• Introduction
• 1. Spa Renewal
• 2. Health and Wellness
• 3. Academic Excursions
• 4. Extreme Sports
• 5. Volunteer Vacations
• 6. Photography Expeditions
• 7. Yoga Retreats
• 8. Wilderness Skills
• 9. Cooking Schools
• 10. Mountain Highs

Wilderness Skills

Baja, Mexico: Sustainable living may be the latest trend in ecotravel, but NOLS, the National Outdoor Leadership School, has been doing it since 1965. On a two-week Baja sea-kayaking trip along the Sea of Cortez in February, you’ll learn to read tide tables, understand currents, and create camps in sandy beaches and rocky coves. Downtime activities include skin diving, spear fishing, and basking in the sun. This is leave-no-footprint camping, with backcountry meals and sleeping under the stars. Feb. 3-16; $2,990.

St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands: Lost meets Survivor in a weeklong Earthskills Caribbean Rendezvous retreat at the Virgin Islands Sustainable Farm Institute, where you’ll learn age-old skills like hide tanning, foraging for edible plants, making rope from natural fibers, and carving spears and slingshots from local wood. Usable skills back at the office? No, but it will make outstanding watercooler fodder. Housing is modest: farm-rustic cabanas and tents. Feb. 24-Mar. 1; $655 for tents, $955 for cabanas.

See Croatia Travel Guide | See Amalfi Coast Travel Guide | See Africa Travel Guide | See Caribbean Travel Guide | See Tahiti Travel Guide