Canada
Algonquin Park
Loon calls cross mirror lakes at dawn in the park that taught Canada to canoe.
Mist burns off the water as a paddle dips somewhere out of sight. By the portage sign, the forest swallows the highway's existence.
Algonquin's maple hills and lake chains built the Canadian canoe-trip archetype, and its interior still runs on paddle and portage. Moose feed in roadside bogs along Highway 60, where museums and lookouts serve visitors without canoes. Historic lodges, one reached only by boat, keep a century of summer-dining tradition alive.
Couple
One interior lake, one lodge dinner: the classic Algonquin pairing still works.
Family
Highway 60's museums, lookouts and moose bogs fill days without a single portage.
Friends
A group canoe trip with shared portages remains the park's founding format.
- Algonquin's lake chains built the Canadian canoe-trip archetype.
- Highway 60 serves moose bogs, museums and lookouts to visitors without canoes.
- Historic lodges, one reached only by boat, keep a century of summer dining alive.
Bartlett Lodge serves four-course dinners reached by the lodge's own boat across Cache Lake.
Arowhon Pines makes everything from scratch in its heritage lakeside log dining room.
Öland
Sweden
A windmill-studded limestone steppe reached across six unbending kilometres of bridge.
The New Forest
England
Wild ponies drift through ancient woodland where Norman kings once hunted deer.
Wadi Darbat
Oman
From late June the waterfall comes over the escarpment and camels graze between the pools.
Kawayu Onsen
Japan
Dig your own hot spring in the riverbed — hot water seeps up wherever you scrape.
Telegraph Cove
Canada
A boardwalk village on stilts faces water where orcas pass close enough to hear.
Tadoussac
Canada
Whales feed where the cold Saguenay meets the St Lawrence beneath a village of red roofs.
Witless Bay
Canada
Puffins crowd offshore islands by the hundred thousand while whales feed beneath the boats.
Twillingate
Canada
Iceberg Alley delivers its giants past cliff paths, lighthouses and harbour villages.