A vacation is a wonderful time to get away from the normal day-to-day. But you needn’t spend it sedentary and immobile, sipping cocktails and grazing at the buffet.
To combat vacation hangover and dreaded weight gain here are three fun trips that will challenge your mind and your body. You’ll return home from each of these trips in better shape than you left.
You don’t need to be as fast as the Kenians. You don’t need to challenge “Ultramarathon Man” Dean Karnazes on a 100 miles race. Running a marathon or a half marathon or a shorter race is more a personal challenge than a struggle against the clock. And you can enjoy the tourist experience as well, it’s called sightseeing on the run. Crossing the Brandenburg Gate at the Berlin Marathon or entering the Panathinaikon Stadium in Athens will leave you breathless (OK, that maybe be the exhaustion) and offers a more vivid memory of the city than thousands of pictures.
You may have heard the term flashpacking, the act of traveling in the spirit of a backpacker but with the budget of one more monied. Well, from the Netherlands comes what might be the ultimate in flashcamping—a portable, wood-burning spa.
The Dutchtub is a personal hot-springs-to-go. If you have a tub-sized patch of flat ground, wood and 200 gallons (750 liters) worth of water or snow you can have your own spa virtually anywhere.
In Paris, a pedicure entails something entirely different than your typical scrub and polish.
Monsieur Ho is to feet as Yves Saint Laurent was to fashion—worshipped by his fans and envied by his rivals as a master of his medium. For the last three decades his name has been passed from one glamorous Parisienne to another as the best pedicurist in town. His most fervent supporter? None other than La Deneuve, France’s most famous and demanding diva.
So how do you create a three-story bookstore in a cathedral when you can’t drill any holes into the building or attach anything load-bearing to its walls?
Usually a store is just a store. But a few stores are attractions in and of themselves. So it is with these six incredibly cool-looking bookstores. Next you are in Maastricht, Beijing, Porto, Buenos Aires, Paris or Mexico City, add these stores to your list of must-see attractions—even if you don’t plan on buying a book.
October is an odd time for travel booking. It is low season for cruises (check out our review of luxury cruise lines currently offering discounts) and for Europe and for Southeast Asia. The northern hemisphere ski season hasn’t started yet and the Caribbean is at the tail end of hurricane season. But all this means there are more travel bargains for you.
As always, you can stay updated on our latest travel deal posts by . . .
• going directly to our travel hot deals page;
• or, getting a Kindle subscription to our travel blog;
• or, perhaps best of all, subscribing to our RSS feed and getting all of our travel posts delivered directly to your email inbox or to your RSS aggregator;
or—why not?—act on all three of those options.
Please note that most of the offers below are for a limited time. And with that, here’s to happy, high-value travel!
Close your eyes and picture this: You’re on the Christina O(nassis) with Jackie-O and Ari sailing the Greek Isles. Oh Jackie-O this is marvelous. So cool. Cocktail hour and then a fabulous dinner of the freshest daily catch followed by great conversation. Ari did what! And laughter. Next a rousing game of charades with J & A. She’s so funny—who knew! Please don’t wake me.
That exact scenario may be a dream but your ability to afford a luxury cruise may not be. Some of the best cruise promotions being offered today are in the premium market. Premium sailings serve up the good life and a whole lot more. Luxury cruises are capturing a younger, more sophisticated yet less stuffy crowd. While mass market cruise lines carry 2000+ passengers, making it hard from them to indulge passengers with fine dining and highly personalized service, luxury cruises offer a more upscale and intimate environment. And who doesn’t want a little more luxury and a little more pampering on their vacation?
A year ago we would not have been able to say premium cruising is affordable. Now we can say: Luxury is affordable and you can go on a luxury cruise. I can, yes I can! And I will!
Here are our three luxury cruise lines of choice. Each are currently offering outstanding promotions:
All work and no play makes Dracula a dull vampire
This January the Carnival Liberty will set sail on a special Fangs and Fur Cruise. But if you imagine this is an opportunity for you and your four-legged companion to take to the high seas—a sort of Rover + You + the Love Boat—you are off. Way off.
The fangs in question belong to a vampire. The fur belongs to a werewolf. And the cruise’s target audience is literally literary—it is for aspiring authors of the gothic genre.
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