Skolos.Org - Travel Guide

FLANKED by epic mountain terrain that is home to 12 major ski resorts (the largest concentration in the country), Lake Tahoe is a year-round draw that sees some of its biggest crowds during ski season. This part of the Sierra Nevada is known for its prodigious snowfall. Back in the 19th century, the infamous Donner Party was trapped in 22-foot drifts in the area, and found themselves resorting to creative methods of survival; today, visitors to Tahoe are thankfully hungry mostly for good powder. In particular, the north side of the lake on either side of the California-Nevada border, especially the historic and colorful town of Truckee, Calif., offers easy access to top resorts for skiing, snowboarding and cross-country exploration, as well as a good sense of the region’s quirkily independent pioneer spirit.

Friday

4 p.m.
1) ENERGY BOOST

For an organic pick-me-up, visit the Truckee Book and Bean (10009 West River Street, Truckee; 530-582-8302; www.truckeebookandbean.com), a bookstore and coffeehouse serving local Alpen Sierra coffee in what was a saloon more than a century ago. Fortified, get outfitted for the slopes at Porters Sports (11391 Deerfield Drive, Truckee; 530-587-1500; www.porterstahoe.com). This family-run shop has a huge selection of gear, and rents skis, snowboards and snowshoes that you can return to any of three North Lake Tahoe locations.

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THERE used to be a time — oh, let’s call it 2007 — when summer was considered a time of almost limitless possibilities, a time of languorous vacations, of trips filled with the promise of discovery.

But the summer of 2008 is starting out like a cruel joke, with air travel increasingly a nightmare and with wildly escalating gas prices threatening to make the road trip all but obsolete. It’s almost enough to make you sit at home and catch up on episodes of “Gossip Girl.”

The summer vacation is still an inalienable right, however. And there is no reason to forgo it this year. It will just take a bit of creativity — and perhaps the willingness to stay a little closer to home this time around — to pull it off in 2008.

Thus, here are 31 options — from river rafting in eastern Oregon to biking in the White Mountains of New Hampshire — for a great summer vacation. Not one involves the terrifying conversion of dollars into euros, many can be enjoyed without ever getting on a plane, and the road trips are ones that actually justify filling up your tank, even if the price of gas hits $5 a gallon this summer.

1. TEXAS HILL COUNTRY

Who needs Europe? The Texas Hill Country, west of Austin and north of San Antonio, might be the next best thing to crossing the Atlantic. The region is lush, colorful and, unlike much of the pancake-flat state, dotted with beautiful green hills that are evocative of Tuscany or the south of France. Moreover, the region is speckled with 22 wineries (www.texaswinetrail.com) that buzz with food and music festivals year round. And towns like Fredericksburg offer a taste of the Old World, with German-style biergartens and schnitzelhäuser.
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The boom in low-cost air travel has turned this corner of southern Spain into a thriving tourist destination, and retired plumbers and schoolteachers into Europe’s new jet set.

But it has done more than democratize air travel and offer new vistas to working-class people. It has also opened a new dimension to the global warming crisis.

A typical British beach weekend, for instance, might begin here, with a landing at San Javier airport in Murcia. This former military airfield, where cockney English is commonly heard and huge sculptures of golf balls adorn the halls, now receives flights daily from Ryanair, easyJet and Spanair from cities like Blackpool, Bournemouth, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool and Shannon, to name a few — as well as more than half a dozen flights from London.
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