Where Time Stands Still: Big South Fork NRA in Tennessee (courtesy, National Park Service)
1. BELLOTA RANCH Bellota, Arizona
The best adventure lodges are those where you show up a stranger and leave as family. So it is at Bellota Ranch, a homey, horsey oasis in the wild chaparral country above Tucson, where the small staff (ranch manager, wrangler, and a cook) takes the saying "make yourself comfortable" to pleasing extremes.
Room & Board: Surrounded by 60,000 acres of working cattle land and wedged between the Santa Catalina and Rincon mountains, Bellota manages to be sprawling and intimate. The 1930s hacienda, plastered in white stucco, surrounds a sunny courtyard. The eight guest rooms have cozy ranch touches like brick floors, patchwork quilts, Mexican-tiled bathrooms, and kiva fireplaces. Guests and staff eat together in the country kitchen, and no one ever goes hungry with stick-to-your-ribs cowboy fare like buffalo burgers; between meals, you're urged to graze from the bottomless jar of chocolate-chip cookies.
Out the Back Door: With its surefooted quarter horses and vast Coronado National Forest acreage, Bellota has a stellar riding program. Kean Brown, the laconic, perpetually sunburned wrangler, leads morning and afternoon range rides. Once you've demonstrated that you can control your horse, you're free to find your own way into the creosote- and sage-studded hills. There's a handful of mountain bikes for spinning out your horse legs along miles of empty roads, and the 790-mile-long Arizona Trail traverses the property, but—in laid-back Bellota fashion—the only mandatory post-ride activity is soaking in the outdoor hot tub.
DETAILS
Bellota Ranch: $275-$325 per night, double occupancy, including meals, transportation from Tucson, riding, and all activities
520-296-6275, www.bellotaranch.com Saga Eco Camp: $80 per person per day, including food, transportation, and use of outboard motorboats
011-91-33-2226-0123, http://ecoclub.com/saga/ Charit Creek Lodge: $54 per adult per day, including dinner and breakfast
865-429-5704, www.charitcreek.com
2. SAGA ECO CAMP Chilika Lake, India
Established in 2002, the Saga Eco Camp is still so new that even most locals don't know where it is. That's what happens when you build your tiny beach resort among a handful of fishing families on a tropical island in India's largest lagoon—425-square-mile Chilika Lake, tucked beneath the 1,500-foot Eastern Ghats hills of Orissa and draining into the Bay of Bengal.
Room & Board: Lodging matches the Robinson Crusoe vibe, as guests stay in 11 spacious and breezy wall tents (with finished floors and flush toilets) that sleep four, scattered among palms and cashew trees. In an open-air, thatch-roofed dining hall, chef Raju serves up fresh seafood dishes, including crab masala and local prawns, as well as island-grown organic veggies. Purists may complain about the diesel generator, which runs for three hours each evening, but hey, it keeps the beer cold.
Out the Back Door: Take a motorboat 20 minutes to the mainland town of Barakul and rent a sea kayak from Orissa Tourism's Water Sports Complex ($5 an hour) to explore Nalaban Island, a bird sanctuary. Paddle alongside rare Irrawaddy dolphins while keeping an eye out for Siberian cranes. Or head for the narrow spit of land that divides the lagoon from the ocean, park your kayak, then hike a half-mile through the jungle, until you arrive at an empty white-sand beach that stretches a dozen miles in both directions. What next? Bodysurf endless breakers, then lie in the sand and play dead.
3. CHARIT CREEK LODGE Jamestown, Tennessee
A true wilderness retreat takes pride in what it doesn't have. At Charit Creek Lodge, there's no electricity (kerosene lanterns are everywhere), no phones (the only thing ringing at mealtime is the dinner bell), and most notably, no traffic (access is by foot, bike, or horseback).
Room & Board: This cluster of two log cabins and a rustic main lodge is set in a gorge at the convergence of two creeks and is surrounded by the 125,000-acre Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area. Each of the buildings began as part of a 19th- or early 20th-century homestead. In the main lodge, built around an 1819 hunting cabin, two dorm-style rooms sleep up to 12 each in double-size bunks. The cabins, which also sleep 12 each, have screened porches with rockers and share a separate bath house. Classic country meals—baked beef with gravy, chicken and dumplings, biscuits and grits for breakfast—are served family style.
Out the Back Door: Charit Creek Hiking Trail, the most direct of four hiking paths to the lodge, is a 0.8-mile descent that takes you from a Fork Ridge Road parking lot to the base of a bluff, past a waterfall (in wet weather), and across a wooden bridge. Once you're at the lodge, the day-hike opportunities include 130 miles of trails lined with mountain laurel and wildflowers. Hike four miles to access 80 miles of the Big South Fork River for fly-fishing. (Bring your own gear; the catch is bass and trout.) Or tackle the river's Class III-IV whitewater on a full-day raft trip through the 11-mile Gorge section with Sheltowee Trace Outfitters.
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