![[Lake scene drawing]](http://images.midwestweekend.com/graphics/lake_scene.gif)
If you’ve always wanted a second home – or a third, or a fourth – now is the time to acquire one, at least for a weekend.
People who snapped up beach houses and country retreats during the real-estate boom now are renting them out, trying to pay the mortgage. But renting a vacation house straight from the owner was popular even before the bust: Why not see how the other half lives?
Browsing the pages of HomeAway and Vacation Rentals by Owner – VRBO, the biggest and best-known listing service – is like going on the Parade of Homes, except you get to stay in the house you like best.
I applaud anyone who takes on the job of planning a family reunion.
When more than a few branches of a family are involved, planning a reunion requires the strategic skills of a general, the diplomacy of an envoy and the social agility of an emcee. In other words, plan carefully, because it's hard to make everyone happy.
First, find out what people really want. Are they expecting to spend most of their time reacquainting themselves with far-flung family members, or more time acquainting themselves with the golf course and swim-up bar?
Contrary to common wisdom, the best deals in travel aren’t too good to be true.
The key is to travel with a group. Gather 20 people, and you can bring costs way, way down. How does $6.50 per night sound?
That's what I paid when I went to Whitewater State Park with my outdoors group, the Minnesota Rovers. It was late October, but
the bluff-country park still was covered by a quilt of color: russet, burgundy, bronze.
In hindsight, it's good to be grown up and out of school: no more tests, no more books, no more teacher's dirty looks.
But it's also good to be a grown-up who's back in school, because schools have grown up, too. There are no tests and few books, and teachers are as friendly and attentive as cruise-ship hosts.
In fact, attending some schools is a lot like being on vacation.
As adults, we sometimes forget how great it is to be a kid.
People give you toys to play with. They show you new games and explain things in interesting ways. They feed you freshly baked cookies and s'mores.
Kids take it for granted. But I didn't one January, when I got to stay at Deep Portage Conservation Reserve, in the woods north of Brainerd.
Collectively, no one knows more about traveling in the Upper Midwest than its outdoors clubs.
Club members organize dozens of excursions year-round — hiking, paddling, skiing — and they know all the best
places. Once, I thought I'd made a real discovery — High Point Village, an appealing little resort with 10 miles of
hiking and skiing loops around the foot of Timm's Hill, Wisconsin's highest point.
It turned out the Twin Cities-based North Stars Ski Touring Club already had found it and reserved it for one of their trips.
Most guided adventure trips cost quite a lot. If you're prepared to pay, great; if not, you have options.
If you want to hike the Superior Hiking Trail on Minnesota's North Shore, for example, you can pay up to $379 per day, per person, or as little as $40 per day. Here's how it works out:
All of these trips include lodgings, meals and transportation as noted. Cost is per person and, for lodge trips, based on
double occupancy. For camping trips, meals (mostly groceries) are estimated at $20 per day.
Want to save money on trips? Then, step away from the fancy catalog.
Glossy pages of snow-capped mountains and medieval castles are eye candy for travelers. But the prettier the brochure, the more eye-popping the prices.
Luxury excursions are like Jaguars and Jimmy Choo shoes. We covet them, we window-shop for them, but only a few of us can afford them.
Out in the forest, solitude can be overrated.
Occasionally, we all need silence. But you may have more fun if you play follow the leader.
When I go on a hike, especially if I don't know the area well, I like to tag along with naturalists. Thanks to them, I've learned all kinds of interesting things.
