nature travel

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.

Only about 400 Spirit Bears remain. ©Candice Gaukel Andrews

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.

“Glamping” is camping in high style. ©Wilderness Safaris.

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.

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.