For Adventure Lovers: 9 Exciting Things To Do In The Smoky Mountains

BY  Abdul Aziz Apr 27, 2023

The Parisian experience will always be a grid trend, but if you want the picturesque tranquility that all the poets write about, you must visit Southwest France. With idyllic villages, vineyards, and mountains, this region could be perfect for your next voyage. Whether it is the medieval village, mind-blowing architecture, or finding the most romantic spot on a canal, there is something for everyone in Southwest France. In this excerpt below, we will discuss some of the most idyllic places to visit in this region! Places To Visit In South West France If you want to experience the most of the French authenticity, here is the itinerary made just for you. 1. Surfing In Biarritz Who said you cannot enjoy a nice beach in southern France? When doing it like the French do, there is a lot to do! The chilled atmosphere from the Atlantic matched the hot summers of France. Plus, if you love surfing, this could be your next safe haven. Some of the destinations to start your day with a fresh surf, bathing in salt water, and adrenaline are Côte des Basques and la Grande Plage. It is the tamer side of the Atlantic. Thus the tides are very much low. Great for beginner surfers. However, if you are still not confident, you can get surfing lessons at Côte des Basques. 2. Authentic French Village Tour In Basque Country Staying in the region of Basque, one would want to explore the beauty of a French village. After all, someone coming from the seaside might not be very interested in the waters again. A walk through the Basque village is the picture-perfect outing for a lazy French afternoon. Red and white houses adorn the street wherever you look, just like being inside a painting. Some of the exceptionally beautiful French towns are Sare, La Bastide Clairence, and Ainhoa. 3. Walk Through St.Emilion Taking a stroll down the picturesque town and tasking the finest French wines is on everyone’s French bucket list. This is why taking the St.Emilion free walk tour will have all your French travel dreams in store. Being one of UNESCO’S World Heritage Sites, this town is known for its Medieval History and red & white wine. There is something serene about a French chateau that makes us romanticize the moment. If you are a fan of these towns, this place will give your French chills. Wine tasting in the chateaus and lots of walking through the Vineyards. Perfect for a honeymoon destination. 4. Picturesque Hiking Through Cirque De Gavarnie Talking about walking, just the old countryside wouldn’t suffice. From the lakes to the snow-covered mountains, southwest France has it all covered. Cirque de Gavarnie, also known as the natural amphitheater. This lush green valley is surrounded by mountains which are fabulously dressed by each season in a unique manner. If you love snow, then winter should be your season of travel. However, if you really want to see Cirque de Gavarnie’s beauty at its finest, explore the Fall Foliage of the Autumn season. It is also home to Europe’s second-tallest waterfall. But the best part would be the road to the destination. It's a French country to its core! 5. Toulouse Tour Filled with old French architecture, and museums for the artist inside you, the Toulouse tour is a must for a southwestern tour. From luxury restaurants in Le Capitole (the capital) to Shopping in St Georges, you are here to fulfill your French dream. Plus, for every cottage-core fan out there, get the best Tumbler pics with Toulhouse’s over-the-top picnic destinations. Find Wanderlust The French Way! Either we love to travel, or we don’t, but one thing is sure. There will always be a special wanderlust for France. Whether it is the language, the beauty, the Parisian lifestyle, or the French chateaus, the explorer within us will want to be in such places. So, why not do so in style? The southwest French side will drop you directly inside a Monet painting. For at least a few days, you could fulfill all your countryside old money dreams. You know how they say the moon is bigger in the French Riviera because love surrounds it? Read also: 6 Best Family Holiday Destinations In India Looking For Your Next Fun-Filled Family Vacation: Head To Aquaventuras Park 15 Best Places For Adventure Dates With Your Loved One

BY  Abdul Aziz Mar 31, 2021

Cruise some of the world’s most beautiful waters on a Seychelles yacht charter. A luxurious crewed yacht in Seychelles offers the perfect opportunity to explore paradisiacal islands lapped by some of the bluest waters on earth at your own pace. Seychelles is made up of 115 coral and granite island gems in the Indian Ocean. Here you'll find picture-postcard beaches, vibrant coral reefs teeming with colorful marine life, mountainous rainforests home to spectacular nature reserves, superb fishing grounds, delicious Creole cuisine, and barefoot elegance coupled with relaxed island charm. If you’re considering a Seychelles yacht charter, then keep on reading. Here we explore some of the top things to see and do while on a luxurious yacht in Seychelles. Seychelles Yacht Charter-  Mahe Island: No Seychelles yacht charter would be complete without exploring the island of Mahe, home to the Seychelles small capital Victoria. It is here you can get a real taste of Seychelles’ culture and history. A must-visit is the lush botanical gardens, a wonderful 15-acre retreat that boasts both endemic and exotic plants collected by French botanist Rivalt Dupont, who laid out the park in 1901. The various gardens of the park include a Chinese garden, rainforest, and spice garden. Don’t forget to look out for the park’s resident Aldabra giant tortoises. Other attractions of note in Victoria include the National Museum of History and St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. Mahe is also a fabulous place to feast on traditional Creole cuisine at locally run restaurants and food stalls.  Curieuse Island:  Curieuse Island is a national park and best known for its resident giant Aldabra tortoises, one of the few places on earth where they roam freely. More than 300 of these slow-moving creatures call the island home and are protected by a dedicated group of rangers. The island is also home to unspoiled mangrove forests, picture-postcard beaches, and rare coco de Mer palm trees, a giant prehistoric tree that boasts the world’s largest speed. For diving enthusiasts, head to the eastern coast of Curieuse and dive Coral Garden, a popular dive spot bursting with marine life – a Seychelles yacht charter must!  Praslin Island:  This exquisite island is considered one of the most beautiful destinations on earth, making it a must-visit during a Seychelles yacht charter. Praslin Island is best known for its palm-fringed beaches dotted with large granite boulders, while its jungle-covered interior is home to the Praslin National Park. Here you’ll find the breath-taking palm forest, Valle de Mai Nature Reserve, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to endemic rare flora and fauna. The island is peppered with quaint seaside villages and luxury resorts, including the Constance Lemuria Resort, which features an 18-hole championship golf course and a luxe full-service spa. Make sure you leave time to visit one of the island’s most famous beaches, Anse Lazio beach, which features powder-white sand fringed by lush tropical foliage. Soak up the sun on this dreamy beach during a Seychelles yacht charter, or make the most of your yacht’s tenders and toys on the surrounding azure blue waters. Farquhar Atoll:  Enjoy spectacular fishing grounds at Farquhar Atoll, the Seychelles most southerly chain of islands. This remote atoll offers a dreamy Seychelles yacht charter escape and is ideal for fishing enthusiasts. The Farquhar Atoll offers diverse fishery, including countless flats, surf zones, and channels. Reel in tropical fish such as triggerfish, bonefish, hump head parrotfish, and blue-water game species, including yellowfin tuna, barracuda, grouper, and wahoo. After, retreat to the luxurious surroundings of your Seychelles yacht charter and have your private chef prepare your fresh catch of the day. There can be no question for paradise seekers that a Seychelles yacht charter offers the perfect luxury escape. And with so many yachts for charter to choose from, you are guaranteed to find your ideal vessel, whether you fancy cruising this paradisiacal destination aboard an elegant sailboat or a superyacht. On a Seychelles yacht charter, paradise awaits. Read Also: Top Ten Southern Africa Off-The-Beaten-Path Adventures Planning A Hunting Trip To Africa – Here’s What You Should Know Top 12 Amazing Sahara Desert Animals You Need To See

BY  Abdul Aziz Oct 4, 2019

In Afrikaans, a kloof is a narrow mountain river valley or a canyon. And South Africa off-the-beaten-path adventures have followed a course parallel to the antics of European and American canyoneering enthusiasts.   Kloofing is following a mountain river from its beginnings down through waterfalls, rapids, whirlpools, hiking, and climbing your way in between swims. It’s a bit like high diving, hiking, and being put through a spin cycle—all at once. If you are still confused, I am referring to Southern Africa and its off-the-beaten-path adventures.   Do you want to know about more hidden gems in Southern Africa? Keep reading!  THESE Are the Best Southern Africa Off-The-Beaten-Path Adventures Southern Africa, with its eclectic culture, has been attracting tourists to its iconic monuments and natural landscapes. Here are some off-the-beaten-path adventure spots you must add to your itinerary list.   1. Kloofing Near Cape Town  In the mountains behind Betty’s Bay, a short drive from Cape Town, are South Africa’s two best kloofing day trips.   Choose between the regular route, where you’ll have to leap 20 feet off a waterfall into the pool below, or Suicide Gorge (heads up: this means a leap of 60 feet).   To date, no one has been hurt seriously on a kloofing trip. However, if you’re subject to vertigo and aren’t at least halfway fit, then don’t do it.   The company Day Trippers will provide guides, wetsuits, lunch, transport, and moral support.  2. Lesotho on Horseback  The mountain kingdom of Lesotho, in east-central South Africa, serves up stone villages atop remote hillsides.   Villagers, called Basotho, live draped in blankets and robes, almost like ancient Greeks. Shepherd boys sit on the slopes, playing flutes. Vultures and eagles cruise overhead.   In Lesotho, the horse remains the chariot of choice, and this is how you’ll want to get around as well.   Semongkong Lodge, near Maletsunyane, southern Africa’s highest waterfall, offers horseback treks for several days. You’ll stay in timeless Basotho villages and ride some of the subcontinent’s steepest terrain.   The Basotho ponies, schooled in a special “tripling” gait, are tough, sure-footed, and afraid of nothing. A tip: Book a trek that coincides with Semonkong’s horse races. They’re wild spectacles involving carefully nurtured thoroughbreds, child jockeys, and epic bouts of drinking.  3. Hike Chimanimani To Make The Most Of Southern Africa Off-The-Beaten-Path Adventures  As South Africa fills with travelers, more and more are heading into Zimbabwe, and several areas have been developed for hiking, fishing, riding, and other types of tourism.   But the mountainous Eastern Highlands, east of Chimanimani in southern Zim, are hardly developed at all, and that’s their appeal. Besides, this area, part of the Lebombo Mountain range that marks the border between Zimbabwe and Mozambique, provides year-round cool relief from the heat of the plains below.  For the serious hiker, a stiff climb-in is rewarded by an upland paradise of high pastures, waterfalls, forests of flowering protea trees, and caves large enough to sleep in.   Because the water up here is pure and drinkable, you can live here for days if you bring enough food with you. The only downside: Don’t cross over to the Mozambique side of the mountains, as old land mines from that country’s now-defunct civil war are still scattered on the range’s eastern slopes. Stick closely to the maps (available in Chimanimani village).  4. Learn Polo-Cross  Hugely popular in Zimbabwe and a growing equestrian sport around the world, polo-cross means falls, body crunches, and glancing blows with the lacrosse stick.   But those with a go-smack-em attitude and sufficient riding experience can learn this fast and highly skilled equestrian sport on trained horses at Mopani Lodge, near Kwekwe in the Midlands area.  Relax between sessions by riding out on the ranch (which has a cross-country course if you still need an adrenaline fix) or just by sunning at the pool. And because of the favorable exchange rate, what would be an extremely expensive riding holiday anywhere else in the world has become one of adventure tourism’s best bargains.  5. Hunt with Bushmen  If you’re after Southern Africa off-the-beaten-path adventures, you can’t do any better than traveling with the Ju’Hoansi. Ju’Hoansi is the last Kalahari Bushmen clan to pursue the traditional hunting and gathering lifestyle.   They’ve decided to open to small-scale tourism in their remote Namibian locale. You’ll camp near the Ju’Hoansi village of Makuri, go hunting with the men, and gather with the women.   This is no theme-park experience: If the hunters stick an animal with an arrow, you may have to track it for up to two days and then carry out your share of the meat. If you love hunting, you can take the best hunting bow with you.   You must also carry your own water and food. Don’t just spend a couple of days here: Allow at least a week for the people to become comfortable with you. If you’re lucky, they may also invite you to attend a trance dance, at which miraculous healings often take place.  6. Dune Boarding  The seaside town of Swakopmund, where the Namib desert falls into the sea, has become southern Africa’s dune-boarding capital. You’re driven out to the foot of a mountain-sized sand dune, given a large oblong sheet of hardboard, some furniture polish, a pair of heavy industrial gloves, and some welding goggles, and the next minute you’re flying almost vertically downward.   It feels suicidal; even on the easiest descents, the board can pick up speeds of 60 or 70 km (about 43.5 mi)/hr. Steeper ones are much faster. Then you graduate to jumps, finally ending the day with the “Knucklegrinder,” an 800-foot whoosh down to a hard gravel plain.  7. Ride the Namib  It’s easily one of the most spectacular rides in the world: You’re galloping through the Namib Desert, the world’s oldest, surrounded by 2,000-foot-high, blood-red sand dunes.   Thousand-year-old plants that resemble exploded cabbages grow on gravel plains that see rain once in a century. Lonely canyons echo the barking shout of baboons and the nighttime cough of leopards.   Then, suddenly, green oases spring up, overgrown with camelthorn and tamarisk trees, where herds of desert antelope gather in the shade. Continue to sun-blasted mountain ranges where ice-cold springs bubble straight from the rock.   Trot through this barren wilderness with Reit Safari, which offers 10-day rides on Namibian Hanoverians (German horses) and rehabilitated mustangs, starting on the mountains west of Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and ending in the ocean of the aptly named Skeleton Coast.  8. Earthwatch Cheetah Project  The lion really can lie down with the lamb—or at least the cheetah can. So, the biologists of this Earthwatch cheetah conservation project believe, anyway. Your job: to assist in live-capturing and radio-tracking cheetahs and other big cats on the wilderness ranches of central Namibia—the last place on earth where cheetahs still exist in reasonable numbers.   Local ranchers used to shoot them on sight. However, now many are cooperating with the study, which seeks to prove that cats only rarely hunt livestock if their natural prey is readily available.   You, the paying volunteer, have the satisfaction of contributing directly to the conservation of these cats while at the same time experiencing the adventure of chasing after and handling them.  9. Bike the Botswana Pans  Why would anyone want to bike through the Makgadigadi Pans—two vast, shallow expanses of mud? In the scorching Botswana summer, they fill with rain, releasing millions of tiny brine shrimp, which in turn attract breeding flocks of pink flamingos.   In the dry winter, they bake to a hard white crust. A perfect surface across which to go roaring on a quad bike. So wide are the pans that when out in the middle of them, you can’t see the “shore.” And the stars in this part of the Kalahari are unrivaled.  From Jack’s Camp, a luxurious place at the edge of the pans. You take quad bikes out to a table set out in the middle of the emptiness to find dinner laid and ready. By day, you go walking, look at the game, and pick wild foods with a Bushman guide called Cobra.   If you go during the sweltering summer months, you can’t quad bike the pans (too glutinous). However, you do see the flamingos. Further, if you’re lucky, you might see the eastern Kalahari’s summer zebra migration.  10. Deep Kalahari  If you have at least two weeks to explore Southern Africa off-the-beaten-path adventures, hire a 4×4 and blast off into southern Africa’s most remote country. The bigger-than-Switzerland Central Kalahari Game Reserve and the Aha and Tsodilo Hills.   This is rugged driving on some of the toughest tracks in Africa; you must know what you’re doing in a 4×4. You must carry all the fuel and supplies.   And if you get stuck, well, suffice to say it’s best to go in a convoy of two vehicles. Highlights of this once-in-a-lifetime trip include the desert lions of Deception Pan.   The Bushmen communities at Molapo and Xai-Xai (where you can go out with the hunters). The stalactite-filled caves of Drotsky’s Caverns and the ancient rock paintings of the Tsodilos. When you emerge at Shakawe at the northern edge of the Okavango Delta, you’ll forget what civilization looks like.  Final Words on Southern Africa Off-The-Beaten-Path Adventures  With dense vegetation, rugged cliffs, and fascinating wildlife, the Southern Africa Off-The-Beaten-Path adventures promise an unforgettable experience. These trips are also about learning about various fascinating cultures and respecting nature.  So, if you plan to visit Southern Africa soon, you can visit any of the places I have discussed here. Don’t forget to share your experience once you come back! Happy journey!   Read Also: Planning A Hunting Trip To Africa – Here’s What You Should Know Top 12 Amazing Sahara Desert Animals You Need To See Beginner Tips For Your First Camino de Santiago.