FlyerTalk Forums - 10 more active oriented spots

11. Life’s Swell at Long Caye
Long Caye, Belize

There’s a certain queasy feeling that comes from bobbing up and down in three-foot waves while spray-skirted inside a sea kayak. It’s not quite seasickness, but it’s close enough to make you long—momentarily—for flatwater or, better yet, terra firma in the form of a wide beach and thatch-roofed cabanas. Luckily, all are in ample supply at Slickrock Adventures’ base camp on Long Caye, a skinny finger of dry land 35 miles off the coast of Belize. The Caribbean water is so clear you can anchor and find yourself snorkel-to-fish-eyes with moray eels in seconds.

At Slickrock, sea-kayaking instruction is comprehensive but painless: No one’s barking orders, and by the second morning you can brave swells on the south side of the island or paddle straight out from the north side and into an 82-square-mile lagoon, inside Glover’s Reef. And instead of cramming the kayaks with tents and sleeping bags for an island-to-island expedition, your home is the castaway-style base camp, with a sand-floored dining hall, composting toilets, and conch-lined pathways weaving among the coconut palms. The two-person bungalows come outfitted with a hammock on the porch, a solar-powered lantern for reading, and the endless crash of waves to lull you to sleep. Finding a balance between nap-induced delirium and watersports burnout, however, will be your greatest challenge.

DETAILS: Slickrock Adventures (800-390-5715, www.slickrock.com) charges $1,895 per person for a ten-day, all-inclusive sea-kayaking trip to Glover’s Reef.
—K. A.

12. The River Wild
Cangrejal River, Honduras

In a generous 1987 decree, all land in Honduras above 6,000 feet was declared park territory, and around La Ceiba that meant the town’s precipitous backyard—now the 429-square-mile Parque Nacional Pico Bonito. The country’s second-largest park looks like something straight out of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1912 novel The Lost World, with tangly jungles. For rafters and kayakers, the Cangrejal River and its thousand-foot-deep gorges are the draw; I paddled Class III-IV rapids around gigantic granite boulders, and even in the dry early summer the river was frisky enough to unseat me from my inflatable kayak.

Afterward, I decamped to the Lodge at Pico Bonito, a 200-acre hideaway adjacent to the national park. The structure—built from timber downed by 1998’s Hurricane Mitch—resembles a Wyoming millionaire’s summer home, with 8,036-foot Pico Bonito dominating the view like a tropical Grand Teton. The really good stuff—like canoe trails weaving through coastal mangrove forests—lies in the untapped wilderness beyond the lodge.

DETAILS: The Lodge at Pico Bonito (888-428-0221, www.picobonito.com) has cabins for two people from $155 and will arrange full-day Cangrejal rafting trips for $75 per person, lunch included.
—BUCKY MCMAHON

13. Trek An Almost-Impossible Trek
Parque Nacional El Imposible, El Salvador

Southwestern El Salvador's Parque Nacional El Imposible takes its name from the days when coffee growers traversed its clifftop trails to get their bean-laden burros to market—El Imposible was a 300-foot-deep chasm spanned by a tree-trunk bridge. The logs routinely broke, sending burros, men, and tons of coffee tumbling to their end. When the Salvadoran government finally erected a bridge over the gap, it also put up a sign reading: In 1968, it ceased to be impossible.

That sign might better read, "It's not impossible, but it still ain't easy." To tour the park you need a permit, a guide, and solid grounding in the Salvadoran transportation triathlon: bus, pickup truck, feet. A bus takes you from the provincial city of Sonsonate to the crossroads village of Cara Sucia, where you'll ride eight miles in the back of one of the pickups that go twice daily to the tiny settlement of San Miguelito, near the park's entrance.

Your prize for arriving: a 12,000-acre maze of mountains and ridges encompassing three forest types—though Yankee visitors blinded by the iridescent green foliage may not discern between them. El Imposible is home to a stunning array of biodiversity—some of the nation's rare virgin tropical rainforest, an estimated 400 types of trees, 500 varieties of butterflies, nearly 300 species of birds, and endangered mammals including the jaguar and the margay cat. The best hike is a two-hour trip to the top of 3,600-foot Cerro Leon, where you can glimpse the trail that gives the park its name.

DETAILS: Salvanatura (011-503-279-1515, www.nps.gov/centralamerica/salvador/cabeza.html), the organization that administers Parque Nacional El Imposible, arranges permits ($5) and guides ($3).
—TIM F. SOHN

14. The Caribbean As It Once Was
Little Corn Island, Nicaragua

Nicaragua is one of the few countries in this hemisphere that doesn't have its own Lonely Planet guidebook. Note to the book's eventual editors: Check out the diving off Little Corn Island. The country's sole PADI-listed dive center, Dive Little Corn, is on this one-square-mile island 50 miles off the Caribbean coast, surrounded by pristine coral reefs and vibrant sea life protected by responsible harvesting practices.

Within three minutes of sticking my mask into the translucent azure water off White Holes, I saw black-tip reef sharks, manta rays, barracuda, and more yellowtail than you can shake a speargun at. (Charter a deep-sea fishing boat if you want to bag some mahi-mahi.) Don't sweat it if you're not a hardcore dive fan—Little Corn is more than just a pretty reef. The Creole-flavored and English-speaking former British protectorate, a ten-mile panga ride north from its sibling, Big Corn Island, has largely escaped Nicaragua's troubled political past. It's a laid-back place to experience the Caribbean as it once was, without motor vehicles (not allowed), telephones, ATMs, or tourist shops.

Casa Iguana and its nine breezy pastel casitas, with their own bleached-white beach, are the antidote to the energy-sapping diving. Once you've freshened up in your outdoor rainwater shower, gaze out from your porch at the blue sea. At dusk, wander along the beach and pick any of the waterfront restaurants. Belly up to a plate piled with lobster, yellowtail, and fried plantains—all for about $6.

DETAILS: Rates at Casa Iguana (www.casaiguana.net) range from $20 nightly for an efficiency with shared bath to $75 for a secluded Grand Casita. Dive Little Corn (www.divelittlecorn.com) offers a five-tank dive package, including a night dive, for $165.
—TOM PRICE

15. Hot, Hot, Hot Springs
Arenal, Costa Rica

So you’re flitting around Central America, moving from surf break to village mercado to jungle ruins—the whole circuit. Odds are, sooner or later you’ll end up near Volcán Arenal, in the rugged center of Costa Rica. You want to get close to the 5,400-foot cone to see the crimson lava, but why chance it? There’s a safer, more indulgent perch from which to enjoy the light show than the trails in Parque Nacional Volcán Arenal: a spot in the natural hot springs that flow down Arenal’s flanks. The most magical soaking occurs after nightfall at fancy Tabaón Resort, eight miles outside Fortuna, on the road to Arenal. Tabacón isn’t a surprising diversion, but it is a fun one: Nowhere else on your trip will you find 12 different pools of hot mineral water (80-102 degrees), waterfalls, and a water slide, all backed by minor volcanic explosions.

Pay $19 at the door, claim your towel and locker, then sample all the springs at the sprawling hillside resort, built with Arenal as a fire-breathing backdrop. At night the place has an aura: part exotic bath, part water theme park, part Hollywood fog machine. See plump Eurotravelers in their Speedos. Try a volcanic-mud-mask spa treatment. And be careful on those slippery stairs!

There’s no point in indulging if you can’t gloat, so swim over to the kitschy bar in the middle of the largest pool, sit half in the water drinking Imperials, and write some postcards that read, “Just another lousy day on the road . . .”

DETAILS: Several lodges and motels are clustered in Fortuna, or stay at the 83-room Tabacón Resort (doubles from $140; 011-506-460-2020, www.tabacon.com). A mud-mask treatment costs $28.
—JANINE SIEJA

16. Whitewater by Candlelight
Pacuare Lodge, Costa Rica

The split second it takes to translate a Costa Rican river guide’s ¡Al suelo! to “Hit the floor!” is more than enough time for the raft to drop into a Class V hole, fold in half, and spit its slow-thinking, English-speaking contents head first into the Pacuare River. Fortunately, it’s a warm one, and gentle between the rapids.

No roads lead to the Pacuare Lodge, only the river, known for its tendency to swell from a Class III-IV to a Class IV-V in the course of a single overnight rainstorm. Situated an hour and a half from the put-in near the village of Tres Equis, the lodge sits on a five-acre riverfront clearing, cut back in the 1940s for agriculture. But the rest of the lodge’s 60-acre property still contains thousands of 50- to 80-foot-high palms. Naturalist guides can take guests hiking on centuries-old paths or gliding on sky-canopy cables connected to platforms in trees filled with green macaws. Wooden huts with thatch roofs and covered porches are scattered around the main building, where an upstairs open-air lounge serves as the bar. Happy hour means juice and Cacique Guaro, the Tico brand of moonshine that doubles as insect repellent. After a candlelit dinner of snapper with wild mushroom sauce in the dining room, flashlights lead the way to bed.

DETAILS: Overnight trips, with meals, lodging, and rafting gear, cost $259 per person through Pacuare Lodge (800-514-0411, www.junglelodgecostarica.com).
—K. L.

17. Forest Plump
Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve, Costa Rica

Thank some conscientious-objector Quakers from Alabama, fleeing the draft in 1951, and a group of scientists trying to save the golden toad in the early 1970s for creating the granddaddy of all ecotourism destinations, in the Cordillera de Tilarán. Today the fruit of their labors, the 25,000-acre Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve, is Costa Rica’s prized park, with well-maintained trails, more than 400 species of birds—from emerald toucanets to orange-bellied trogons—and a bevy of mammals. (Don’t miss the lively guided walks nightly at 7:30 p.m. for a chance to glimpse orange-kneed tarantulas.)

The result of Monteverde’s popularity is a blanket of neighboring reserves at varying elevations—and different ecosystems—south of Volcán Arenal in north-central Costa Rica. Adjoining Monteverde is the much larger but less visited 50,000-acre Bosque Eterno de Los Niños, established with money raised by schoolchildren around the globe, known for its waterfalls and rainforest hikes. There are two smaller attractions nearby: The Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve straddles the Continental Divide, and has eight miles of trails and an above-canopy observation tower; El Jardin de las Mariposas is home to 750 types of butterflies, including zebra longwings and blue morphos, and banks of feeders that draw 26 species of hummingbirds. Both reserves are along the three-mile road between Monteverde and the town of Santa Elena.

DETAILS: Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve (011-506-645-5122, www.cct.or.cr/monte_in.htm) prefers reservations and offers a tour ($12 per person entry fee, plus $15 per person for a day tour, $13 at night). Three miles west of the reserve on the main road, El Sapo Dorado (doubles, $84-$99; 011-506-645-5010, www.sapodorado.com), named for the famous golden toad, has mountain-view bungalows with terraces.
—AMY MARR

18. Horseshoe Haven
Punta Uva, Costa Rica

At the southern edge of Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast, paradise takes the form of a five-mile horseshoe of white sand framed on one side by sparkling aquamarine water—a comfortable 82 degrees year-round—and on the other by coconut palms and mango trees backed by tropical green mountains. Waves break on colorful coral that extends nearly two miles offshore, but that hardly disturbs the peace: They’re of the small, perfect-for-bodysurfing variety. (Punta Uva, after all, translates to Point Grape, not Point Break.)

Here, in one of the most biodiverse places on earth, you’ll see howler monkeys, sloths, green parrots, butterflies, lizards, birds, and—with the help of a snorkel and a mask—an abundance of marine life. Besides diving and snorkeling, you can also kayak with dolphins or go on an epic bird-spotting mission in the 12,000-acre Refugio Nacional Gandoca-Manzanillo, a maze of tropical rainforests and mangrove swamps that are home to some pretty wild things.

DETAILS: Planted right on the beach, Cabinas Punta Uva (doubles, $40; 011-506-750-0431, www.puntauva.com) has ocean views that will make you want to jump right in. Each of the four garden bungalows has a tiled bath and a hammock-strewn deck. And if you fall under the spell of this slice of beach heaven, you can cut a deal on a weekly rate—$210.
—T. F. S.

19. Where the Jaguars and Quetzals Roam
El Sendero de los Quetzales, Panama

“Copa de oro,” repeats my taxi driver, Danilo, on the way to the trailhead for El Sendero de los Quetzales, an extraordinarily steep five-mile hike through the cloudforest of western Panama’s Parque Nacional Volcán Barú. It’s his descriptor of choice for the region surrounding the village of Boquete, in the heart of the Chiriqui Highlands. And why not call it a cup of gold? This forest is a nesting habitat for at least 200 breeding pairs of the path’s namesake, the turquoise-backed, crimson-breasted resplendent quetzal.

But the quetzals are only one of the highland region’s treasures. In Parque Internacional la Amistad—half a million acres straddling the Talamanca range—live 400 bird species and native megafauna like jaguars, tapirs, spider monkeys, and harpy eagles. Also here are trout-rich streams and the headwaters of the Chiriqui and Chiriqui Viejo rivers, whose Class III rapids are frequented by Boquete outfitters.

Check in to the clean, spacious Pensi-n Marilos, near the town square in Boquete, and then wander a block to Café El Punta de Encuentro to try the addictive mango licuados and get another ringing regional endorsement from the proprietor, Olga Rios, who will sigh and tell you, “Boquete is like no other place in the world.”

DETAILS: Rooms at Pensi-n Marilos (011-507-720-1380, marilos.freeyellow.com) cost $15. Chiriqui River Rafting (011-507-720-1505, www.panama-rafting.com) charges $75-$100 per person for half-day trips on the Chiriqui or Chiriqui Viejo.
—JEFF HULL

20. Dive Inn
Bocas Inn, Panama

Pulling up to the dock at the Bocas Inn, in Bocas del Toro, I wondered—for about 30 seconds—whether we’d made an enormous mistake. Could we have waited eons for a ferry and then crossed the open seas in the tiny fiberglass skiff only to wind up at a harborside lodge wedged into a ramshackle waterfront? Not on your life. Within minutes we were diving off the inn’s porch into bay water as warm as a bath. Within days, we were completely seduced.

In the middle of Bocas del Toro, a funky expat town on Isla Colón, Bocas Inn is a two-story, aquamarine clapboard building with a restaurant and seven guest rooms, two of which open onto a breezy balcony strung with hammocks. Wake up, pad barefoot down to a breakfast of scrambled eggs, mangoes, and dark Panamanian coffee, then pay a boatman to speed you and your snorkel out to coral gardens to commune with queen angelfish. Or head out to surf mellow, chest-high peelers as they roll off the reefs. The best adventure we found? Catching a water taxi out to a series of thatch-roofed cabanas built over a glassy snorkeling spot known as Coral Key. Cervezas and Frescas cost $1 at the dock’s mint-green snack bar. Hang there for hours, making like a fish or doing pretty much nothing at all.

DETAILS: Doubles at the inn, run by Ancon Expeditions (011-507-269-9415, www.anconexpeditions.com), cost $65 per night; meals and activities are extra.
—KIM BROWN SEELY