(This is a guest post by Jamie Jensen, author of Road Trip USA – the fifth and newest edition was just released – and its companion pocket guides, Pacific Coast Highway and Route 66. To celebrate the new edition, check out his personalized trip planning for readers on his blog.

I’ve used previous versions of Road Trip USA quite extensively on my own US road trips, and I’ve always liked Jamie’s detailed descriptions of lesser-known attractions, bits of history and friendly, humorous writing style.  Here is why he loves the Pacific Coast Highway….)

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Riding my bike across the Golden Gate Bridge the other day, I had a flash of insight into what makes my best travel experiences. Like most people, I am wowed by natural beauty yet also appreciate the sybaritic comforts of civilization, so perhaps it’s no great surprise to hear that my personal travel nirvanas occur where nature and culture converge.

What surprised me was recognizing the third component of travel bliss: being in motion, which adds a tangible sense of dynamism and excitement to an otherwise passive pleasure.

When I think about my other favorite spots around the world, the same relationship emerges again and again.  Much as I love the sights and sounds of, say Venice, what I remember most about it is the experience of riding through it, on a gondola, a vaporetto, or best of all—on a speedboat racing like James Bond across the lagoon.

Closer to home, the same trinity still applies. As with the Golden Gate Bridge, travel magic is made by the combination of natural scenery and human interest (beautiful buildings and bridges always seem to work best for me), magnified by the possibility of moving through the scene, either on foot or bike or (most likely, especially for us Californians!), in a car.

Back on the bridge, I thought about where else I’ve found such perfect combinations, and as I drew up my mental list of world’s most gorgeous places, the West Coast claimed honors again and again. Which made me think: if you like rugged mountains, primeval forests, cliff-backed oceans, all within easy reach of charming towns, comfortable beds and very good food, there’s nothing better than the Pacific Coast Highway.

Known in shorthand as “PCH”, and famous for the photogenic Golden Gate Bridge and the stretch of Hwy-1 along central California’s redwood forested cliffs of Big Sur, the Pacific Coast Highway offers unforgettable experiences almost its entire length, from the northwest tip of Washington all the way to Mexico.  Even along the recently suburbanized southern stretches, there are still a few surviving flashes of brilliance in the form of Laguna Beach and other well-protected environs, but most of the other highpoints are found in the northern half, between San Francisco and Seattle.

In California, a stretch of the old Pacific Coast Highway known as the “Avenue of the Giants” winds its way through miles of the world’s tallest trees, some of which are so massive you can drive your car through tunnels cut right through them.

Nearby, fascinating old towns like Arcata and Eureka offer gourmet food and drink, as well as a taste of the “alternative” lifestyles California is so famous for.

Continuing north, the coast of Oregon rivals the splendors of Big Sur as PCH makes it way around rugged headlands like Cape Perpetua, while quaint towns like Cannon Beach and Bandon offer comforts you will appreciate after a day rolling along the Pacific Coast Highway, on two wheels or behind the wheel.

At the far north end of PCH, in Washington’s Olympic National Park, series of unimaginably lush green, jungle-like valleys form the only official “rainforests” in the USA, ranged along rivers at the foot of permanently snow-capped peaks.

Home comforts are offered in the old logging town of Forks (recently famous for its role as location for the teen vampire film “Twilight”), and even more so midway to Seattle in the under-appreciated Victorian arts community of Port Townsend.

All these unforgettable travel experiences are linked, and their pleasures magnified, by the narrow black 1000-mile ribbon of the Pacific Coast Highway. So get out there and drive some today!
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By Jamie Jensen

Author,  Road Trip USA: Cross-Country Adventures on America’s Two-Lane Highways

In a country as large as America, visiting your nation’s capital is something like losing your virginity. You might have scoffed at the place and the flotsam of politicians, lobbyists, honest-to-goodness conscientious hard workers, and career climbers who make up the mental atmosphere inside the Beltway. Or you might have revered the place, imagining it as the repository of all that was pure in democracy. Washington, D.C., a magnet for the pond scum of human ambition, or the shining city on the hill.

In either case, illusions always crumble when you experience the real thing. It might be better than you expected, or worse. You might be disappointed, disillusioned; or you might sheepishly admit that it’s a whole lot cooler than you thought it would be. Washington, D.C., raw-boned America.

D.C. is hip. Not TV hip, not Hollywood hip, not underground blogosphere hip. It’s hip in a way that you can only achieve by not trying too hard. New York City, for example, tries for hip but misses by touting it so frantically. Too many other places try to be like New York and lose their own identity. Other American cities try too hard not to be like New York and end up equally lost. Maybe it’s a result of having no state, or of being neglected by the government it has housed for so long, but D.C. is real in a way other places aren’t.

The Washington Monument, that monument to phallic male power dreams, towers over the National Mall to such an extent that you could make an argument for George Washington’s ghost keeping a sharp eye on Congress, operating out of the humbling or reviled (depending on your take) classic pile of marble known as the U.S. Capitol building (pictured at top).

It’s perhaps a sign of America’s democratic evolution over the last two centuries that this building, which houses the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court, among other parts of the government, is routinely mistaken for the White House. In the birth of the United States, it was the power of the people (white, male landowners over 21, to be exact), represented by their elected officials drafting legislation in this building, that was meant to rule the country. The president was simply an executive – a leader, yes, but not a ruler.

Which is partly, it seems to me, why the White House itself is such a modest building. It never looks like one on TV. It looks huge and impressive. But there are plenty of mansions and McMansions here in the Hudson Valley that cram their residents’ striving for power and influence much more forcefully down your throat. Going by the ideals of American democracy – the ideals, not necessarily the practice – the president’s residence should be a wholly unpretentious building. Small, relatively human-sized, accessible (even if, with modern security, that access is only an illusion), and, most important, answerable to the people walking outside its doors.

It was something of a relief that my first sight of this building did not incur anger at the person commanding from inside of it.

D.C. hums and buzzes and hurries, like any other big city on the planet. But it still has the feeling of a small town, full of awfully nice people and friendly, wide boulevards. You get the feeling that D.C.’s residents have a grip on their city, that they’ve made it theirs, even if their laws and local affairs are yet subject to the whims of the U.S. Congress.

No part of this city better represents its place as the home of representational democracy than the National Mall, a seemingly endless length of grass and walkways hogging most of the center of town. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park and New York’s Central Park could only dream of the breathing room this place gives its residents. No fancy landscaping, not a whole lot of shade except on the edges, and heaving with tourists, the National Mall is a natural magnet for romping children, picnicking teenagers, and anyone taking their legs for a good long stretch.

It is unkempt and torn up, the Mall. The grass struggles under the pressure of millions of tourists and hosted events every year. And that is what makes it so special. It’s brown, and scrubby, and used. In this most democratic of American cities, there should be no impeccably manicured lawn saying, “Keep off the grass.”

D.C. is not a jewel in the crown of America or any other cliché. It is distinctly itself. Its hallowed architecture, its informed and friendly people, and the wide-open heart of its central Mall represent everything Americans would like ourselves to be.

Vancouver Island frequently gets tagged by magazines as the “Best North American Island,” so of course this is a plot of land that has plenty of claims to fame. (It’s also been named as the “best place to live in Canada.”)

A year ago this time I was making plans to tour the great Northwest, traveling by train from Portland to Banff and seeing Western Canada through the Eyes of a Child. We finished up this family adventure on Vancouver Island. Unfortunately we only got to see a small patch of it. You would need a month there to really traverse what is the “largest island off the North American west coast.” That may sound like a qualified superlative, but it’s roughly the size of the Netherlands or Taiwan, so not too shabby. It’s sparsely populated though, a wilderness paradise where half the population lives in the not-so-large city of Victoria. So what tops the charts here?

Della Falls, in Strathcona Provincial Park, is Canada’s highest waterfall, at 440 metres (1,452 feet). It is also one of the ten highest waterfalls in the world.

Nitinat Lake is the top windsurfing destination in North America. No wind in the morning, but then it comes on like a wall, hitting 25 to 30 knots. There’s a kiteboarding school there if you want to learn how to get airborne. Great videos on their site too.

Nanaimo is home to the world’s largest upright artificial reef. It was created when the Cape Breton, a decommissioned navy ship, was sunk in 2001 near the Saskatchewan, a navy-class destroyer.

Vancouver Island is witness to the longest migration of any mammal in the world. Every year between early February and late April more than 18,000 Grey Whales pass the west coast shore of Vancouver Island, on their way from Mexico to Alaska.

The Strathcona Hotel in Victoria claims to have “the world’s only rooftop beach volleyball courts.” I didn’t go there, but I’ll take their word for it.

I did have the meal of a lifetime at Spinnaker’s though, which is “Canada’s oldest brewpub.” This is a slow food paradise, with beer brewed on site, wine from British Colombia, and meals made with ingredients mostly sourced from within B.C. (including herbs grown in the garden). They’ll set up a beer and food pairing, a wine and food pairing, or if you really want to get decadent—both at once! (Yeah, I didn’t think that would work either, but amazingly it did.)

Find out more:

Tourism Vancouver Island

Tourism Victoria

And here’s a video shot from the (noisy) propeller seaplane ride from Victoria to the Vancouver City harbour, on Harbour Air.

I’m not a bad photographer. But I’m not a great one either. So when the opportunity arose to take part in a photographic workshop focusing on vineyards and wineries, I jumped at the chance.

Living in the heart of a wine region, it’s easy to just hop into the car and head out for a spot of wine tasting or lunch at one of the many wineries surrounding my hometown of Christchurch. But to actually get a chance to wander among the vines and watch the wine being bottled was a novelty. And to learn how to take better photographs at the same time – what more could a dedicated wine drinker ask for.

Turns out one could ask for a whole lot more, starting with sunshine and warmth. The day of the workshop was wet, cold, and windy.

No sunshine. No warmth. But that didn’t stop a group of keen photographers.

We loaded up our gear and headed north out of Christchurch on State Highway 1 to Waipara Valley.

First stop was Sherwood Winery for an indoor session on taking pictures of wine bottles. Easy, you might say. Not quite. Trying to get just the right angle, background, foreground, and the label in focus really is a work of art. But after many attempts and some tips and pointers from David, ex-photo editor of The Press, I finally managed to shoot an ‘almost’ magazine quality photo (except I cut off the first two letters of the label)

From there we headed out back for some reality ‘behind the scenes’ shoots of the Winery. Nothing was missed – empty wine bottles, boxes, and old labels, machinery, even gum boots – in our attempt to capture the winery experience.

Then it was back on the road to Muddy Waters Winery to watch the bottling process and take more ‘behind the scene’ images for the pretend magazine spread that we were creating. An hour later, the camera warm from overuse, it was time to move on.

Final stop was the Waipara Springs Winery. Too wet by this time for any outdoor shoots, we settled for lunch instead. Although settle might not be the right word. A diverse lunch menu stirred up lively discussion on the merits of pizza vs salad and what wines to try.

Along the way, I learned some new photo techniques, discovered what my new camera – a Canon SX10 IS - is capable of doing, and have decided that I needed to spend a lot more time around the wineries, sampling the wines and getting the shoots.

Clearly, I need to get much, much better before I hit the California wineries in July…

 The Sydney Morning Herald has an article on about tiptoeing through the Amazon jungle and asking whether you can visit the world’s greatest ecosystem without adding to it’s destruction.

MSNBC suggests Eight ways green travel can save you money.

Mother Nature Network checks out Australia’s Great Ocean Walk.

Why Lose looks at how to outfit your trip in an eco-friendly fashion with their green gear guide.

Cheapest Destinations discusses how to become a Solar-Powered Traveler.

Travel Answer Man has created an extensive list of the Best Top Ecotourism Websites with Blogs.

Test your green knowledge with the online Go Green crossword over at Professional Travel Guide.

MNN asks whether ecotourism hurts more than helps.