- Jun. 3, 2010
- 12 Trips of a Lifetime
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The people here at Clif Bar & Company are loaded with incredible travels—seriously. And with an eight-week sabbatical awarded every seven years with the company, why wouldn’t we be? So after listening to countless tales of amazing worldly adventures, I figured it’s time to share. Here are 12 inspiring trips that will leave you yearning for a life-changing vacay of your own!
1. From Cape Town to Cairo
Clif Traveler: Claire
My sister and I had planned to spend the last week of our African adventure (which began in Cape Town, then routed through Kenya and Mauritius) in Madagascar where we would be lemur spotting, hiking in the national parks, catching the local transport taxi-brusses and walking down the Avenue of Baobabs. We initially convinced each other that we could simply avoid a developing military coup, sneak away to the less-populated parts of the country and continue on with our agenda. Then we heard that the U.N. was evacuating all non-essential personnel, and we discovered that all flights into the country were being diverted.
So, time for plan B. Having already spent time in Kenya, both of our curiosities peaked at a 4 a.m. scheduled departure to Cairo glowing on the international departures board, and we set off to wake up the only travel agent in the airport. Moments later our flights were purchased and, less than eight hours after that, we landed in Egypt.
The photos document a snippet of the best trip I never planned – finding the 357 bus after a crash course in Arabic numerals, navigating Cairo’s vibrant street markets, sampling Egyptian coffee and its famous accompaniments, the obligatory camel, the majestic pyramids in Giza, marveling at the resourcefulness of Egyptian taxi repair-work, and ending up in Alexandria where the Nile meets the Mediterranean…just a little bit farther away than we had set out to travel from our starting point the month before. At the end of the day, the most amazing part of the trip was not necessarily the places we visited or the things we saw, but rather the way in which we saw them – without expectation, without a master plan – without a clue really. But sometimes the best journeys are the ones that take you for a ride.
2. Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Clif Traveler: Carly
- Posted by:
- Chris Morell
- Category:
- Events, From the Road, Office Life
