June is always a busy month for us. We have some 25 to 30 trips out right now, members are already busy booking trips as far in advance as fall 2025, and we have a slew of travel industry events to attend in downtown Boston. Travel companies like Relais and Chateaux, Four Seasons, and The Leading Hotels of the World bring many of their hoteliers to town to showcase their properties. We also learn from leading tour operators, like Backroads, all the new trips coming out in 2025. These are our favorite picks from those events:

Cataloochee Ranch

Maggie Valley, North Carolina

This resort easily caught our attention. It’s not every day that you hear about a new ranch opening, one on the East Coast, not Montana, that features Relais and Chateaux-quality meals. Cataloochee Ranch sits on a sylvan 700-acre property adjacent the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, only a 10-minute drive to the entrance of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Perfect for a multi-generation getaway for all ages, especially children, plan on entering a year-round summer camp with on-site activities like horseback riding or hiking into the mountains, archery, zip-lining, walks through long broad meadows, and fireplaces to cozy up next to with a good book. Inspired by ranches of the American West, owners Annie and David Colquitt (who also own boutique mountain resort The Swag right next door) bring a Southern flavor of ranches to the East Coast.

Chef Jeb Aldrich, formerly at Tiny Lou’s at Atlanta’s Hotel Clermont, is at the helm of their dining venue, Switchback. Expect heaping salads of local greens, house-made feta, pickled strawberries and toasted hazelnuts; dry-aged duck complemented by black currants and crispy maitake mushrooms; and wood-fired pizza topped with a baked egg, béchamel, and crispy mushrooms. A new spa is set to open in 2025. For now, guests can use all spa amenities at the neighboring Swag. Here's a VIDEO to learn more about the Ranch.

Four Seasons Yachts

At an event at the Four Seasons One Dalton Boston last month, we met Peter Honan, the Director of Sales for the new Four Seasons Yachts that’s already taking bookings before its launch in January 2026. The Yacht is owned by the same person who owns the wonderful Four Seasons Surfside in Miami and the Four Seasons in Palm Beach, where some of our clients return year after year.

The berths look more like an upscale hotel room than an ocean cruise ship. That’s because it’s a yacht that holds only 96 rooms. Also like a hotel, the brand plans to charge a la carte for lunch, dinner, and alcoholic drinks, steering away from the standard all-inclusive model for ocean and river cruises. Instead, Four Seasons Yachts will charge per-suite pricing, not per person. According to Peter, when the yacht docks overnight at locales like Santorini and Istanbul, they want the clients to experience the local cuisine, and not be dining on the yacht to provide for a more authentic travel experience.

We like the weeklong European itineraries that include Greece and Croatia. With only 96 berths, they will quickly sell out once word spreads. So please let us know sooner rather than later, if interested. Here's a Sample Voyage Itinerary to Antigua and St. Lucia to see what a typical cruise itinerary will look like. And, here's a link to their VIDEO so you can really understand how beautiful this ship will be! Check it out!

Dolomites Lodge to Lodge Hiking Tour

Backroads

In previous newsletters, we’ve highlighted Backroads's new partnership with Under Canvas, culminating in a whopping 185 glamping trips across America’s national parks in 2025.

However, Backroads is one extraordinary company that never rests on its laurels. New in 2025 is a Dolomites Lodge-to-Lodge Hiking Tour, where you can trek between picturesque mountain villages through this majestic mountain range. Your reward after days of hiking are dinners of South Tyrolean specialties in the mountain towns of Selva Gardena and Colfosco. Then a good night’s sleep in contemporary alpine homes. You’ll be trekking across the Seiser Alm, Europe’s largest high-alpine pasture, inhabited since the Bronze Age. Sign us up!

The Dunes on the Waterfront

Ogunquit, Maine

To those of you whom we've sent to Acadia National Park, you know our fondness for the recently rehabbed Claremont Hotel in Southwest Harbor (pictured left) and the Salt Cottages in Bar Harbor.

Now those same property owners, Atlantic Hospitality, have completed a $10 million renovation of an 85-year-old property on Ogunquit Beach. The result is The Dunes on the Waterfront, just opened on May 24^th. The resort consists of 24 cottages and a swimming pool set on 12 acres of lawn overlooking the beach. The one to three-bedroom whitewashed cottages have ocean views, gas-burning fireplaces, wet bars, and screened-in porches. Guests can also use kayaks and paddleboards or stroll less than a half-mile to downtown Ogunquit.

Luxury Houseboat Villa

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Escape the crowds this summer or fall and stay in a residential neighborhood of Amsterdam on a luxury houseboat. What better way to experience the canals of this city than from your comfortable perch atop the water? The villa is located on the Amstel River in the district known as Pijp, one of Amsterdam’s most vibrant neighborhoods. The upscale houseboat features two bedrooms and two bathrooms, plus a full kitchen. So it’s ideally suited for a family of 4 or two couples. Must book for a minimum of 4 nights. You may stock the kitchen with food and drink and supplies in advance of your stay for an additional fee. And, concierge support is included 24/7, so you won't feel abandoned at sea!

Tips and Tricks of the Trade:



It's Christmas in July!

Or, Why You Should Book Your Holiday Vacation this summer!

If you haven't already booked your Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hannukah and New Year's trips, it's time to start planning now! I know we have finally made it to those warmer months we've all been pining for, but it pays to think ahead to colder times when you will want to take a break from shivering and shoveling! Here's some things to keep in mind as you consider booking now for holiday season travel:

Choosing Where to Travel During the Holidays

It's important to consider which destinations have hotels with availability. For example, places like Costa Rica truly get booked up to one year in advance for festive season. Thankfully we have an amazing partnership with Costa Rica Experts, who've been assisting us with all things Costa Rica for a decade now. They usually can find some availability at any time of year, including the holidays.

Now is the time that you can still find availability at top destinations like Mexico, the Caribbean and Hawaii. And, don't forget that you may want to do a more cultural vacation in the winter and travel to Europe where less crowds are a big plus and the climate is a bit more temperate than ours in the Northeast.

Always take a glance at the flights before you commit to a destination because you may find the airlines have jacked up their pricing just when school lets out for the Christmas season. If you can shift your travel dates a bit to avoid those weekend dates around the holidays, you'll be much happier with the fares.

Where to Stay During the Holidays

It goes without saying that booking earlier, allows you more choices of room availability and perhaps even lower pricing as well. Most hotels these days use "dynamic pricing" which means that when their demand goes up, their pricing also goes up. And, keep in mind that many hotels have stricter cancellation policies over holiday season, but don't require you to pay in full until about 2-3 months prior. So, you can book now and always have that escape valve if you choose not to go as you move closer to your final payment date.

Less Stress Means Happiness

Wouldn't it be so nice to plan your holiday trips now and then just show up and enjoy your winter getaway?

If you choose to plan now, this means better flight availability, smoother logistics, more hotel availability, and getting it all done BEFORE you're stressed with the holiday madness that sets in around October or even earlier!

Contact ActiveTravels to start your holiday planning now!

Thanks to Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, the historic hamlet of Concord, Massachusetts, 20 miles west of Boston, has achieved legendary stature as a literary outpost. After all, it was here that Thoreau ventured to the woods with ax in tow in March 1845 to build his historic hut on Walden Pond. The town where Alcott grew up with her sisters in the Orchard House, which remarkably still stands today and was the backdrop for the latest version of Little Women in 2019. Also still standing on the banks of the Concord River is the circa-1770 Old Manse, where Emerson wrote his integral work, Nature, in the upstairs study, and the young Nathaniel Hawthorne brought his bride Sophia to live after marriage for 3 years. The Old Manse happens to be next door to Minute Man National Historic Park, where the Revolutionary War started as a result of the “shot heard round the world!”

Well, Concord is getting ready to celebrate the 250^th anniversary of that historic battle in 2025 and we want to celebrate with them! Thanks to the generosity of the Colonial Inn, one of our lucky members is heading to Concord. And we’re happy to throw in dinner for two at Woods Hill Table, which Yankee Magazine recognized as the top farm-to-table restaurant in New England.

Wondering the answers to our questions?

Q. Exactly how much time did Henry David Thoreau live at Walden Pond in Concord while writing his epic work?

A. 2 Years, 2 months and 2 days

Q. Where can you see Paul Revere's original lantern that was hung as a signal in Old North Church in Boston on the night of April 18, 1775?

A. The Concord Museum

And, the winner is...Drumroll please…

LORI LASS!!

Well Done, Lori!

Thank you to all those who participated in our Summer ActiveTravels Giveaway!