Anita Ericson
Extraordinary trips are in demand: There are virtually no more white spots on the tourist map. Above all, none that are worth seeing, and even halfway well and safely bereisbar would be. Nevertheless, the world has enough worthwhile and safe targets that are far off the beaten path. You do not even have to shoulder the backpack and go on your own - a number of smaller organizers organize extraordinary trips that take you into hidden corners and / or unusual activities. If you decide to turn your back on mass tourism, you will have unforgettable moments. Even the conscience remains pure, because in many trips falls - in contrast to the club holiday on the Mediterranean, where mainly the big corporations break in fat profits - even for the locals their fair share: Local agencies and accommodation providers benefit from us tourists who vigorously against want to swim the stream.
TIPS: extraordinary travel, once in a lifetime
Weltbewegend Erlebnisreisen is the travel agency of the Austrian Alpine Association. The canoe trip through central Sweden is organized every year in August, but the focus of the offer is on hiking, trekking and mountaineering trips in summer, as well as ski tours in winter (www.weltbewegend.at).
The sympathetic Austrian study and adventure tour operator Kneissl has a lot of exciting destinations in its program - the range extends from wintery Iceland to summery South Georgia (www.kneissltouristik.at).
The specialist for cycling through Latin America is called Pedalito and is a member of Forum anders reisen (www.pedalito.de). Lisa Veverka arranges extraordinary trips to the remote Kamchatka Peninsula (www.kamchatka.cc).
Trekking tours on Mount Kenya can be booked with a fine program of world-wide hiking tours - the lovable Graz eco-tour operator also has many other hiking and mountaineering trips in the program; No matter where the tour takes you, contacts with the local population are always in the foreground (www.weltweitwandern.at).
Hiking, trekking and mountaineering trips are also the focus of ASI - the Innsbruck Alpine School - and cycling tours and culinary tours such as "India - a vegetarian experience" as well as winter adventures (eg husky tours) are also on offer (www.asi-reisen.de) ,
The German tour operator ae-erlebnisreisen is a member of the Forum anders reisen reisen, the travel philosophy is "Meetings at eye level" - among many other things there is the "Individual hire car tour to the most extraordinary accommodations in New Zealand" to book (www.ae-erlebnisreisen.de).
Extraordinary Travel: New Views
To dodge the masses it can be enough to change the perspective: Get out of the shoes, into the water, say for example in the "canoe trip through central Sweden" Austrian Alpine Club, Sweden, with its sparsely populated areas compared to Central Europe, is in itself a longing goal for those who are tired of the narrow cities. But instead of spitting miles by kilometer by car, one is well advised to stay in one place, and to enjoy the Scandinavian summer in all its intensity. In a country with thousands of lakes, it is only logical to switch to canoeing. In the canoe trip of the PES nature experience and silence are the program. For seven days paddling and hiking in a small group, cooking at the campfire in the evening.
Sometimes it is enough to travel anti-cyclically. Iceland in the summer, yawn, as usual! In winter, hardly any tourists come here, but then the island shows a very special beauty: the waterfalls are frozen, the northern lights conjure up colorful patterns in the sky and above all lies the velvety light of the Scandinavian winter. The two Iceland winter trips from Kneissl Touristik take you to far away places like the river valley of Jökulsá á Brú, which you can follow as far as the eastern fjords or to the ice lake Jökulsárlón, covered with mighty icebergs, surrounded by huge glacier tongues.
Extraordinary Travel: Creamy stains
At least as wild and untamed, even extraterrestrial seem to be the landscapes of Chile and Argentina. Between deserts with precipitation of a few millimeters (if any) per year and mountain peaks beyond the 6.000 meters, there is an almost infinite, sparsely populated vastness, which is experienced first hand on the high-mountain journey of Pedalito with the e-mountain bike. In spite of its vastness, it never gets boring, as the region is full of natural phenomena: flamingo colonies, cactus seas, red sandstone formations in the "Gorge of the Arrows", iridescent geyser fountains, turquoise lagoons at the foot of volcanoes or encrusted salt piles are just some of the highlights remarkable cycling trip.
Still further "off-the-beaten-track"? Drive to Kamchatka. Lisa Veverka from Perchtoldsdorf is a specialist for this dream destination. She came here for the first time as part of her Russian studies in the late 1990ern, shortly after the suspension of the exclusion zone - and stayed tuned. Today she is her own small travel agency and, in cooperation with a reliable local partner, arranges extraordinary trips to the remote peninsula. Veverka: "You have to imagine: the volcanoes there are up to 5.000 m high, because of the sparse population nature is really untouched - some regions can only be reached by helicopter". But that's not even the best, because in particular you can hope for bear encounters here. "Millions of salmon come to Kurilensee to spawn," says Veverka. "The bears are standing on the shore in a relaxed state, and they are full of bellies." All this is experienced in the great "Best of Kamtchaka Tour", which is a small international tour with English as a guide language.
In Africa too, one may at times feel like a pioneer. From the Serengeti to the Kruger National Park, there are countless jungle camps and lodges to choose from, perfectly able to stage the sensation of adventure in the smallest circle. There are, especially with a generous holiday budget, simply sensational safari camps - because we really want to introduce you to something extraordinary, we have a very different tip ready, leaving the usual far behind: We recommend a heady trekking tour at almost 5.000 meters above sea level - on Mount Kenya.
Although the highest mountain in Kenya is slightly lower than the Kilimanjaro, it is much less crowded, and the landscapes you walk through on ascent seem to be from another planet: gigantic giant ferns enveloped in mystic fog, lichens, the trunks of the trees almhi beards grow, peculiar shrub-formations that seem to grow directly from the prehistoric times - it would be a little, the head a little high from the effective sea level, little wonder to encounter a dinosaur dinosaur. Just before the summit victory, the mountain world begins to look like we know it from the Alps.
Of curries and hobbits
But for the holiday as usual it does not have to be a fancy destination - let's take the journey "India - a vegetarian experience" from the catalog of ASI, The program cleverly combines the visit of the country's tourist highlights such as the Taj Mahal, the pink city of Jaipur or the famous palace of Udaipur with activities that lead away from folklore shows on land and people: on the one hand, quite a lot of hiking, after all is called the organizer Alpine School Innsbruck, on the other hand, as the title reveals, is the Indian cuisine in focus. Over the course of the 17 days of this trip, local markets and small agricultural producers are visited, hotel chefs and local families are pigeon-holed, and dinners are also prepared during short cooking courses.
As a conclusion to our small overview of unusual travel ideas, we still have something from the other end of the world: The German organizer ae-adventure travel has put together an individual rental car tour through New Zealand, where the travelers are moving from one slanted accommodation to the next - that New Zealand itself is breathtakingly beautiful and relatively little visited from Europe is just the icing on the cake. On this 24 day trip on the North and South Island you will spend the night in a rustic earthhouse like a hobbit, in a lodge with an outdoor bathtub and a view of nature, in New Zealand's only castle, in a secluded railroad car or in a restored covered wagon.
TIPS: More extraordinary travel
Buy yourself a good guide (eg from lonely planet) and get started. For example to Brazil, a country where English pop music is almost unknown, you drink freshly squeezed acai juice and swim pink dolphins. Individually, yet with the security of a tour operator, you experience this incredible country on the journey "Brazil - authentic and active" (www.papayatours.de). On the other side of America, a train ride through Alaska or a tour of the Harley Davidson through the United States promises special experiences (www.amerikareisen.at).
But even close targets offer the unexpected - you can, for example, with the covered wagon through the Hungarian Pußta pull (www.zigeunerwagenurlaub.at), the wild chamois in the Upper Austrian Kalkalpen experience (www.kalkalpen.at) or in the tree house in Lower Austria (www.baumhaus-lodge.at, www.ochys.at).
Hiking, nature experience, encounter and holistic wellness trips, canoeing, cycling and trekking tours, city trip, beach holiday in eco-resorts, research camps, creative, village or meditation stays - as wide is the range that the 130 organizers offer have united in Germany to travel forum different. The "different" in the name refers to "sustainable", Managing Director Petra Thomas: "All trips offered by us are carried out in an environmentally friendly and socially acceptable manner and are characterized by a special quality and high experience value." In fact, there are a lot of extraordinary travel ideas in this niche, ranging from the "Radtrip Saigon - Phnom Penh" to "Meetings with strong women in Nicaragua" to the "Culinary Burgundy Tour". www.forumandersreisen.de
Information about ecological travel and and Ökourlaub.
Photo / Video: Shutterstock.
