by Pam Uher

Created on: February 18, 2008   Last Updated: July 19, 2008

Get off the beaten path and vacation with an affordable "back to nature" sojourn. There are many ways to enjoy ecotourism as a family adventure or individual alternative to luxury hotels and pretentious over priced theme parks.

HIKING VACATIONS

If you are really into getting close to nature and traversing some interesting and not yet commercialized nature realms then here are several.

Line up a Thoreau-a-Thon literary and natural history trip, where you explore Walden Pond State Reservation in Concord, Massachusetts. The reservation is open year round, but with seasonal hours. Visitors are welcome to swim, picnic, hike, use canoes and rowboats, fish, cross-country ski and snowshoe. Your cost $5 per car load, plus the cost of a picnic lunch and nearby motel or campground. Bring the book "Walden" and make the vacation educational, fun and packed with natural history highlights. As Thoreau said, ""I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

The American Hiking Society Volunteer Vacations have couples, singles and family vacations. You can explore and experience some of America's magnificent "back-country" nature trails and wildlife, while helping rebuild footpaths and shelters in the panoramic regions of American nature preserves. These camping and hiking vacations are a bargain at around $275!

BIRD TOUR VACATIONS

Bird watching has become a one big hobby in recent years, hundreds of thousands of people are joining Bird Clubs and nature organizations, such as the National Audubon Society. It is an inexpensive nature activity that can take you to interesting ecotourism sites. Florida and Texas provide bird conservation sites and refugees where you can hike, picnic and explore various habitats while viewing birds you will not see in your backyard. Inexpensive camping or cabins are located at state parks in or near these sanctuary sites. A family can easily rent a cabin, go on bird ecotours and explore nature sites for $500 week!

It is not generally known that The National Audubon Society has an Ecotour extension called Audubon Nature Odysseys, which offer some of the best nature travel vacations in the world. You can take a river barge, train, clipper ship, mobile tent or chartered vessel trip to some of the world's last sanctuaries of wildlife, while enjoying nature as you vacation.

CAMPING, CABINS, LODGES

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