With Ken Hegan
Planning an adventure holiday this fall?
When I was a kid, extreme activities like Running with the Bulls and hung-over bungee jumping were the craziest ways to get an extreme holiday rush. But thanks to a rash of nutty Japanese game shows and our constant need to outdo our Facebook friends, modern travellers are seeking increasingly unconventional thrills.
For my next dangerous adventure holiday, I’m getting a weird treatment at the Beverly Hills Hotel Spa. One of their signature services is called ‘Diamond Perfection’… this means they’ll polish my skin with micro-crystals of actual diamonds. Yes, I’m doing this on a dare.
But that’s just me…when I go on holidays, I’m a total barmy idiot. To keep your own adventures safe, here’s a warning list of –
Four Worst Adventure Vacations
1) Bear Watching
Cost : 179 – 189 CAD
This has bad idea written all over it. Not only do these “Northern Safaris” involve going out in the frigid snow to find a beast that wants to eat your liver, but also — how interesting are bears really?
“Get the fuck out of my yard.”
Like, do you find it interesting that a grizzly bear weighs up to 500 pounds, runs three times faster than you (average human running speed: 17 km/h; top grizzly running speed: 56 km/h) and has claws that can slice you open like a can opener?
Plus the only skills you need to give Bear Watching tours seem to be owning a 4X4, and knowing how to seductively dangle a couple of rib eye steaks smeared with honey.
Ne’er-do-well hillbillies, please find a different get-rich quick scheme before someone gets devoured.
* Video: Meet the nine-year-old who swims with sharks
2) Exploring the Sewers of Paris
Cost: 4.5 EUR
Bored with the Louvre, the Seine, and the Arc de Triomphe?
Dig deep into Paris’s past by taking a sewer tour. The City of Light’s ancient sewer system is a maze of subway tunnel-sized caverns. All told, there are 2,100km of sewer tunnels beneath Paris. And now you can even hire tour guides to help you explore their dark, dank wonders!
Who knows: maybe the sewers will be full of valuable ancient gypsy treasures like France’s catacombs (I’m basing this solely on scenes I vaguely heard about in Disney’s Hunchback of Notre Dame)!
So what. They’re still sewers, i.e. pretty much the worst thing ever.
Oh, and did I mention that according to French folklore, vampires live down there? Perfect. Nothing makes your holiday more memorable than being chased by a screeching, shit-covered vampire.
This stinks to high heaven. Pass.
3) Driving Heavy Machinery…in Las Vegas
Cost: 400 USD for two hours
In Las Vegas, there’s a construction theme park called Dig This. It gives lucky visitors the chance to drive Caterpillar steam shovels to dig ditches and lift 2,000-pound tires in a giant sandpit.
The website says it’s America’s “first and only Heavy Equipment Playground™ where you can re-live your sandbox days!”
And here I thought binge-drinking, reckless gambling, and hiring fresh-faced young strangers to hand-feed me endangered animals were the best ways to blow my paycheque in Sin City.
I’m actually impressed that they’re offering something so unusual in such a gambling-focussed town. I guess some fellas like to make up for their shortcomings by driving huge bulldozers and excavators through a course that lets them move mountains, stack monster rocks, and dig huge symbolic holes.
But listen: I have soft, supple writer hands. If I rough ‘em up with hard labour, my dog will fear-bite me when I try to pet him. Can’t have that…I need my dog to keep the shit-vampires away.
4) Locked in the Cabin of a Lonely Mountain Nurse
Cost : She wants “nothing but your love.”
Technically this wasn’t really a ‘vacation’, but categorizing it this way in my mind makes for a terrific coping mechanism.
Before I became her writer-in-residence, I’d planned a ‘working winter holiday’ in a snowy mountain cabin.
I was driving up to finish my novel but accidentally crashed my car. So a nice nurse pulled me out of a snowy ditch, hobbled my ankle so I wouldn’t escape, and forced me to write her into this travel blog (Annie is the best!).
On the bright side: free painkillers and cookies.
Enjoy your own winter getaways, Canadians…and let’s be careful out there!
[See the article where it was originally published : http://tripified.ca/2011/10/worst-adventure-vacations-.html%5D
