Prepare to eat your way through Morocco on what has to be one of the country’s most delicious tours. Your gastronomic journey, called Savory Spices and Souks, begins in Casablanca, before moving on to the fishing village of Essaouira, the High Atlas Mountains and Marrakech. Borrowing from Arabic, Berber, French and Spanish cultures, the local cuisine is a mouthwatering medley of pastries, grilled meats, soups and aromatic spices. And guess what? You’ll be sampling it all.
Other highlights include cooking classes, where you’ll whip up traditional meals like a fish tagine, plus stopovers at a women’s argan oil co-op, Bahia Palace and the Hassan II Mosque. There’s even a street food tour, because there’s no such thing as eating too much on this culinary adventure.
So impressive is the nature reserve and national park of Jiuzhaigou, located in the Sichuan province of China’s southwest, it’s been named a UNESCO World Heritage Site and World Biosphere Reserve. Covering more than 72,000 hectares it’s renowned for its incredible beauty – tiered waterfalls, snow-topped mountains, colourful autumn leaves – and has seen a steady increase in visitors since it opened to the public in 1982.
Rather than boasting just one vibrant colour, Five Flower Lake changes depending on the weather and surroundings. Sometimes it’s turquoise, other times jade, deep blue and even amber. Most of the time it’s vivid aqua, but the best time to visit is when the leaves of the surrounding forest are starting to change and the mirrored surface takes on the varied shades of the foliage.
Glide across the water as you power a replica ocean-going canoe, modelled on the type used traditionally by the people of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation in North Vancouver on Canada’s southwest coast. After a traditional welcome, you’ll be given a quick rundown on the canoes before paddling the protected waters of Burrard Inlet and the fjord of Indian Arm.
Along the way, your First Nations guides will point out ancient village sites, regale the group with legends and sing a song or two. Keep your eyes peeled for local wildlife, which can include seals and bald eagles. You’ll join a maximum of 19 other guests for the Takaya Tours expeditions, ranging from two to four hours. You can also choose one that includes a guided rainforest walk.
Lakes of bubble-gum pink seem to be something of an Australian phenomenon. Apart from the Insta-famous pond in Melbourne’s Westgate Park that turns pink when salt levels peak, the rest can be found in Western Australia. Lake Hillier is one of the most famous, and the only one that remains pink all year long. The colour is caused by a microalgae called Dunaliella salina, which is found in water that’s highly saline.
Lake Hillier is located on Middle Island in the Recherche Archipelago, near Esperance, and is best enjoyed on a scenic flight with Goldfields Air Services. That way you can truly appreciate the juxtaposition of the lake, which is the same shade as Pepto-Bismol, and the deep blue of the ocean, separated only by a thin stretch of scrub and white sand.
It’s the national airline, so Vietnam Airlines serves up a very different Asian stopover on the way to Europe (it has direct flights to London, Paris and Frankfurt). From Sydney or Melbourne, you’ll fly direct to Ho Chi Minh City, with its combo of local personality and French influences. Colour us crazy, but we’d stop here just for the opportunity to gorge on excellent food. And as much as we love pho and banh mi, this is the chance to head to food streets and night markets for less well-known dishes. (Plus, you can have pho for brekky with iced Vietnamese coffee, so you won’t miss out.)
Try banh xeo (crispy rice pancakes with seafood), bun mam (noodle soup with fermented fish broth, seafood and pork belly) or anything else that looks tempting. Stretch your legs before getting back on the plane checking out the War Remnants Museum, Saigon Opera House and the Reunification Palace. The Cu Chi Tunnels are just 90 minutes away, so you can even organise a day tour. Last but hardly least, kick back and have one of the city’s famous massages.
Step back in time as you wander the cliff palaces of Colorado’s Ancestral Pueblo tribes. Mesa Verde National Park is the only national park in the USA dedicated to preserving the works of mankind. The designated UNESCO Heritage Site is home to more than 5,000 archaeological spots, including 600 cliff dwellings that date back to between 600 and 1300 CE. The dwellings provide an insight into the lives and heritage of the Ancestral Puebloan people who lived in this region for more than 700 years, and are some of the most notable and best preserved in the USA.
Guided ranger tours offer a deeper understanding of how these people lived, as well as access to get up close to the renowned cliff palaces – Balcony House, Cliff Palace and Long House – as you traverse ladders and open rock faces. You can also head out on a self-guided tour to explore some of the cultural sites at your own leisure – 12 easily accessible dwellings and overlooks can be found by driving along the Mesa Top Loop Road, with Far View House being among five villages that can be explored along a 1.2-kilometre unpaved trail.
Hiking trails in the park range from two to 12.5 kilometres, with highlights being the Point Lookout Trail traversing the top of the mesa with views of Montezuma and Mancos valleys, or the Petroglyph Point Trail, where a rugged, rocky route leads to stunning canyon vistas and ancient carvings on a huge petroglyph panel.
This is the cruise voyage of the future. This newest addition to the Nat Geo fleet is still being built, but when it hits the oceans it will be the world’s first hybrid-electric polar exploration ship. Powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) and electric generators, this ship has been designed to minimise the environmental impact of travel and its carbon footprint.
National Geographic and Ponant’s first two voyages in Antarctica on Le Commandant Charcot, named after French polar scientist Jean-Baptiste Charcot, are Expedition to Charcot & Peter l Islands and The Weddell Sea & Larsen Ice Shelf, both of which depart in January 2022.
These expeditions go further into the Antarctic Circle than Nat Geo Expeditions has ever gone before, travelling along the Antarctic peninsula to some of the world’s most seldom-visited places. Peter I Island is a small volcanic island covered by a glacier looming in the Bellingshausen Sea. It is inaccessible most of the year due to pack ice, and its only inhabitants are seabirds, penguins and seals. You could be one of the very few people on the planet to go there.
The voyages also visit Detaille Island, which was briefly used as a research base by the British Antarctica Survey before it was abandoned due to bad weather conditions. You’ll be able to explore the base where it remains frozen in time, complete with items such as skis, magazines, training books and electrical items left exactly as they were in 1959.
Then, of course, there’s the Larsen Ice Shelf. An extension of the ice sheet into the sea, this white giant is equally disturbing and fascinating, if only due to its colossal dimensions and the impressive tabletop icebergs, which are among the largest ever seen.
Caves conjure visions of tight squeezes, claustrophobia and dark, scary spaces. Not on Maewo in Vanuatu, where Moon Cave is spacious and lit with rays of sunlight that strike the water and create an iridescent yet eerie glow. Swimming here on a hot day is a must and so is engaging your guide to explain its cultural stories.
Serving as an important site to the community, Moon Cave helps locals share their story of creation and, in particular, the ways it’s influenced by the direction the sun and moon take as they travel across the sky. Hearing this new cosmological perspective will undoubtedly make you look up and wonder. Moon Cave also features ancient cave writings and an impressive amount of stalactites.
Maewo is off the beaten track, so if you’re seeking an authentic Pacific Island adventure, this is going to fit the bill. Don’t expect everything to be perfect though – part of the adventure is the rustic experience.
Get off the grid and ease into island time – it’s real and, rather than being measured in minutes, it’s all about chats and connections. Be sure to visit villages and ask about the gardens. Most people live here in tune to nature’s rhythms and, yes, that means seasonal home-grown fruit and vegetables dug directly from the garden to your plate each night.
Giant boulders perch over kilometres of undulating terrain and ruins and temples scatter the landscape in a stunning open museum of history, architecture and religion juxtaposed with palm groves, banana plantations and paddy fields. The World Heritage Site of Hampi, situated on the banks of the Tungabhadra River in the eastern part of central Karnataka leaves travellers spellbound.
Otherworldly Hampi is located on the Deccan plateau, one of the oldest and most stable geographical formations in the world, dating back 2.5 billion years ago. Once the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire, Hampi is considered to be the largest open monument and the “lost city of Asia’.
Among the artefacts you’d want to peruse include a queen’s bath, the Lotus Palace, a royal stable and a temple said to have been where the wedding of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati took place.
The ruins are located in two sections: the Sacred Centre and the Royal Centre. Explore places like the Vittala Temple, Royal Enclosure, Kadalekalu Ganesha, Lotus Mahal and the Elephant Stables. The Riverside Ruins are also worth a gander, with several shrines, some partially submerged, dedicated to Lord Vishnu and other Hindu deities.
For your fill of chai, budget accommodation, artefacts, shops and restaurants, head to Hampi Bazaar, a bustling village crammed with backpackers, touts and travellers.
Listed second in The New York Times’ 52 Places to Go in 2019 list, Hampi truly rocks. Visit during the famous Hampi Festival of dance, music and cultural extravaganza scheduled for three days in the first week of November.
When you dip your face into the sea at Uri Marine Park, colours will explode before your eyes. It surely is the real deal when it comes to snorkelling.
Uri is off the seriously remote tropical island of Malekula, and has a coral reef that would give anything in Queensland a run for its money. Best of all, there’s not another tourist in sight, so you can forget where you are, let go and float your worries away.
Expect to see giant clam shells on the sea floor and huge turtles glide past you surrounded by schools of exotic tropical fish, including translucent houndfish that look as though they’ve got straws for noses. If you’re super lucky you might even see a majestic dugong swim past. The soft coral is an epic combination of purple, lime green, pink and tan. This is as good as it gets.
Once you have finished you snorkel, you’ll be greeted by the locals kids, who’ll have come down for a swim and a chat after school. Nothing on here is touristy or flashy – accommodation comes in the form of basic bungalows constructed from bamboo. There’s no power and no fuss, but everything is idyllic and perfect. If you want to escape the hustle and bustle, Uri Marine Park is your place.
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