November 28, 2007

Backpack to the Future

Travel Through Time

Contrary to pop culture belief, you don’t need a souped-up DeLorean to travel through time. You can teleport to a different era with a healthy sense of adventure. And maps. Lots of maps.

Stone Age
Anatolian Houses, Cappadocia, Turkey
Adventure: If you never thought living in a cave could be fun, you’ve obviously never lived in one with a minibar, LCD TV, fireplace, and Jacuzzi.
Act Your Age: Sip from the resort’s wine fountain, then tour the luxe suites embedded deep in a surreal volcanic landscape. (Yes, a fountain of wine.)

Ice Age
Ice Hotel, Quebec, Canada
Adventure: Go green (and a little blue) in a hotel rebuilt every year from 15,000 tons of snow and 500 tons of ice. Hot water included.
Act Your Age: For the ultimate winter vacation, dog sled by day and sip cocktails from ice glasses by night; then retire to your arctic sleeping bag.

Medieval
Ashford Castle, Cong, Ireland
Adventure: Live like royalty in a 13th-century castle located on Ireland’s second largest lake, deep within 350 acres of wooded parkland.
Act Your Age: Daily activities include falconry, archery, and clay shooting, as well as a full-service spa. Enjoy haute cuisine in the George V dining room and nightly sing-alongs in the dungeon pub.

Age of Enlightenment
Hotel de Filosoof, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Adventure: Engage your mind in 38 rooms inspired by different philosophers. (In the Descartes suite, you think, therefore you snooze.)
Act Your Age: Breakfast is served with an inspirational quote of the day. Contemplate your existence with a drink in the library or a discourse in the private garden. Try not to reverse all that intellectual progress with Amsterdam’s locally grown.

Wild West
Pioneertown Motel, Pioneertown, California
Adventure: It’s Wild West living at the motel that once housed the stars of Westerns (The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy) filmed there.
Act Your Age: Pick up your horse at the corral in the morning for a leisurely ride along desert trails. Giddyup back in time for whiskey, staged shoot-outs, and stargazing. BYO cowboy.

Space Age
UNA Hotel Vittoria, Florence, Italy
Adventure: Florence may be the center of the Renaissance, but this hotel pays homage to the future of design.
Act Your Age: Lounges offer giant spiral seating for two, and guest rooms are outfitted with black leather checkered walls with inlaid fiber-optic lighting. Modernism isn’t for the bashful: Bathrooms are encased in crystal, prizing form over function. Don’t forget to rent a Vespa — some things never go out of style.