High on Adventure January/February 2016

HIGH ON ADVENTURE, an adventure travel magazine
Feature stories and photoessays for the Adventurous Traveler
Back issues @ Travel Destinations
JANUARY/FEBRUARY, 2016 Vol 20 , No. 1 Lynn Rosen, Content Editor; Steve Giordano, Web Editor


	Florida's "Forgotten" Coast - the Panhandle		Palenque, Mexico		Enjoying a Whale of a Time: Sharks, Wild Winds and a Little Kayak Yakking
	They call the Florida Panhandle "The Forgotten Coast." And yes, it truly is. It's not the easiest place to reach. Public transportation can be difficult. Cell service is from another millennium. But wow, there's so much more. The oysters, the antebellum historic homes, the fishing, the beaches...especially those white sand beaches.		Down more than 80 feet inside the bowels of a 1,300-plus year-old temple/pyramid in the middle of a rain forest. Down a limestone stairway so slippery I had removed my shoes and was sitting on my hiney, reaching out with sodden socks for a foothold before inching forward and downward one step at a time.		The whale shark outing preceded four nights of kayaking, hiking, swimming and snorkeling on Isla Espiritu Santo, an 11-mile long island north of La Paz. Extremely windy weather prevented us from making the planned paddles, with pangas boating us to beach-front campsites.

			Super Fly Winter Zip-line
	My First First-Class Train Journey, from Detroit to Klamath Falls, Oregon via Amtrak		Adventure Galore at Whistler, BC, Canada, from Bobsleigh to Ziplining		TRAVEL TO CUBA: Part One How to Get There and What to See
	At Chicago's Union Station, I checked into Amtrak's nicely-appointed Metropolitan Lounge for sleeping-car passengers. Before the 2:30 pm departure of the Southwest Chief, the Lounge overflowed with passengers, exceeding the available seating.		Like a warm sack of potatoes—with helmet and gloves on—I laid face down on the skeleton sled. My hands were extended and placed straight behind me, grasping a 'hold on for your dear life' handle with my head and feet extended beyond the sled. The attendant held onto my feet and then said, “You're off. Enjoy!” And so it began.		The saga about Americans traveling to Cuba is continuously developing and ever-changing. But here’s what’s happening with the shifting landscape that is the Cuba/US relationship and what it means to US citizens who want to travel to this Caribbean island neighbor.

Ski With the Breeze at Your Buns; Where else but in Canada? Watch this segment of Vahalla on Tour by Sweetgrass Productions.
Naked Ski and Snowboard Segment from VALHALLA from
Sweetgrass Productions on Vimeo.


	“The best survival book in a decade” (Outside magazine), 438 Days is the true story of the fisherman who survived fourteen months in a small boat drifting seven thousand miles across the Pacific Ocean.


		Winterfest and Toboggan Championships in Camden, Maine
		Competitors from around the country travel to Camden, Maine every year fully costumed and with traditional wooden toboggans in tow, some hand-crafted and lubricated with ultra-top secret wax recipes, in the hopes of winning top honors and perhaps even breaking the seven-second record for descending the only 400-foot wooden toboggan chute in the country.


	Who we are: For brief bios on the writers who form this Pacific Northwest collective, please click here.

For daily travel issues and news, visit ConsumerTraveler.com

Comments and Suggestions: lynrosen@gmail.com; rsgiordano@gmail.com