2128 active and adventure experiences found
The Sacred Valleys Trek
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The Sacred Valleys Trek
Paro Airport, Paro, Bhutan
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14 Days • from $6,550* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Bumthang is extraordinarily beautiful, even for Bhutan. Its four high valleys are draped with forests that embrace small monasteries, chortens, traditional stone houses, and markets. Elevations on trek stay below 12,000 feet, and each day’s walk is steadfastly unhurried. After arriving in Paro, we zig zag up to the revelatory Dochu La, then descend to Punakha for a nice day’s walkabout and a visit to its sterling dzong. Then we’re off to Bumthang, Bhutan’s most sacred valley, hallowed 1300 years… more |
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A Sacred Buddhist Land
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A Sacred Buddhist Land
Xining Airport, China
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8 Days • from $3,590* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Very much part of Tibet—though split off into a separate province by the Chinese— Qinghai is, of all the places in the world that make the claim, worthy of the title “Roof of the World.” Its landscapes are breathtakingly high, barren, and infinite, and its resilient Tibetan culture is inspiring. Our eight-day exploration of this unordinary place begins in Xining (easily accessible from any number of Chinese cities, making it a fine add-on to a trip to Tibet proper). Then… more |
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A Short Trip South of the Clouds: Yunnan Province
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A Short Trip South of the Clouds: Yunnan Province
Kunming airport, China
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8 Days • from $4,600* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions We’re Yunnan fans (we once said it was one of those places we wanted to grab you by the lapels and rave about), so we constructed this shorter trip as an easy Private Departure addition to any of our China trips (or as a short, sweet, stand-alone getaway). We begin in Kunming, the City of Eternal Spring, and make the short flight northwest to the 19 peaks and 18 streams of Dali, a major entrepôt on the southern Silk Road.… more |
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Hidden Tribes: Festivals of Guizhou Province
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Hidden Tribes: Festivals of Guizhou Province
Beijing Airport, China
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12 Days • from $6,995* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions A rare chance to experience rural life in China, Hidden Tribes spins us well beyond the tourist-trod paths for a close and extraordinarily colorful look at the ethnically diverse villages of Guizhou Province, a festival of limestone karsts, spiky hills, and terraced rice fields located east of Yunnan, west of Hunan, south of Sichuan, north of Guangxi, and far, far from home.We meet in Beijing, then fly south to Guizhou’s capital, Guiyang, for 10 days of drives, hikes, and creative… more |
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Highlands of Ladakh: The Hemis Festival
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Highlands of Ladakh: The Hemis Festival
Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi, Delhi
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15 Days • from $4,150* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Ladakh, though politically Indian, is emphatically and enduringly Tibetan, culturally, religiously, and geographically. It’s a heart-grabbing place, simultaneously austere and warm, vast and intimate. Thinking of Ladakh, we’re always reminded of Andrew Harvey’s story of his fruitful journey there, inspired by a fellow traveler who told him, “I should kidnap you and take you there myself. . . . It will change your life as it changed mine.” We reach what has historically been called Little Tibet by driving north… more |
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Festivals of Mongolia: Golden Eagle Festival
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Festivals of Mongolia: Golden Eagle Festival
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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11 Days • from $4,450* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Living in the shadow of the majestic Altai Mountains, the nomadic Kazakhs of western Mongolia live and prosper much as they have for centuries. They move seasonally in search of good pasture for their animals, maintaining one of the last enduring horse-based nomadic cultures in the world.Sandwiched between China and Russia, the far west of Mongolia is also an area of stunning natural beauty. With forested valleys, clear alpine lakes, expansive meadows carpeted with wildflowers, and spectacular snowcapped peaks (includingKhuiten… more |
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Festivals of Mongolia: Khovsgol Ice Festival and Gobi Camel Festival
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Festivals of Mongolia: Khovsgol Ice Festival and Gobi Camel Festival
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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12 Days • from $4,250* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions A vast and lonely treasure, Mongolia occupies a space more than three times the size of France, yet its population is only a little over a third that of New York City! So it is no surprise that Mongolia is one of the least densely populated nations in the world.We have been under its spell for a long time, dating to the days when it appeared in musty atlases as “Outer Mongolia.” So, it’s with great joy that we introduce… more |
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Festivals of Mongolia: National Naadam Festival
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Festivals of Mongolia: National Naadam Festival
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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11 Days • from $4,550* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions We've been under Mongolia's spell for a long time, dating to the days when it appeared in musty atlases as “Outer Mongolia.” So, it’s with great joy that we introduce people to this magnificent land and its festivals.On this journey centered around the biggest of Mongolia’s festivals – Naadam – we explore the cosmopolitan capital, Ulaanbaatar, venture into the heart of the Gobi Desert, and enjoy the boisterous Naadam celebration in Karakorum, one-time capital of the vast Mongol Empire. Beyond… more |
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Mongolia and Siberia
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Mongolia and Siberia
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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14 Days • from $6,550* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Since the preceding pages are full of paeans to Mongolia, into which we drive on Day 7, let’s concentrate here on the Siberian segment of this lovely journey, which centers around glorious Lake Baikal. “A primordial deep lake of diamantine clarity,” as Peter Matthiessen wrote in Baikal: Sacred Lake of Siberia, it is, among other things, the world’s oldest lake, the deepest (5750 feet at its lowest, with an additional four miles of sediment above the bedrock; the great Baikal… more |
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Mongolian Odyssey
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Mongolian Odyssey
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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18 Days • from $6,250* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions This overland journey displays Mongolia’s unexpectedly wide variety of landscapes, from vast sand dunes to snowy peaks, from forested enclaves to the oceanic steppe. We begin with some sightseeing in Ulaanbaatar, then head a little way west to Khustain Nuruu National Park to see the world’s only truly wild horses, the stocky and handsome takhi, or Przewalski horses. Then to the old capital of the Mongol Empire, Karakorum, once the most important place on the planet, and the nearby Buddhist… more |
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Five Kings of the Altai: Trekking in Mongolia's Highest Mountains
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Five Kings of the Altai: Trekking in Mongolia's Highest Mountains
Ulaanbaatar Airport, Mongolia
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18 Days • from $7,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Mongolia’s far west, where China, Russia, and Mongolia meet,is a region of giant beauty, virtually untouched by the outside world until quite recently. Forested valleys and clear alpine lakes are punctuated by expansive meadows carpeted with wildflowers and, as a backdrop, the eloquent glaciated peaks of the Altai Mountains.We fly from Ulaanbaatar to Olgii, where the country begins narrowing to a point, and drive into Tavan Bogd National Park for the first days of trekking through mountain-girded valleys and an… more |
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A Nepal Medley: Rivers, Mountains, & Jungles
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A Nepal Medley: Rivers, Mountains, & Jungles
Kathmandu airport, Nepal
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8 Days • from $1,750* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Nepal is where many of us got serious about our love affair with mountains, with travel, and with the varietal inhabitants of the welcoming world. In A Nepalese Medley, our Michael Steigerwald, Nicole Peelle, and Becca Glatz proudly display this much-loved land in its grand variety, offering everything from Himalayan lodge-tolodge hikes to river rafting to visits to the country’s jungly lowlands, where tigers are still to be seen. These four trip modules are craftily designed to be taken as… more |
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Himalayan Leadership Trek to Mt. Everest with Ed Bernbaum & Mike Useem
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Himalayan Leadership Trek to Mt. Everest with Ed Bernbaum & Mike Useem
Kathmandu airport, Nepal
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14 Days • from $4,450* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Leadership is a capacity that draws on all aspects of yourself and your organization. Developing a vision, articulating it, and inspiring others to achieve it require careful analysis and technical knowledge, as well as a sense for what is important for the organization and for the people in and around it. Mastering these abilities is a lifelong endeavor. The Leadership Trek to Mount Everest provides an opportunity to continue your leadership development, exercise your body, and cross-train your mind. It’s… more |
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Sherpa Villages and Mt. Everest with Sona Hishi Sherpa
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Sherpa Villages and Mt. Everest with Sona Hishi Sherpa
Kathmandu airport, Nepal
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18 Days • from $3,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Many of us trekked to the Khumbu district’s Sherpa homeland with our eyes on Everest, but we returned with fondest memories of the Sherpas, legendary mountain guides and climbers, and valiant friends. Which is a remarkable compliment to these fine folks, as Everest and its neighbors are everything they’re cracked up to be: enormous, eloquent, endlessly engaging.We trek to the world’s apex in the company of one of the eminent Sherpas of his generation, Sona Hishi, a great climber, researcher,… more |
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Kingdom of Mustang including the Tiji Festival
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Kingdom of Mustang including the Tiji Festival
Kathmandu airport, Nepal
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15 Days • from $3,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions It wasn’t long ago that the old border kingdom of Mustang was first opened to the outside world. (We remember a famous mountain man exclaiming joyously, “I’m going to Mustang!”) Politically part of Nepal, but geographically and culturally very Tibetan, Mustang’s landscapes, presided over by the icy ramparts of the Himalaya, are vast and open. And its capital, Lo Manthang, and its ultraremote villages, inhabited by gracious, happily traditional folk, are entrancingly evocative of the early days of Central Asian… more |
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Sri Lanka Explorer
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Sri Lanka Explorer
Colombo Airport, Sri Lanka
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12 Days • from $4,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions Our visit to Sri Lanka, one of the most entrancing places on the planet, weighs in at a week and a half, making it a fine Private Departure addition to any of our Southeast Asia trips. We hit the serendipitous isle’s highpoints of Dambulla and Sigiriya and take in those magnificent jungle revelations, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, which Jan Morris apotheosized as “wonders on a par with the pyramids or Machu Picchu.” more |
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Eight Days in Tibet
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Eight Days in Tibet
Beijing Airport, China
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10 Days • from $2,450* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions This concise introduction to Tibet and its stalwart culture concentrates on the country’s heartland: an introductory night in Tsedang and the Yarlung Valley, three nights in Lhasa, and then through gargantuan Himalayan scenery to the great temples and monasteries of Gyantse and Shigatse via a picnic brunch at famously blue Yamdrok Lake. Heinrich Harrer—his classic book is more than ever a great read—spent seven years in Tibet, but in this modern era it’s possible to visit many of Tibet’s great… more |
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Festivals of Tibet: Ganden Serthang Festival
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Festivals of Tibet: Ganden Serthang Festival
Beijing Airport, China
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13 Days • from $3,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions We created Festivals of Tibet as a bow to our beginnings 28 years ago in a crowded North Face tent up at 16,500 feet in the shadow of Everest. We started out as InnerAsia, grew steadily, branched out to just about every corner of the seven continents, changed our name to Geographic Expeditions, grew lots more, and never wavered in our dedication to introducing people to this heart-expanding, beleaguered, stalwart place.We offer two versions of Festivals of Tibet. Both editions… more |
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Festivals of Tibet: The Gyantse Pelchoe Festival
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Festivals of Tibet: The Gyantse Pelchoe Festival
Beijing Airport, China
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13 Days • from $3,950* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions We created Festivals of Tibet as a bow to our beginnings 28 years ago in a crowded North Face tent up at 16,500 feet in the shadow of Everest. We started out as InnerAsia, grew steadily, branched out to just about every corner of the seven continents, changed our name to Geographic Expeditions, grew lots more, and never wavered in our dedication to introducing people to this heart-expanding, beleaguered, stalwart place.We offer two versions of Festivals of Tibet. Both editions… more |
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Central Tibet Explorer
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Central Tibet Explorer
Lhasa Airport, China
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10 Days • from $2,850* per person
Provider: Geographic Expeditions A splendid and unusual look at the monasteries and nunneries of central Tibet, this short trip includes a good look at Lhasa before heading out to Ganden Monastery (one of old Tibet’s most important; here, the Dalai Lama received his geshe degree, a kind of doctorate; see Festivals of Tibet, page 74). We alight in the beautiful Drigung Valley, near Drigung Til Monastery, the main seat of the Kagyu school, for a couple of nights at a stunning campsite from… more |
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