The 5 Best Trips of 2010

1. Best Effort to Mitigate That Carbon Footprint: Indianapolis International Airport

Indianapolis International Airport. Photo: Sam Fentress

Air travel is tough on the environment. So it’s nice when there are initiatives like the IND Solar Farm. Last year, workers more than doubled the number of solar panels at Indianapolis International Airport to 76,000—enough to power 3,210 homes for an entire year.

2. Best Safari: Kenya

The Earthpod rooms at Lewa House blend into the Kenyan landscape. Photo: Courtesy of Lewa House

Outside GO’s 11-day Ultimate Conservation Safari was put together by owners Sandy and Chip Cunningham, who lived in Kenya for five years, in response to a simple truth: Africa’s most worthwhile destinations are often some of its most vulnerable. You’ll visit three remarkable locations on the cutting edge of both conservation and accommodation in the wildest sections of East Africa. Take Campi Ya Kanzi, nestled in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, which has exclusive access to 300,000 acres of wilderness with lions, elephants, zebras, and giraffes, and not a single tourist in sight. You’ll be hosted by local Masai and sleep in a lavish tent without the humming generators that mar other properties—the camp gets 24-hour power from solar. The trip culminates in a visit to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust’s elephant orphanage, where young pachyderms that have lost their parents to poaching are fostered. You’ll get a once-in-a-lifetime, up-close look. From $9,585.

3. Best Viral-Video Opportunity: Bay of Fundy

Humpback whale, Bay of Fundy. Photo: Barrett & Mackay/Getty

Go with Seascape Kayak Tours on a sea kayak with pods of humpback whales in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick. From $85.

4. Best Airbnb Property: Mary May’s

Mary May's, Montana. Photo: Courtesy of Mary May

A morning spent at this carriage house outside Bozeman, Montana, presents a dilemma. Do you fire up the professional range, swing open the French doors, and have a leisurely breakfast? Do you head out and explore the property’s 100 acres of trails and trout waters? Or do you hop in the car for a quick trip to Yellowstone? There’s no easy answer, but few places let you experience as much for so little. $125.

5. Best Surf Trip: Baja, Mexico

An empty Baja surf break. Photo: Noe DeWitt/Trunk Archive

There are lots of ways to enjoy Mexico. But I’ve found that the very best is to cross the border in a 4x4 truck with surfboards, a few extra tanks of gasoline, and a couple of bottles of mezcal. If you don’t count the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali—and, frankly, you shouldn’t—the Baja peninsula has a population of just over two million spread across 55,000 square miles. That’s fewer people than Houston. The region’s 2,000 miles of wild and desolate Pacific coastline are littered with fantastic, almost always empty surf. Many of the most famous breaks—Quatros Casas, Scorpion Bay—now have hostels and other amenities on the bluffs, but the rule of thumb is that the farther you get from San Diego, the more challenging and rewarding it becomes. You get to work for your dinner: spear-caught fish for ceviche and a lobster as big as a small dog. Lodging options that far south are limited—we slept in tents or our truck bed—so if you go, remember that when the wind starts whipping and the night gets cold, dead yuccas burn hotter than tumbleweeds.
—Matt Skenazy