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| Canyonlands National Park |
Editor’s Note: Putting Life in Perspective
Who can live in Colorado and not love the mountains?
The exhilarating feeling of making fresh tracks on the glistening white of the ski slopes. The murmur of awakening mountain springs joining the trickle of snow melt that culminates in a thunderous roar: Rafting season is about to begin. Standing knee-high in a high alpine meadow of summer wildflowers — our stately columbine, bluebells, lupines, red paintbrush, yellow sunflowers — and finally understanding what poet Ralph Waldo Emerson meant when he wrote in 1846, “The earth laughs in flowers.” And, of course, falling in love with fall when the aspen’s quaking leaves turn a shimmering gold.
Strangely, it’s not the mountains that have captured my heart, but the Colorado plateau — a high-desert wilderness with ancient volcanoes and seemingly bottomless canyons often carved from brightly colored sedimentary rock by mighty rivers. Spreading from western Colorado deep into New Mexico, Arizona and southeastern Utah, the area of remote Canyonlands National Park is my favorite.
Sitting on top of a mushroom-shaped butte watching the sun set over these primeval lands of gigantic rocks and giant chasms makes me feel small and insignificant. Feeling liberated from the clutter of civilization, I can put my life in perspective. And most of my worries shrink to gnome size.
For me, that’s what traveling is all about: Stepping out of my everyday life, encountering the new and wondrous, focusing on the substantial and re-setting my bearings before returning home. Deserts do it for me.
This month’s Special Section of Go World Travel magazine explores the desert heart of our neighboring state and comes to the conclusion: Utah Rocks. In Forget Fat: Skinny-Tire Cycling in Moab and Over the Edge: Canyoneering in Zion National Park, assistant editor Rachel Barbara delves into the adventurous sides of this arid wilderness. And in Colorful Canyonlands: Utah’s Red Rock Desert, I feel as if I’m in a time-lapse movie come to life as I experience the constantly varying patterns of light and shade that sun and clouds paint onto their crimson canvass.
You, however, may be the forest type. Follow Meg Austin on a hiking trip through the Šumava Mountains, a heavily forested mountain range separating the Czech Republic from Austria and Germany, where the Vltava is born — the river that gives purpose to Prague’s beloved Charles Bridge. (Trees in the Wind: Czech Republic’s Šumava Mountains.) Or dodge saltwater crocodiles with Anthony Toole in Australia’s Kakadu National Park, a pristine wilderness of wetlands and eucalyptus forests (Moonrise on the Billabong: Australia’s Kakadu National Park.)
If city travel is your fancy, you may be intrigued to learn why Sandra Miller has left Paris for Prague in A Change of Heart: Au Revoir Paris, Hello Prague.
Naiya Sivaray found a charming slice of old France in India while vacationing at the Hotel De L’Orient in Pondicherry, a coastal town and former French colony. But be aware of the peculiar, door-less bathrooms before checking in (French for a Night: India’s Hotel De L’Orient).
Another piece of sage advice comes from contributor Susan Bayer Ward: Don’t burn down your crepe paper lotus lantern during your stay at one of the 73 temples dotted throughout South Korea that offer temple accommodation for Koreans and foreigners. However, should your prized craft project go up in flames, you can count on the endless patience and serenity of your monastic hosts (Templestays: Korea’s Buddhist Retreat Centers).
These and other stories span the globe for you — from Utah to Australia, Korea, India and Malta. We hope that we have found the right mix for all of your armchair adventures.
Happy travels!
Heike Schmidt
Senior Editor |