If you love the active lifestyle, try combining your love to sweat with taking in the world’s best scenery.
Go On A Cross-Country Adventure
Before heading out to other countries, explore your backyard first. How many parks have you visited outside your state?
Just before the onslaught of the pandemic, people were already buying into the mobile lifestyle. Your refurbished school bus might never have left your yard last year, but now you can finally get it on the road.
RV living will be the best at this time, as it will give you some level of safety assurance. You will be in your own lodgings, and you get to control the handling of your food. So get your engine checked and primed and your mini kitchen appliances replaced or repaired. Make sure your heater and vents are functioning, and you’re all set for a great road trip.
Don’t forget to always check health advisories for every state you’re going to, and strictly follow health protocols. You don’t want to catch a killer virus while having the grandest time of your life.
If you’ve conquered every possible trail and body of water that can interest you in your country, then get ready to take on these stunning escapades across the globe.
Go Up Some Extreme Heights
Machu Picchu in Peru
Machu Picchu is the most popular remnant of the great Inca Empire. Its network of buildings and what can be seen of their technology shows the urbanity that the empire had enjoyed. As diseases brought by the Spanish colonizers annihilated the Inca people, their structures are the sole reminders of their civilization.
The number of visitors into Machu Picchu is controlled to preserve the ruins eroding over time. During the pandemic, even as the Ministry of Culture of Peru had opened it briefly for free to encourage people to continue exploring the country’s history, they had further lowered the number of admitted visitors.
Should they resume their regular operations, there are two ways to get you to Machu Picchu’s entrance, which is set in the middle of a mountain forest. You can go the comfortable way of riding the bus, or you can sweat your way up the mountain. The trek up is not your regular climb. You’d already be starting at 6,692 feet (ca. 2,040 m) above sea level in Aguas Calientes, the town at its base.
The ruins will be at 7,972 (ca. 2,430 m) feet. Even if the road is straightforward that a bus can go through it, its altitude will take your breath away. Prepare some coca leaf tea, which is highly recommended to help with altitude sickness.
Tiger’s Nest in Bhutan
If you can handle something more challenging in terms of altitude, hiking up the Tiger’s Nest Monastery or Paro Taktsang in Bhutan is one of the most amazing experiences you can have. Among the monastery’s visitors are monks, scholars, and families. Located at 10,000 feet (ca. 3,048 m) above sea level, it is a working monastery, so people go there to worship.
Photos are not allowed once inside the monastery compound, but you won’t regret it. You will treasure the experience so much you don’t need photos to remind you of it. You can offer butter candles together with the other worshippers in the various praying rooms.
Travel to Bhutan is controlled because they’re conserving their environment against senseless tourist damage. And it’s with good reason as we’ve read about the garbage that climbers of Mt. Everest leave every year. You will need official guides in going around Bhutan. They will help you understand their country’s rules and explain how they have come to be known as the happiest country on earth.
Other than visiting the monastery, there are many things to be enjoyed in this little kingdom. You will see that the people continue to wear their traditional clothes proudly. They also have beautiful stuppas everywhere. But what is a more interesting practice you will observe is what is known to the outside world as their phallus worship. It’s an old tradition believing that the phallus is a symbol of fertility. It’s not just for the reproduction of humans but also for a good crop harvest.
There are several other mountains worth visiting. They might not be among the highest peaks that mountaineers are so determined to conquer. But their stories and the stories of the people around them make their trails so much more interesting than a mere height statistic.
