Boldly Go Solo

Rafting for relaxation, Colorado River style

"Ideal for solo travelers," says the press release from Western River Expeditions about its rafting trips on the Colorado River through Cataract Canyon, Utah. I vouch for that statement. 

I had one of the best trips of my life floating on peaceful sections of the river and holding on for dear life through Class III and IV rapids (read: "big"). And camping by the side of the river with new friends who I was happy to spend every minute with.

Several other companies offer similar trips down this 100-mile stretch of the Colorado, including Holiday River and Bike Expeditions, Hoodoo Rivers & Trails, O.A.R.S.

These are professionally guided rafting trips with all meals and equipment provided. I call them "one-phone call" vacations because you sign up and then let the company do all the work of getting licenses, providing boats and setting out food.

Solo travel around the world in the pre-Internet era

Imagine a woman traveling the world alone...a half century ago. I'm sure it wasn't common, certainly not as common as today.

I was intrigued when I learned about the experiences of such a woman from her daughter, Jane Stein, who found her mother's travel logs and turned those adventures into a children's book on travel. 

Today I'm running a guest post that Jane wrote. I enjoyed reading the tidbits she listed on her website to get people interested in the book. Details and fun facts, such as:

• Every year the world’s largest tomato fight takes place in Spain.
• Sesame Street puppets speak Hebrew, Arabic and Russian, and a cousin of Oscar the Grouch is named Moishe Oofnik. (That one cracks me up.)
• There are special laughing clubs in India where people go for their health. (I feel healthier already, laughing about Moishe Oofnik.)

Superstar of solo travel meeting new people wherever she goes

I now have a solo travel idol. Her name is Laura and she's 25. She and her friend Alexa, two country girls from the (still) United Kingdom stayed with me in August, a few days before Alexa had to fly home and Laura was getting ready to continue traveling around the U.S. on her own for two months.

In return for a few nights at my place, the two of them cooked me dinner and left me with a thoughtful gift and a homemade picture postcard with photos of places they'd visited while in Washington.

They were so fun to have around that I contacted just about everyone I could think of around the country to see if I could set Laura up for lodging during two months of traveling alone.

I was disappointed I was "only" able to get her a bed with friends or family in New York, Massachusetts and California. She stayed with my niece, one of my dearest friends and is now with my second cousin.

But I shouldn't have worried. I was far from the only one looking out for her and booking her places to stay.

Coincidentally, I was vacationing in Maine in September about the same time she planned to make it to Maine. So my friends and I hosted her there, all of us indulging in as much lobster as we could manage and spending a morning paddle boarding near Portland.

My friends contributed to the hosting chain. One put her in touch with her daughter (Laura ended up staying with the daughter's former roommates in Austin) and the other contacted her son in California, who was game to host.

Falconry, archery, off-road driving and more, at Gleneagles in Perthshire, Scotland

How can you not like a place where you can order cullen skink and Dalchonzie tart  at dinner, have a stare-down with a falcon and discover that you weigh in the single digits?*

I was in Scotland last week reveling in the Scottishness of it all, starting at the The Gleneagles Hotel. Gleneagles is hosting the Ryder Cup in 2014, exciting news for golf aficionados.

The baggage carousel at Glasgow Airport is to golf bags as Denver's baggage carousel is to ski bags. Every other piece of luggage was an odd-shaped case containing clubs.

Not being a golfer - except the kind where you rent a single club and putt through 18 Astroturf holes - I was more interested in the country pursuits offered.

Archery. Gun dog school. Off-road driving in the Perthshire countryside, as pheasant and other fowl scoot by.

I managed those three activities all in one day - why lounge around when there are new things to try?

Falconry was saved for a "hawk walk" I went on a few days later at the Cameron House on Loch Lomond.

A stroll on top of the CN Tower restaurant in Toronto. What a high.

Here's one Guinness World Record you can match without having to lift a table with your teeth or live with scorpions for more than a month:

Walk outside on top of the CN Tower restaurant, 116 stories high, to match the record for "highest external walk on a building" set in 2011.

Here's my Washington Post story about doing the Edgewalk during a June visit to Toronto.

Photo credit: CNTower