Backroads, an "active travel company," is ending its singles and solos trips next year. The owners found that more of their solo travelers ended up on regular trips than on solo ones. There weren't getting enough people to make the singles and solo trips fun.
After doing some of Backroads solo trips years back, I realized I prefer a mixed group anyway. It's more relaxed. Less of that meet market feel.
Along with the change, the company has reduced the single room charges. Nice little benefit.
The part I like is where they say, "Just give us a call and we’ll help you find the departure with the most Singles+Solos, if that’s what you are looking for."
That's exactly what I did for my first major solo adventure, a rafting trip. I called Holiday Expeditionsand asked them to find me a trip that other solo travelers had signed up for. I didn't want to be the only person traveling alone. I didn't need a LOT of solo travelers. Just some.
I ended up in a fivesome with one couple, one married guy traveling without his wife (she wasn't much of a rafter, he said), one single guy and me. We became tight as ticks. We hardly made make a move without one another. We simply enjoyed one another's company that much.
I would consider another trip with Backroads. I've taken three with the company. Biking in the Colorado Rockies, biking in the Canadian Rockies and biking and hiking in Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon.
They were all run well. And I wouldn't have gotten to those places without joining a group that was already going. None of my friends are that gung ho about biking to plan a week-long trip out West to do so.
And I did things I never expected, including biking 120 miles in one day. (Trust me, there was a lot of downhill. But the 80 mile-day uphill day it took to earn the downhill was a major killer.)
Backroads is not the only company that will provide the service of putting a group together and getting on the phone with you to discuss who is signed up for the trip. On the other hand, I would probably avoid a company that wouldn't be willing to share that information.
A few months ago, a service was launched that lets you rent a bike and accessories the same way you rent a car or book a flight. You pick a destination city, give the dates you're traveling and what type of bike you want, and the service attempts to find you available bikes in shops around the area.
Before you get to the city. Without you having to poke around once you get there, trying to find an open shop with a bike that fits you.
RentaBikeNow.com is a great idea. I like the idea of renting a bike in advance and having it waiting for me. The site provides service in 144 cities. The only problem is, it doesn't seem particularly comprehensive.
When I entered "Washington, D.C." and "Saturday, September 12" to see what bikes would be available at local bike shops, I was given five bike shops to choose from. Unfortunately, just one was actually in D.C.
The other four shops were in close-in Maryland, close-in Virginia, far-out Virginia and very far-out West Virginia. West Virginia? That's not a D.C. bike shop.
But I'll cut the rentabikenow folks some slack. These things take time to build.
And perhaps there are better choices of shops and bikes in other cities. I'll certainly keep them in mind next time I travel to a U.S. city and want to bike.
RentaBikeNow hopes to expand worldwide. Good luck to them. It would be a useful service if done well.
I wake up but do not get out of bed. The Iron Girl triathlon was the day before. A .6 mile swim, 17 mile bike and 3.4 mile run. I finished. "To finish is to win," as JT, a fellow triathlon "girl" kept telling the eight of us doing it. I won.
In that sense.But I do not know how my muscles will react to vertical. Instead of throwing my legs over the side of the bed, letting my feet hit the floor and my body go upright, I stay on my back and lift my knees to my chest. And pull. Stretch.
I lower my legs. Lift the left one all the way up. Straight. Then reach it across my body to the right so it's perpendicular to the rest of me. And stretch. I repeat on the right side with my left leg. Feels good.
I continue these stretches and gentle exercises. As many as I can remember.All learned nearly two years ago now, at Devon Hiking Spa. "Fit Health into Life" is the spa's tagline, and this is what I'm doing. Fitting healthy stretching into my morning. (Tucson solo trip stories here. Read in reverse chronological order.)
I don't remember all I learned during my week in Tucson. But I remember how good it felt to contemplate morning instead of diving into it. Instead of rushing and buzzing and scrambling to start the day. As I usually do.
I admit I haven't been doing those exercises every day since that trip. But there are mornings when I remember. Either because something aches. Or I'm not willing to get out of bed too quickly.
I also remember my lessons about eating mindfully, not gorging at meals. Not that I can always follow those either. I try to gauge when I'm starting to feel satisfied and stop eating. It doesn't always work but each time I tend to think about my options and often I succeed at "being good."
It is not essential to finish everything on my plate. Sometimes, I find it fascinating how hard it is to stop eating. To purposely leave just one bite. It's a challenge to the irrational desire to finish what's in front of me, even though if that bite weren't there I wouldn't miss it. Try it. Leave one bite of food on your plate at every meal. Can you do it?
What's my point here? My point is, I traveled alone to a beautiful part of the country because no one was able to go with me. Met a nice group of people to hike, eat and exercise with. The health lessons have stayed with me. I would have missed out if I had passed on this trip.
Instead, I have post-triathlon exercises to do, better eating habits than before and fond memories of red rocks, rushing streams, snow in the desert (it was December), skittering critters and intriguing visions of myriad cacti everywhere.
The only down side was getting just a tad too close to one of those cacti. A nice, big prickly pear. And unwillingly taking a bunch of its cactus spines home with me. But even that turned into an up side. It made for a really great story for friends and family.
And, um, let's just say sharp memories for weeks after, as I'd find a spine here and a needle there. I'd love to go again.
And perhaps, hike just a tad more mindfully when amongst the cacti.
The next spa weeks are in September 2009 and January and May 2010.
Last weekend I did a 9-mile hike in the woods, along a creek for much of the way. I heard woodpeckers and the rustle of small four legged creatures scurrying away at the sound of footfalls. And the entire hike was in Washington, D.C.
What a lot of people don't realize about the nation's capital is that a stone's throw from the marble and granite monuments is enough park to get lost in. It's called Rock Creek Park. This hike started from a Metro station, where the Capital Hiking Club met up on a Saturday morning. Lots of people arrived alone.
After a two-block walk north on Connecticut Avenue, a major D.C. artery, we took a right turn onto a dirt path toward the Melvin Hazen Tributary of Rock Creek. The trail descended steeply and soon we were completely surrounded by tall trees.
That didn't last the whole way but we were on dirt trails for most of the hike. Part of the time we were close to a two-lane road that runs through the park, one that is closed to cars on weekends. We could see and hear the bikers, joggers, walkers and inline skaters. I'm often one of them on weekends.
At one point, I ended up talking with the woman behind me, Gretchen, originally from Belgium. That's what happens on these group things. People come alone but connect with whoever's hiking near them.
The night before, my friend and I joined the same hiking club for its monthly moonlight walk on the C&O Canal in Maryland, just outside the district. It was a beautiful night so a large crowd showed up. We trekked two miles to Great Falls. As night fell, the bright, nearly full moon appeared between tree branches. Spectacular. The group plans its hike for the Friday closest to the full moon.
We spent some time gazing at moonlight on the falls, something I'd not experienced at Great Falls before. I usually see the falls in sharp sunlight.
Back at the gravel parking area some people headed for their cars but a bunch of us crossed the road to the Old Angler's Inn. Many people who hadn't know one another before sat at outside tables chatting.
You don't have to be a member of the Capital Hiking Club to go on one of their hikes. You just show up. The day hike cost $2. The moonlight hike was free.
Washington has many clubs like this - hiking, biking, sailing and more - where you can just show up for the day and find company. Usually for free, or a nominal fee. I'll write about others from time to time.
Photos: Ellen Perlman
1. The view East from Connecticut Avenue north of Cleveland Park. Deep woods.The sign says, "Foot Trail No Horses." Yes, there also are horses and a stable in Rock Creek Park, Washington, DC!
2. The view South from steps away. The end of rush hour on Connecticut Avenue. Forested parkland so close to the urban crush.
Travel + Leisure's July issue describes the "world's top biking cities" Three are in the U.S.: Minneapolis, Portland (Oregon) and Seattle.
The others are Amsterdam (of course), Bogota (who knew?), Copenhagen, Montreal, Munich, Paris and Perth.
The site offers a slide show of the various cities. There's a great photo of a four-story parking structure in Amsterdam filled completely with bikes.
The write-ups give a nice little description of why the writers liked these particular biking cities. Even better for the solo traveler, they give information about where to rent a bike.
In Copenhagen, the "bycyklen" are free with a refunded coin deposit. The city so supports cyclists that a city agency maintains the huge fleet available to tourists. The bike Web site claims its city bikes are world famous. "When you tour the city you notice, that especially tourists love riding the city bikes."
One of the more unusual experiences I had, while in the Netherlands, was renting a bike as a means of transportation for a several-day excursion. My friend and I (this was not a solo trip) would throw our bikes onto trains and park them in front of hotels.
Because they were rentals, they weren't anything fancy but who needs a lot of gears in a flat country? One night we pedaled several miles from our hotel to a nice restaurant with white tablecloths. We dined on seafood and drank wine by the sea as the sun set. And felt like we earned our food because of the pre-meal exercise.
Minor problem with biking to dinner? Who wants to get back on that bike on a full stomach? Lesson learned. Not that I wouldn't do the activity again. But I would pencil into the plan some post-meal digesting time.
And get home before dark if the ride home is through the woods...as ours was. Especially if I were alone.
Travel writers have come up with a list of their favorite train rides and it has set my mind to wandering. And daydreaming. About past and future trips. The only train ride they list that I've actually been on is the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad that chugs through Colorado's two-million-acre San Juan National Forest.
As the coal-fired, steam-powered locomotive climbed its way to Silverton, I got to know my compatriots on a week-long Backroads bike trip through the Colorado Rockies. The views out the windows were spectacular - forest, mountains and steep drops to a river below.
When we arrived in Silverton, described on its Web site as, "a gritty little mining town with Victorian pretensions," it had clouded up and I was freezing. A quick visit to a souvenir shop - and there are many, trust me - for a Silverton sweatshirt solved that problem. (I loved that sweatshirt but lost it on some other adventure...)
That was a great bike trip and the train ride, though I remember it going on a tad long, was part of the allure.
The only other two train rides I'm a little familiar with are the Rocky Mountaineer, because I wrote about it in September after interviewing a big fan of the train. And the Flam Railway in Norway. Sadly, I never made it to Flam when I was in Norway years ago. I was hitchhiking with a friend on that trip. Our five-week journey started in the Netherlands and continued on to Bodo, a town above the Arctic Circle.
For five weeks, we went where drivers took us. We didn't have much in the way of plans other than to see the Midnight Sun. Mission accomplished.
But we did get driven East to West (or was it West to East?) between Oslo and Bergen, a bit south of Flam. I can attest it is one of the more stunning regions on earth. So I'm sure a train ride into those snow-capped mountains with their many waterfalls is just as spectacular.
I'd really love to get back there and see! "Ja, vi elsker dette landet." (The national anthem of Norway. It just happened to be a clue in Sunday's NY Times crossword puzzle.)
The steep mountain passes. The determination to make it up peak after peak in the Alps. The burning thighs. The peloton. The utter exhaustion. This can be you on vacation!
If you think you have a bike race in you, or just the desire to hear the imaginary roar of the crowd as you cycle (even if it's at tricycle speed) you should look into the many companies that offer rides on some part of the Tour de France route.
Many cycle companies offer trips in sections of the six countries the tour passes through during its 21 stages (including the principalities of Andorra and Monaco).
The company Great Explorations offers an Alps to Provence to Paris trip that takes cyclists to three to four stages of the Tour. It includes a stay in a hotel overlooking the Champs Elysee on the final night of this year's race. (Lance Armstrong is back this year!)
From the hotel's balconies, guests can watch the peloton head down the grand boulevard for the victory ride.
Bikestyle Tours, Beaux Voyages and Thomson Bike Tours are a few of the other companies offering "Tours de Amateurs." I particularly like Thomson's description of its "Giants of the Alps" tour in June. And I quote..."boldly going where no bike tour has gone before...!!!" Boldly go solo on the trip!
The seven-day tour includes the "biggest and most spectacular passes" in the Italian and French Alps. Read: steep as hell. But I've got to believe some of my readers are hard core cyclists?
(One of these days I'll write about the Grand Canyon trip I took during which I biked both a century one day--100 miles--AND 120 miles on another.)
FYI: This year, the Tour de France is from July 4 to 26.
A Brazil cultural and multisport tour. A Napa Valley long weekend wine tour. A Montana camping trip. Skiing in Chile in July. These are some of the vacations offered by Singles Travel.
I can't vouch for this particular tour operator. But I'm impressed with the variety of adventure trips they offer all over the world. It's worth taking a look and weighing them as an option. Especially of you are single and looking. Or single and looking for a vacation fling.
I like the fact that they offer a fair number of camping options. Those are great for saving money, although I know a lot of you like your luxuries. But these are not cheap trips so you may be a convert to camping for the sheer economics.
Be aware that if you want a private room on some of these trips, you might still pay a single supplement. But the organization does offer roommate matching if you're willing to bunk with a stranger. I've done that many a time. Let me clarify. I've bunked with a roommate of the same sex.
I can't say I love sharing a room. I like my privacy as much as the next guy. But the match up was never a disaster and I got to go on some pretty amazing vacations, for less money, by willing to make that compromise.
Hundreds of colorful balloons ascend into the sky in Albuquerque, New Mexico, during the annual autumn balloon fiesta, leaving visitors craning their necks, snapping photo after photo. Though Egypt was the first place I ascended in a balloon, as I wrote in my last post, it wasn't the first time I'd been nose-to-basket with one of these inflatable giants.
I went solo on a hiking and biking trip in New Mexico with The World Outdoors one year and it happened to fall during the two-week balloon fiesta. I'd heard about the fiesta during yet another solo trip--that one rafting in Utah--and had always dreamed of going one day.
So after biking in and around Taos, Santa Fe and other beautiful places in New Mexico, I headed for Albuquerque.
The sky was a dark, deep blue in the wee hours of the morning when I set out for the day's events. I nearly crashed my rental car trying to catch a glimpse of the balloon glow in the distance, created by inflated balloons on the ground, the burners lighting them from the inside.
I realized I needed to keep my eyes on the road and wait until I reached the field of balloons to gawk. What a sight. When I arrived and parked, the sun was coming up. Dozens of balloons were already lifting into the sky, while scores of others lay flat out on the ground, their owners getting ready to inflate them.
These were not just your typical teardrop-shaped flyers. There were balloons shaped like a shoe, a house, a pig. Nothing makes you feel more like a kid than being surrounded by these huge, magical toy-like floating objects. I felt awed. And small. In a good way.
I bought a breakfast burrito, one of my all-time favorite Southwestern meals, at one of the many food stands. And then I wandered for a long time. I watched as balloons were filled with gas while still tethered to the ground. And watched as they were unclasped from their stakes and allowed to lift gently into the cerulean sky.
There were balloons everywhere, seemingly for miles, resembling the patterns created by bubbles blown from a wand dipped in soapy liquid. They scattered in the wind, some getting smaller and farther away, while new ones ascended and made their mark.
I didn't feel the need for companionship as I wandered this way and that. I stopped at a t-shirt stand to buy the best depiction of balloons on cotton. I admired that year's official balloon fiesta poster, and viewed those from previous years.
And when I'd had my fill, I took my leave exactly when I wanted. Ah, the freedom of solo travel.
--This year, the Alburquerque International Balloon Fiesta will be held from October 3 - 11. With 600 balloons participating, it is billed as the "largest ballooning event on earth."
It's not often that a whole region goes on sale but welcome to the recession economy. Businesses throughout the Mt. Washington Valley in New Hampshire are cutting their rates through the end of this month.
For instance, the White Mountain Hotel and Resort is offering a third night during a mid-week stay for $20.09. As in, the year 2009. Get it?
Old Saco Inn tops that. Stay any two mid-week nights and get the third night fee. Includes a full fireside breakfast (fantastic idea), "bottomless cookie jar," free beverage and snacks and tickets to a garden show in May if you're able to stick around. Or return.
Here's the nice thing about the Mt. Washington Valley, where I have cross-country skied for three out of the past four winters, on the many trails maintained by the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation: It's difficult to find a chain store.
I won't say they don't exist. But the character of North Conway, where I stayed, and its surroundings, stems from the plethora of unique shops. A penny candy shop. Clothing stores that don't sell the same things you see everywhere. Locally owned restaurants serving Italian, Indian, Thai, Chinese and other other cuisines, and American food too. Great breakfast places. (Remember where maple syrup comes from? Ayup. New England.)
And good news for solo travelers: the Mount Washington Valley Velo Club,
a biking club, welcomes visiting cyclists. Hard to say whether any
rides will be scheduled this early (it's cold up north!) but there's an
organizational meeting April 16 to make some of those decisions.
Back to the valley on sale...
For the rest of this month, one restaurant is serving ribeye steak for $1 a pound and another is serving, ahem, a meal for two is $35. What about us solo travelers, folks? Does that mean a meal for one is $17.50? Hard to say.
Local stores also are offering discounts on various goods. It's worth checking the website to see what appeals to you.
Full disclosure: I was in NH with friends. But if I were to go alone, as a first-time visitor, I know what I'd be doing. I'd be on that main street flitting into every shop and taking my time, going in and out as I pleased.
I'd sit by a roaring fire as often as possible. And I'd be at a different breakfast place every morning, testing pancake and French toast variations. As we all know, breakfast alone doesn't cause nearly the apprehension that going out to dinner does.
Photo: North Conway Train Station. Starting point for scenic train rides.
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