Death-defying vacations
Are you an adrenaline junkie? Do you drink tap water from the
airplane bathroom by the gallon? Pack toiletries in your carry-on
weighing more than 3 oz? Or order the fish special at a roadside
motel restaurant along Route 66? If you answered yes to these
questions you are in need of an adventure vacation. Here are a few
ideas to get your heart pumping:
San Jose
Get a view of the breathtaking Costa Rican rainforest while you’re
suspended from a zip wire above the trees. Dozens of tour companies
offer combo zip and hike packages in Monteverde Cloud Forest,
Mahogany Park, or Drake Bay. Suspension bridges, platforms,
walkways stretching between trees and wildlife sightings round out
your zip wire, jungle-swinging experience. Most tours offer free
pick-up from hotels, unless you prefer to swing there Tarzan-style.
Auckland
If you only think Lord of the Rings when you hear the words New
Zealand, then you haven’t been to Mount Cook. This challenging trek
is only for experienced mountaineers who like to scare themselves
senseless. You can soak up the view of the Tasman Glacier once
you’ve made it to the top. Interested in a rugged, sustained
journey but without the death-defying dangling? Than the Ball Pass
Trek is the hike for you.
Whistler
Do you laugh in the face of a black diamond run? If so, perhaps
jumping 10,000 feet from a helicopter into deep, untracked powder is
the extreme ski trip for you. Heliskiing is the off-trail, downhill
skiing that is reached by a helicopter, rather than an enjoyable
(and slow moving) ski lift. As if the jump is not dangerous enough,
heliskiers are stoked by dense trees and other challenges on the
ground. Whistler Ski Resort in British Columbia, Canada offers
hundreds of ski runs, with a tremendous variety of slopes to
accommodate all levels of skiers and boarders from intermediate to
expert.
Nassau
There’s adventure and then there’s just plain stupid and that’s what
we think of shark diving but we’d be remiss to leave it off the
list. Go to the place where they filmed the movie Open Water for
your own crash course on how the food chain works under water.
Stuart Cove in Nassau, Bahamas offers a number of shark dives that
present an up close and personal look at these maneaters…I mean
magnificent and misunderstood creatures.
Get the Fare Buzz for these adventure vacations from your home airport.
Livin’ on the edge,
Steve and Paul, Kayak.com co-founders
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