Canada
Witless Bay
Puffins crowd offshore islands by the hundred thousand while whales feed beneath the boats.
The air above the reserve moves with birds returning to burrows. Below, capelin flash silver and something far larger rolls through the bait.
Witless Bay's islands hold a seabird colony of continental importance, visited by tour boats from Bay Bulls and nearby harbours. Early summer stacks the spectacle: nesting puffins, feeding whales and the last icebergs in one frame. The seabirds, not the shore, are the destination.
Family
Children get puffins in absurd numbers from a stable tour boat with no hiking required.
Couple
Share a mid-season sailing when whales and seabirds overlap, then eat back in Bay Bulls.
Solo
Boats leave daily in season, making the colony an easy solo add to an Avalon loop.
- The reserve holds North America's largest Atlantic puffin colony.
- Tour boats from Bay Bulls put puffins, whales and early-summer ice in one frame.
- The spectacle needs no walking; the sea delivers it to the rail.
Tour boats carry simple canteen service; the real meal waits ashore in Bay Bulls.
The Irish Loop Coffee House in the village serves simple homemade meals and the occasional pop-up dinner.
Munroe Island
India
A sinking backwater island navigated by silent dugout canoes through arched and claustrophobic mangrove tunnels.
Lake Chala
Tanzania
A crater lake of implausible turquoise holds a fish found nowhere else.
Isle of Harris
Scotland
Caribbean-white sand meets Atlantic-turquoise water — but the wind smells of peat, not coconut.
Kynance Cove
England
Serpentine rock stacks glowing red and green between turquoise tidal pools.
Cathedral Grove
Canada
Douglas firs eight centuries old stand within steps of the island highway.
Lake Louise
Canada
A turquoise lake ends at a glacier wall, with century-old teahouses hidden up its trails.
Grasslands National Park
Canada
Unploughed prairie runs to the horizon where bison graze beneath some of Canada's darkest skies.
Clayoquot Sound
Canada
Whales work island channels below forest that has never been cut.