A feature about sustainable and authentic destinations around the world.
This sure doesn’t feel like Salt Lake City.
My kids had no idea what that meant when I said that as we were strolling the streets of Utah’s capital. They weren’t here decades ago when I saw the old Salt Lake City, a less vibrant and interesting place than the one they were experiencing.
The mere mention of their names evokes images of Technicolor desertscapes, vermilion cliffs and vivid sunsets. They are Utah’s “Mighty Five” national parks.
The circus hasn’t come to Savannah, but it sort of looks like it. That kid you saw dodging tourists and on a unicycle recently in Georgia’s oldest city was my 12-year-old son, Iden. The guy chasing after him — well, that was me.
In Arizona’s Sonoran desert, things aren’t always what they seem. Like those pigs scurrying around the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a botanical garden a few miles outside of Tucson.
With its iconic painted deserts and vast, seemingly endless roads, Arizona is the ultimate off-the-beaten-path destination. But visit the Grand Canyon state during the off-season, when all the visitors have gone home, and it’s a special kind of quiet.
In Alaska, they save the best for last.
Whether it’s the final boat tour of a glacier, the last nights in a cabin outside a remote national park, or the final Inside Passage cruise of the season, the Last Frontier loves its endings.
If you really want to see Alaska, you need wheels.
Most visitors come to the Last Frontier on a cruise ship or a plane. A motorcoach picks them up at the airport and delivers them to a hotel, to an airstrip or a national park, and they only see a small sliver of this state.
It’s a beautiful sliver, to be sure — but too small considering Alaska’s vast size.
Washington State’s Puget Sound area is famous for its moderate climate and postcard-perfect views of the Olympic mountain range. You’ve probably seen those gorgeous images of kayaks in the bay, a whale splashing in the distance, and, behind it all, snow-capped mountains.
Oregon’s cool and mysterious coast isn’t a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of place. Only repeated visits allow you to discover why it’s one of America’s most underrated destinations.
Bend, Ore., is the kind of place you can come back to again and again and always discover something new. My latest adventure was no exception.
