Candice Gaukel Andrews

An author and writer specializing in nature and travel, Candice spends most of her work life on magazine and book assignments that have taken her as far as Alaska and the Yukon Quest dog sled race — and as close to her Wisconsin home as the national snow-sculpting competition in Lake Geneva. Candice’s books include Great Wisconsin Winter Weekends, The Minnesota Almanac and Explore Wisconsin Forests, due out in 2010; and her work appears in nature travel catalogs for Natural Habitat Adventures and in magazines including Mushing, On Wisconsin and Insider. She also writes, produces and directs short-form biographical videos, including one for the late Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day. Candice is currently working on her fifth book, The Call of a Cold Place: Where Science and Soul Intersect, on researchers and searchers in Antarctica. Visit her website at candiceandrews.com

My son was visiting me during the holidays recently. I accompanied him to a local cell phone store, where he purchased a Droid. On the five-mile drive home, he entertained me by turning on its GPS feature; and we listened and laughed as the automated voice instructed us to turn left here and right there, over a route that we knew like the back of our hands. It did get me wondering, though, if it’s possible — in this information technology age — to get lost anymore.

It usually starts with one plastic water bottle or one beer can, casually tossed aside, just visible in the underbrush off the side of the trail where I’m walking. My thoughts are soon torn away from nature and “What a beautiful place this is,” to “What an eyesore; what the heck was that person thinking?” And then, all of a sudden, what just a moment ago looked to me like a pristine wilderness transforms into a one-item garbage dump. All I can focus on is that one rusty can or bent bottle.

I won’t have a computer, an iPod or even a cell phone on my nature trip. So don’t e-mail, voicemail, Facebook or even try to call me. Don’t even phone me on a landline. I can’t be reached. When I travel, I purposely sever all lines of communication with my everyday life. I think you should, too. Because when you don’t, I get annoyed.

It looked perfect through the lens. I had the shot all lined up: blue mountain in the background, a rocky trail winding through the middle, and wildflowers in the foreground that made up two-thirds of the composition. I rotated the polarizing filter just enough so that I had a bright blue sky. Click.

It almost sounds mythical.

But there’s truly a place on the far western edge of our continent where a rare animal — a white black bear — can still hunt, fish, gather berries and raise cubs unbothered by humans. There are no roads here, no cut trails, few settlements and even fewer trappings of civilization. It’s a good place to be a bear.

There used to be two opposite ends on the travel-comfort continuum: Starting on the left, there were those who didn’t mind camping out in the backcountry. And at the far right terminus were those who preferred a private cabin on a luxury cruise, complete with a bed dressed in Egyptian cotton sheets and a down blanket. Never, it seemed, would the two types of traveler meet. The new trend of “glamping,” however, has changed all that.

“We need the tonic of wildness, to wade sometimes in marshes where the bittern and the meadow-hen lurk, and hear the booming of the snipe; to smell the whispering sedge where only some wilder and more solitary fowl builds her nest, and the mink crawls with its belly close to the ground.” — Henry David Thoreau

Undoubtedly, one of the greatest thrills that comes from our nature travels is seeing wild animals in their native habitats. But as we eco-tourists are painfully aware, those goose-bump shivers experienced while witnessing a grizzly bear fishing for salmon or a wolf hunt in Yellowstone National Park could possibly be costing the animals too much.

A few weeks ago, I saw an advertisement in a magazine that read, “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” In this recession, I have been doing a lot more thinking about whether my purchases will really enrich my life, how much I really need a thing or experience I pine for, and whether I’m getting the most “bang” for every buck I spend. For instance, will my purchase also be earth-friendly, community-friendly, or serving some cause (such as wildlife preservation)?

On a bookcase in my home office is a tiny piece of shed seal fur I spotted on a beach in New Zealand, a Douglas fir pine cone I absconded with from a forest floor in British Columbia, and a piece of shale I picked up from the rocky shores of Newfoundland. Looking at these mementos I’ve picked up on several journeys near and far reminds me of my travels; and arranged as they are in a circle, they create a “map” of sorts, a visual representation of where I’ve had the great fortune of going to in the world and the arc I traveled back home.