Adventure Life Reviews In The News
Travel made your way ™
Want to find out a bit more about Adventure Life? Check out some of these great publications that have written articles about our tours. Browse through these brief summaries or click on the links below to read the full articles!
Sailing to Antarctica requires strong sea legs. The payoff: a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
...On the third day, our fall through the rabbit hole of the Drake is complete and we are in wonderland. The water calms, and our first iceberg encounter is a half-mile-long, high-walled rectangular platform whose symmetry looks too exact to be real. The sun comes out and sends a silver streak across one side of it. Color returns to people's faces, and to the world around us. Even at a distance, the brilliant blue of packed ice glimmers... Adventure Life Voyages' 11-day trip on the Antarctic Dream.
Adventure Life has two featured trips -- our Hiking Galapagos and End of the World adventure -- in the upcoming book published by National Geographic Books as one of the top choices for seasoned travelers!
It's time to rediscover the fun and excitement of traveling off the beaten path. In Riding the Hulahula to the Arctic Ocean: A Guide to 50 Extraordinary Adventures for the Seasoned Travelers published by National Geographic Books, expert guides Don Mankin and Shannon Stowell offer both an inspiring collection of personal, often unique, experiences and practical how-to, detailing some of the world's best trips. In-depth narratives convey the rich allure of 26 destinations with lively anecdotes and specialized information, while concise descriptions highlight an additional 26 amazing trips, selected in a survey by the Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA) as top choices for people over 40...
THE NORHTWEST PASSAGE
Notwithstanding last month's sinking of an Antarctic cruise ship, climate tourism is heating up. And few places are warming up faster than the Northwest Passage, the Arctic sea route over Canada. Adventure Life Voyages (www.alvoyages.com), for one, is already booking cruises for its Northwest Passage tour next August, with prices from $4,600 a person.
On top of the world: Adventure Life offers a 25-night journey through the Northeast Passage between Alaska and Russia. Clients are taken by icebreaker from Anchorage to Murmansk.
Looking for a life-changing adventure? How about a biking trip in Namibia? Or a rare voyage across the Arctic's Northeast Passage? USA TODAY looks at six of the most unusual adventure trips in the works for 2008...
...Outfitter: Adventure Life
Length: 25 nights
Details: Melting of the Arctic attributed to global warming is opening once-frozen routes to exploration, including the so-called Northeast Passage between Alaska and Russia. In this rare outing, the icebreaker Kapitan Khlebnikov will take clients from Anchorage across the top of the world through the Barents Sea to Murmansk. Stops include the uninhabited island of Kolyuchin and the New Siberian Islands, where, weather permitting, passengers will hike the tundra, explore old hunting camps and see the northernmost point of the European continent.
..."Most people hike the W on their own steam, carrying 30-pound packs up vertical boulder fields, pitching tents in gale-force winds and huddling inside makeshift shelters to heat a pot of water to cook dinner. Our group was going it the easy way with Adventure Life, a Montana based outfit that specializes in global outdoor adventures. Instead of being burdened with heavy packs, we carried only light day packs holding our lunch, water and raingear while our trusty guides, Kenneth and Roberto, and two additional female porters, carried the rest..."
"Adventure Life's eight-day Pure Patagonia Base Camp Trekking adventure is an active itinerary of massive glaciers, jagged mountains, glacier hikes and wonderful wildlife. Hiking each day is moderate to strenuous, and participants should be in good shape."
"Adventure Life encourages sustainable, low-impact travel in small groups averaging 8-10 guests. Trip leaders are bilingual and hold university degrees in anthropology, biology, botany and other related disciplines. Adventure Life runs several trips in Patagonia and other countries where the wilderness is the star."
The deadly, ice-packed Northwest Passage remained unconquered until Roald Amundsen braved the trip in 1906. Today satellite images suggest that the ice is retreating so rapidly that the passage could be a viable shipping land by 2050, making the Panama Canal nearly obsolete. Following Amundesen's route today (from Anchorage, Alaska, to Resolute Bay, Canaada) aboard an icebreaker with outfitter Adventure Life is more aking to a pleasure cruise. Highlights include passage through the roaring Beaufort Sea and the Victoria Straight, where Amundsen was stranded for two winters. In addition to watching whales, seals, and polar bears, travelers get a look at icebergs that, for now at least, are the size of several city blocks.
Itching for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure? How about the first commerical trek up Tibet's Tsangpo river? Or rafting in little-visited Montenegro? Or biking in Spain's vineyard-dotted Rioja region? These are just a few of the new offerings from adventure travel companies for 2007. USA TODAY's Gene Sloan offers a guide to five new itineraries:...
...Patagonia: Adventure Life's End of the World trip combines three days on an expedition ship, sailing glacier-fed fjords and corssing the Strait of Magellan, with a land-based exploration of mountainous Chile and Argentina that includes a stay at an eco-tent lodge.
SAN CRISTOBAL ISLAND, the Galapagos, Ecuador — An hour into a grueling hike through the scrubby, arid lowlands that cover much of this island, Alfredo Meneses slows his pace.
"Keep your eyes out," says the 40-year-old tour guide, sweat glistening from his brow as he scans the nearby clumps of silvery-gray, lichen-covered palo santo trees. "We've just entered the kingdom of the giant tortoise." ...
...Meneses, an Ecuador-born guide for Missoula, Mont.-based Adventure Life Journeys, launched the first land-based tour in the Galapagos nearly five years ago, a week-long multisport trip that included hiking, kayaking and horseback riding. Soon other adventure companies followed. In the past year, several also have added land-based all-kayaking trips. Now Adventure Life is premiering the first all-hiking trip, the latest twist in the growing trend...
We are thrilled to have made Conde Nast Traveler's 2006 Green List for our role as a Tour Operator practicing responsible and sustainable travel. Read more in the September 2006 issue of Conde Nast...
"Adventure Life Journeys
ALJ operates trips in Latin America and Antarctica only and sponsors
(with additional donations from travelers) the Earth Family Fund, which
concentrates on three projects: a shelter for teenage mothers in Peru,
a community near the Inca Trail, and an Ecuadorian orphanage. In addition
to working exclusively with local guides and support staff, ALJ chooses
its destinations carefully, including a private reserve in Costa Rica
that has started its own nonprofit foundation and invented a wastewater-purification
system using water lilies. The company also prints brochures on recycled
paper with soy ink -- even though it raises costs by 20 percent..."
National Geographic Adventure recently highlighted our Peru Manu Biosphere tour in their "Great Summer Trips" issue. Check it out!
The 4.4-million-acre Manu Biosphere Reserve, in eastern Peru's Amazon territory, has the highest concentration of bird species on the planet. It is also home to tapirs, a dozen varieties of monkeys, and the playful giant otter -- an animal hunted nearly to extinction elsewhere but still thriving within the reserve. But Manu's most charismatic wildlife attraction is a garish little bird called the Andean cock-of-the-rock; males famously congregate for a bizarre mating ritual -- a sing off that may be the animal kingdom's closest approximation of American Idol. Outfitter Adventure Life has been leading guests to this spectacle for five years and doing it in a way that gives back to the surrounding human and animal communities. "We use local guides and transportation and family-run hotels so that our Peruvian hosts can share the benefits of tourism," says the company's founder, Brian Morgan.
Expect high altitude (13,000 feet) in the cloudforest portion of the reserve. Accommodations at Manu are comfortable and simple -- you'll have your own bed and bath, but the electricity is on for only eight hours a day.
Hundreds of white coolers line floor-to-ceiling shelves inside a hot, dimly lighted shed. The silence is broken only by what sounds like dozens of fingernails scraping against Styrofoam.
Veterinarian Miguel Flores Peregrina listens carefully to discern which coolers are emitting the scraping sounds, identifies three and open the lids.
Inside, dozens of squirming newborn turtles, each smaller than the palm of my hand, are clawing their way to the top of the sand-filled coolers and trying to bash through the sides of the Styrofoam to freedom. Like all sea turtles, these are born with a natural burst of energy and an ancient instinct telling them to rush headlong into the sea...
...Volunteers at Mexico's Playa Las Tortugas can hold baby turles, help measure females after they've come ashore at night to lay eggs, and see new hatchings scramble in the corrals...
...Adventure Life has trips to Costa Rica's Pacuare Nature Reserve or Tortuguero National Park in spring and summer. From San Jose, Costa Rica, eight-day trips begin at $1,345 and include working with turtles, white-water rafting and visiting a rainforest...
Every
year Outside Magazine lists the top trips from around the world. This
year we are happy to announce our Northwest Argentina Trek made the
honored list.
Amid the deep red gorges of Argentina's rugged northwest, aboriginal adobe huts stand as reminders that this country's rich history far predates the tango. This nine-day trip covers both past and present, fromt the pre-Spanish Calchaquis relics in Quilmes to the up-and-coming wineries of Cafayate. After a stay at ta comfortable bodega lodge, you'll embark on a three-day trek through the Cachi Mountains, where you and your packhorses will hoof it 29 miles up the Belgrando River Gorge to the multicolored sandstone formations of the Pukamayu Vally.
Travelers
who want to hike the Inca Trail to the stunning ruins of Machu Picchu
in Peru this summer should get a move on. To help protect the ancient
trail, the Peruvian government is enforcing the limit of 500 trekkers
starting the hike each day by requiring that tour operators submit the
names and passport numbers of their clients to purchase necessary permits...
Adventure Life, in Missoula, Mont., offers the Cachiccata Trek, a 10-day backcountry experience that inludes four days of hiking that bypasses the traditional Inca Trail on the way to Machu Picchu ($1,625).
"What has become known as the Inca Trail is what people refer to as that four-day hike to Machu Picchu," said DarAnne Dunning, a trip coordinator for Adventure Life. "But that isn't the only Inca trail that there was. There were thousands and thousands of miles of these trails in Peru."
For
those who prefer to experience the flora and fauna of the Galapagos
without getting sore forearms or sand in their bedding, yacht tours
are the way to go. Listed below are package tours available for 2006.
All are 10-day trips, unless specified otherwise. The growing popularity
of these cruises, plus temperate weather, means that high season is
practically year-round. Cost-conscious travelers may want to take advantage
of the two brief low seasons, May 1 to mid-June, or mid-September through
October. Prices are per person. Air fare to Quito, the starting point
for most packages, is not included; meals are.
Itching
for a once-in-a-lifetime adventure? Travel companies are rolling out
a wave of unusual itineraries for next year. USA TODAY's Gene Sloan
offers a guide to seven of the most exciting new adventure trips for
2006 (all prices per person, based on double occupancy):
Just about every major adventure travel company offers a tour of the Galapagos islands — by boat. Adventure Life's new twist? Participants stay on shore — in small hotels on three islands (a rarity, since 97% of the islands are national park).
...Spurred
by recent Peruvian government efforts to enforce visitation limits on
the classic trail to Machu Picchu (no more than 500 people, including
porters, can enter the trail per day; on high-volume days, nearly twice
that many previously entered the trail) Adventure Life and other adventure
companies have been adding new treks across the region. They follow
lesser-used but no less spectacular Inca routes and visit little-known
Inca ruins...
...While thousands of miles of Incan trails crisscross the mountains of Peru, most major U.S. adventure tour companies only have offered treks on the so-called "classic" Inca Trail that leads directly to the famous ruins of Machu Picchu. Now that's beginning to change. With the Peruvian government enforcing limits on visitors to the classic trail, which has been plagued by overcrowding, firms are adding more treks on "alternative" Incan trails connecting lesser-known ruins. ....The Missoula, Mont.-based company this summer launched "Cachiccata Trek: The Inca Trail Less Traveled," a 10-day trip that includes three days of trekking on the Cachiccata Trail, a route that passes the ruins of Chokekillka. The trip includes a stop at the ruins of Ollantaytambo and a train trip to Machu Picchu....
...Based in Missoula, Mont., Adventure Life Journeys, (800) 344-6118 or www.adventure -life.com, organizes trips ranging from 10 days to 23 days; the longer trips include visits to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia Island. A 10-night voyage aboard the 110-passenger Akademik Ioffe visits the South Shetland Islands and the waterways of the Antarctic Peninsula, focusing on areas with the best possibilities of viewing wildlife. Including an optional overnight camping excursion, fares start at $5,390 a person...
The
Costa Rica Pacuare Nature Reserve recently began accepting visitors,
and the US-headquartered Adventure Life is booking guests into the lodge.
Founded 13 years ago to protect and study leatherback turtles and green
turtles, the reserve accepts only six guests at a time, who work side-by-side
with reserve's biologists tagging and measuring adult turtles and finding
and moving nests to protect eggs from poachers...
