the trip and his wife to go skiing in Vail in a couple weeks.
Aislyn: Wow, yeah.
Cindy: So, it’s not only the way of appreciating the landscape, but the relationships you make while you’re doing outdoor things.
I’ve had a group of, of close girlfriends now for about 30 years and we regularly do outdoor adventure things together. We have rock climbed, we’ve gone on ski trips, we’ve camped, we’ve hiked, we do a lot of this, you know, technical canyoneering in the desert, and those bonds that have formed are so strong and the conversations we’ve had, you know, are like, hanging from a cliff or something, you know, about things that I won’t even mention here. But yeah, those kinds of experiences of doing that outdoor stuff together, you know, outdoors in a beautiful landscape with close friends, like there’s nothing like it.
Aislyn: We’re back with Miles Howard, an author, journalist, and trail builder based in Boston. He’s the founder of Boston’s 27-mile Walking City Trail and writes a weekly walking newsletter called Mind the Moss. Miles, welcome. Can we start by having you share some of your favorite things to do outdoors, both in the Northeast and beyond?
Miles: I think if I have one throughline for all my favorite activities, it involves traveling on foot in some way, whether it is hiking, uh, doing something that’s more like a gentle walk, a run, being on snowshoes or cross-country skis. I absolutely love exploring the outdoors at that kind of meditative pace where you can really start to sense some of the more subtle details in the landscape, you know, even the, even some of the aromas that you find during certain seasons, especially this coming spring and mud season when the earth is basically thawing and waking back up.
I absolutely love that. And, you know, what’s even better is when you compare that really pristine exposure to the outdoors with a really wonderful restaurant or hotel or museum or anything in the area that really illuminates the local culture.
So I really love that kind of duopoly of experiences when it comes to travel.
Aislyn: I just went snowshoeing for the first time last month and I loved it.
Miles: Oh, where’d you go?
Aislyn: It’s— so I’m based in California, so we went up to Tahoe and, you know, it was just, it was hiking in the snow. I mean, it was, yeah, it was very straightforward, but also so tranquil and special.
Miles: And it’s funny because snowshoeing kind of changes your footsteps and your gait a little bit too, so it’s almost like learning how to walk again at first, but then once you get into it, it’s so heavenly. Yeah.
Aislyn: Right? For people who like to explore in this way, do you have favorite parts of the world? Favorite activities? I don’t know, favorite trails?
Miles: I mean, I am biased, of course, because this is my home base, but I really do love the northeastern region of the United States and also, um, northeastern Canada as well, because the amount of environments that you find in a relatively concentrated area here is just mind blowing.
I mean, we have beaches, we have forests and mountains, wetlands and really amazing cities, too, that also offer access to a lot of these activities as well. And, uh, I lived on the West Coast for several years, which I’m also a huge fan. I was in L.A. for that period of time, one of my favorite cities in the world, not least of which is because it has incredible mountains nearby, too.
But, you know, one major difference with the Northeast is, and ultimately why I chose to settle here, is, you know, in a lot of parts of the United States and the world, you have to drive a really long distance to get to a type of landscape that really makes you feel like you’ve entered a different world, like you are happily out of your element.
And, you know, in that same driving time within the Northeast, you can go through like three different environments like that. So it just leads to a broader range of accessibility when it comes to outdoor areas. But that being said, I do have some particularly favorite destinations that are a bit more far flung.
Um, one of them, and this might be surprising at first, given that we’re talking outdoor recreation here, but, uh, Berlin and the area around it is absolutely one of my favorite places to be because the city is actually surrounded by immense woodlands and lakes, and there’s actually a trail that’s nearly 280 miles and circling the city, that visits about 60 of those bodies of water.
And you can get there from the city center by just hopping on the Deutsche Bahn rail and going to a point along the trail, hiking to the next station and then coming back in. So it’s one of the only places in the world where you can basically through-hike by day and then go clubbing at night and everything.
Aislyn: Oh my God. I love that! Hahaha.
Miles: That’s one of my top places as well. But when it comes to a region that really, um, is near and dear to me that I know very intimately I would say that New England and the American Northeast is really at the top of my list.
Aislyn: Are there particular parks or areas within the Northeast or in northeastern Canada? I’m curious about where you like to go and where you might recommend for travelers.
Miles: So, I mean, it is the place that many people think about immediately and it actually is an incredible off-season destination but um, Acadia National Park in Maine is truly like nothing else I’ve seen before. Not just the marriage of both the oceanic seascape and the mountains, but also the ingeniousness with which—how the trails there have been constructed.
You know, they feature these incredible rock staircases, some really fun adventure elements like iron rungs and bridges, and the trails also have a range where pretty much hikers of any ability, including hikers who might have mobility limitations, are going to find really interesting things they can do there that show off the local ecology.
And, because it’s a national park, it is one of the most popular destinations in the Northeast, but that real wave of visitation runs from June through early September. And if you go in the fall or in the spring, it is a whole different level of immersion because you’re going to find fewer crowds.
Most of the trails will still be open and it’s just the perfect time to roam and discover the uniqueness of that ecosystem on Mount Desert Island. When it comes to northeastern Canada, one of my favorite places is, uh, Prince Edward Island.
So on, on P.E.I. they have this trail called the Island Walk, which basically runs the entire coast of the island, in one big loop and you see all of these incredible scenes like big red cliffs and, uh, birch forests and wetlands, and there are generally enough B&Bs and hotels along the route that you can basically treat it almost like a pilgrimage on the Camino, where you stay at a place each night and then go on the next day, and some hotels will even ferry your luggage for you from your current place to the next one so that you can walk with a nice light day pack, basically.
I’ve only done a piece of it. I’d love to go back and bite off more in the near future, but I was there in, uh, late fall, which actually is part of the off-season for them. Most people have gone home by that point, but it was an incredibly, almost eerily beautiful time to explore the island because you could feel the presence of winter nearby, but there were still leaves on the trees, a few places were still open, and the places that were still open, you know, people who ran these restaurants and hotels were really happy to see folks at that point.
Aislyn: Yeah. That’s amazing. I was just in Door County, Wisconsin. Obviously it’s winter and the off-season and it felt like a very similar, like you almost have the place to yourself in a way. And seeing parks, and watery destinations in the winter, I think is just so charming,
Miles: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s kind of like watching a big creature hibernating almost right there, I find. Especially if you go to a place where maybe there are waterfalls and they’re all frozen during the winter. That’s one of my favorite things to see anywhere.
Aislyn: Yeah. Do you have a memory of seeing, like a place that you’ve seen a frozen waterfall that, that you’re thinking about at this moment?
Miles: Oh, I mean, the place that I come back to usually is, um, in New Hampshire, there’s a waterfall called Arethusa Falls, which is really right in the heart of the White Mountains. And what’s funny about it is that it’s often billed as the tallest waterfall in the state, at 200 feet. It’s the tallest year-round waterfall, but there are actually bigger cascades that are seasonal that kind of appear in the spring.
So Arethusa is very crowded in the summertime because of this reputation. You know, it’s one of those situations where you almost have to like work your way through a crowd sometimes to get to the base of the falls where you can feel the mist. But in the winter, the first time that I saw it in frozen form was almost like a very unintentional kind of hike.
You know, a few friends and I had had some micro spikes we just bought. We were looking for a way to test them and we thought, Oh, maybe Arethusa Falls could be interesting this time of year. It’s a really relatively easy climb to get up there. And so we went up the ravine where the falls are located.
And when we saw it, it was just like this titanic wall of ice in front of us. And it felt like we were in the presence of a god or something like that. And you, but the coolest thing is that it was so still in the winter. And this is the case with many waterfalls, that if you listen carefully, you could hear the hum of water running beneath the ice.
Aislyn: I mean, who doesn’t want to stand in the face of an ice god?
Miles: Exactly. That’s, that’s what I’m saying.
Aislyn: Well, you mentioned waterfalls, and I think of those as a very spring activity. So, given that we’re coming up on the spring shoulder season, do you have other suggestions for places to go, maybe places to see waterfalls?
Miles: Oh man, one place that comes to mind immediately that is on the opposite coast of the U.S. is the Redding–Shasta, California area right there. Because, due to the, uh, history of volcanic activity in that region, which, you know, really reshaped the land many, many years ago, there is just a smorgasbord of waterfalls in that region that really are at a scale that, for someone coming from the Northeast or the Midwest is mind blowing.
Truly. I mean, these are these are gargantuan cascades where, you know, the level of water that is contained in some of the plumes is simply incomprehensible. There’s one particular cascade called McArthur-Burney Falls, which features not only an absolutely enormous waterfall in the center, but behind it around the cliffs that run around it, there are just like countless rivulets of water running down alongside it, too.
I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s one of the most multi-layered, complex cascades I’ve seen. And what’s great about a lot of the waterfalls in this region is that you can very easily do kind of a circuit loop drive around there where you hit a couple of them each day and the last time I did this, which was in 2019, I basically used the town of Redding, which has some very good food and drink options, as my base camp. And then I spent two days in the region hitting waterfalls and also going to Lassen National Park nearby, too. Which is another great place to visit for not only cascades, but also active volcanic activity, like bubbling sulfur.
Aislyn: Well, given that you have covered the outdoors so extensively, you know, I wanted to unpack this idea of shoulder season because with the number of people that we’ve seen traveling over the last, especially the last three years, I’m curious to know if you’ve seen the shoulder season shift? Like does it still exist in terms of, actually being able to quote unquote escape the crowds?
Miles: So I think that something interesting has happened to shoulder season since the beginning of the pandemic. You know, usually the shoulder season was a time when you could reliably go to certain areas and it would be absolutely dead or at least very sparse. Indications that nobody wanted to go there for the most part.
Maybe it’s like, you know, Cape Cod in the winter, for instance, or, uh, I don’t know, northern Canada when it’s raining really hard during the spring and everything is muddy. But what happened during the first year of the pandemic is, I’m sure we both remember quite well, is that because of the, um, stay at home restrictions that we dealt with for many, several of the first months right there, when those travel restrictions loosened, there was such a thirst among people to go places and to burn off that energy they had stored from being pent up and stressed out all this time that I, you know, travel kind of soared for several months right there, including into the shoulder seasons in many places. I spent a lot of time in New England in that first year because I was current, I was working on a guidebook about New England road tripping that I had been hired to write just before the pandemic began.
You know, that’s, I mean, during the end of mud season, when it was still rainy and the snow was thawing, I went up to the White Mountains and other places where, you know, people generally avoided during that period. And they were packed. I mean, even during the April and early May weeks right there, the trails in these regions that were still thawing, we’re seeing record visitation numbers right there.
So it was something that I think initially was born out of desperation, but I think it showed a lot of travelers that actually there’s a lot of beauty to be savored during the shoulder season, even if you have to work a little bit harder to see it in some cases, even if you have to bring a little bit of extra gear with you.
And I think that since then, I’ve seen things kind of revert back to a version of busy and nonbusy seasons that’s a little bit closer to what prepandemic life was like. But I will say, you know, as someone who loves off-season travel and often, you know, plans trips for it, it’s a little tougher now to kind of get those great hotel deals and everything, because more people are aware of the opportunity here.
I do think we still have shoulder seasons. I just think that it’s a little less of an extreme contrast than what we saw in the pre-2020 years now.
Aislyn: Yeah, and maybe it’s not the worst thing that we spread our travels out, you know, and it’s not so much that’s focused on summer. Speaking of summer, what might you suggest for people looking to travel in the summer, maybe they’re, you know, forced to travel then because of school calendars, but maybe they want to go someplace that’s, I don’t know, more surprising, more off-the-beaten path, but still have that dose of outdoor adventure?
Miles: Summer is getting so sweltering and muggy in many parts of the world and the U.S. right now that I’ve been hearing more and more people say that what they’re looking for in summer travel is actually a bit of a relief from that in some ways. Which is to say, finding a place to visit that’s not going to be cold necessarily, but where that level of summer heat is a little bit less intense, so you could more readily spend time outside, extensively.
And, I mean, two places are on my radar right now when it comes to destinations for a possible “coolcation,” as people are calling it, are, um, Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada, which is the capital of the prairie province right in the heart of the country right there.
It sits right at the convergence of these two rivers and those parks, surrounding the rivers right there, which form a really big green space ecosystem throughout the city, are just like the place where everyone gathers and congregates during those months right there. There are picnics, concerts, art events, you know, people paddling around, you name it.
And it’s a really gorgeous time to witness that. The other place that comes to mind where I’ve actually spent a fair amount of time is Scotland. When we think of Scotland, we think of cold, rainy weather, but the summers there are actually quite temperate with a lot more sun.
Yeah, you’re obviously going to get some storm clouds here and there, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time both in Edinburgh and also the Pentland Hills nearby, which is an incredible, uh, elevated landscape with great classic hiking trails that really make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.
You’re often going through livestock areas. One of the great things about Edinburgh in general, in that whole region, is that there are so many historic walking ways that you can follow either through the city or into the hills around it right there.
Aislyn: Do they have through-hiking that you could do? Is it more like you base yourself and then go out on day hikes?
Miles: There are definitely a lot of cross-country trails in Scotland that one could do, and the closest thing to a B&B system that I’m aware of is a series of rudimentary huts called the bothies in the countryside, basically. And they are not quite, it’s not the sort of thing where you go in and there’s a bunk room and an innkeeper or anything.
These are very much, like, shelter-like cabins where you bring your own food and bedding and everything. They’re rustic and people like them that way. But, you know, that’s one way that people will break up a multi-night trip going through the Highlands, generally. This is, this is a little bit further away from the Edinburgh area, but, I know that those huts are, uh, certainly one of the mainstays for overnight travel there.
And, of course, uh, there are other historic walking ways that go across Scotland and parts of the whole U.K., too, where you do have the option to pass through villages where one could find accommodation, too.
Aislyn: How cool. I know that they have a system like that in Austria, too. We did a story on it many years ago, with, you know, I think more terrifying heights in the mix.
Miles: I mean, actually, the huts that they have in the Alps, both in Austria and Italy, were the inspiration for a series of backcountry huts in New Hampshire in the White Mountains that I used to work in back in the day.
Aislyn: Oh, cool.
Miles: Before I became a full-time travel writer. So that influence is definitely spread to a lot of parts of the world now.
Aislyn: Well, what about fall? We’ve talked a lot about spring, summer. That’s historically another window for, you know, shoulder-season travel. Are there places that you particularly love in the fall? I mean, I’m sure the Northeast is beautiful come fall.
Miles: One place that comes to mind both is a specific region and as a kind of broader theme is the Maine coast or really the entire coast of the Northeast in the fall. Because one of the most peculiar things I’ve found in this region is that when people think about fall foliage spectating and all the activities that people kind of clamber for, then, they solely seem to associate it with the hills and the mountains, basically, like, you know, treating it like an inland activity because we seem to have this compartmentalization in our heads that the coast is a summer thing, basically.
You go there to swim and eat lobster, and then as soon as things get cold, you leave it behind, basically. And I’ve never understood that because the combination of the seascape and the foliage turning golden and auburn, in that season right there is incredible. I mean, some of the best fall foliage sightings that I’ve had have been from boats going along the coast right there where you get, you know, sometimes you can even get the reflection of the trees and the water this ocean is still enough, which is just amazing. And so, you know, between the scenic amenities and the fact that it really gets much quieter in many of these towns and communities along the coast, uh, not just in New England, but, you know, in other parts of the East Coast in the United States. I think that that is kind of the general environment that I recommend to people when it comes to, you know, fall through a different lens with more quietude.
Aislyn: I love that, seeing the fall foliage from a boat or from a ship. Are there cruise lines that take people along the coast?
Miles: There are several tour operators that basically offer, uh, little mini-cruises that, you know, are just an hour or two long that are basically themed around both foliage spectating and also local history.
Uh, and this is, you find a lot of these in the Portland and Casco Bay area in Maine. Up in Rockland, which is a really great town, kind of in the Midcoast region. Uh, you can sometimes find operators who do tours like this as well. And, you know, even a tour that doesn’t necessarily advertise itself as a foliage tour, like many of the boat tours that offer service to the Boston Harbor Islands, which are spectacular, by the way, and really overlooked, you’re still going to see a lot of foliage if you do that in October.
So it’s kind of like a secondary bang for your buck element.
Aislyn: And that, listeners, concludes this week’s dive into outdoor adventure. In the show notes, we’ve linked to all of the adventures Miles and Cindy recommended, as well as to both of their websites, newsletters, and social media handles.
Next week, we’ll be back with a behind-the-scenes look at Afar’s 2025 best new hotels list, featuring senior deputy editor, and hotel pro, Jennifer Flowers.
Jenn: It’s so interesting how many projects these days do prioritize immersing us into local culture.
So one that comes to mind is in Saudi Arabia. It’s called Dar Tantoura, the House Hotel. It’s located in Alula, Saudi Arabia, which is this new tourism development, but Dar Tantoura is special because it’s actually built into centuries-old mud brick houses.
So you are literally living inside of these ancient homes. And the other part that is so incredible is it’s lit only by candlelight. There is no electricity. So you are fully immersed. Like you are going back to another time and place when you stay there.
Aislyn: Ready for more Unpacking? Visit afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Tiktok. We’re @afarmedia. If you enjoy today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.
And if you want to ask a question or suggest a topic for coverage, you can leave us a voicemail at the link in the show notes, or email us at unpacked@afar.com
This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.
And remember, the travel world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.
