Glaciers and travel (Read 580 times)

One vacation I flew to Alaska, rented a car and drove around. We stayed in hotels / hostels or with friends. Plenty of disappearing glaciers and hiking trails that you can just pull over at the side of the road. We stayed a few days in each city before moving on. Cant say Im a fan of cruises.

Iceland without a doubt. I traveled there with my daughter last summer, loved it so much we went back this past June. It is a hikers paradise. We rented a car and drove around stopping to hike at volcanoes, waterfalls, hot springs, glaciers, the ocean, the mountains, whatever was interesting. The citizens are some of the kindest and most welcoming I've come across. It can be pricey, but compared to a cruise, I found it to be about the same. I can't wait to go back.

BTW - I used to do cruises but being surrounded by the newlywed, nearly dead, and esp. the overfed, put me off them forever!

Thanks for the ideas (Iceland?  intriguing, though pricey.  And Alaskan ferry system, I'll have to check on that).  I wasn't looking for Disneyland-like kid activities.  More like a day of rafting, a day of kayaking, a day of hiking -- days in a row of hiking become tedious for the kids.  We have a slight problem, too, that my youngest has some animal phobias after his dog bite two years ago.  They are a bit hard to predict -- he became terrified during a sea kayaking trip last summer and and he and I had to turn back. (How could we know there would be no sharks?)  He was able to camp in the back country with me earlier this summer, though we had a rather painful conversation in which he wanted to know how I 'knew' there were no bears near our tent.  "I know there are bears in the these mountains, but how do you know there are no bears here where we are?"*  So, while wildlife is awesome, and we know how to be safe, etc, there is an unpredictability to his backcountry anxiety that makes me reluctant to go too hardcore. Iceland doesn't have bears I don't think ... 

I am with everyone on the cruises -- not my idea of fun.  The cruise I was looking at had a gear list that was more Outward Bound than Love Boat.  When I tried to find the prices, it seems that the particular outfit is not actually in business, which might make booking a trip difficult.

* I find his questions to be heartbreaking.  He so much wants to be reassured ("We know there are no sharks/bears/big mean dogs because...") and yet I can't promise him total safety.  He's not that interested in risk assessment at this point,   We know as parents that we can't keep our kids safe all the time.  I'm not a parent who is consumed with the desire to bubble wrap my kids.  However, I wish my little guy didn't  have such a clear understanding that there are dangers from which I cannot protect him.  

What about the Pacific Northwest?

I grew up in Vancouver, and there is very accessible hiking to glaciers along the 2 hr drive from Vancouver up to Whistler. 

The Black Tusk/Garibaldi Lake area in Garibaldi Provincial Park is spectacular, as is the Singing Pass area (located at Whistler), and both offer easy access to spectacular alpine and glaciers within about a 3hr moderate hike from the trail head (less in the case of Singing Pass if you cheat and start from the top of Whistler via chairlift). Both are probably better experienced as three day/two night hikes (day 1 hike in, day 2 hike around, day 3 hike out) but doable as strenuous day trips.  There are shelter/huts at some of the campgrounds which might ease wildlife concerns (though I remember them hosting a few mice).  Not sure if you can reserve these...

Between them I would think that Vancouver/Whistler would take care of the "entertaining the kids" factor. 

I didn't spend my teenage years in the mountains of Washington, but I suspect there are similar glaciated areas in the Cascades or the Olympics, not too far from Seattle.