The Quiet Thrill of Winter Wildlife Viewing

A coyote walking the freshly groomed cross-country ski trails greeted us at the nearby Snowmass Club Golf Course, where we scanned a pond for ring-necked ducks, a diving duck with distinctive tattoo-like white, black and gray bills. They were sharing the ice flows with Crayola-bright mallards with vivid orange legs and velvet green heads. “Ducks…

Love or Leave Winter, On the Cheap

Travel this winter, like pretty much everything else, is not expected to be a bargain. While rates for hotels and flights tend to drop after the holiday highs, resilient demand for travel portends higher prices at both ski and beach destinations, where winter is high season. Still, with flexibility and creativity — like avoiding peak…

How Green is Your Cruise?

In the Caribbean, many cruise companies have bought islands and turned them into private resorts for the exclusive use of cruise passengers who cavort in enormous wave pools, rush down 135-foot water slides with names like Daredevil’s Peak, and zip-line across wide beaches. But on Ocean Cay, an island 20 miles south of Bimini that…