Photo Call 2010

On a recent visit to The Wayfarers HQ in England, Louise Halfpenny, a 26-Walk veteran and keen amateur photographer, models her 2010 Brochure cover shot of the Northern Ireland Antrim Coast.

 

A picture is worth a thousand words .....and this year it's also worth a beautiful new Wayfarers' zipped, hooded sweatshirt!

Hit us with your best recent Wayfarers' walking vacation shots (and videos!) and if we are able to use one or more of your pictures in the brochure or website we'll send you an all-new Wayfarers' sweatshirt with retro-style logo (one per photographer).


Three easy ways to win:

• Upload low-res versions to our Facebook fan page and we'll contact you for high res versions if we would like to publish them 

• Submit your photos by email (5mb or less per email) 

• Mail a CD to your nearest Wayfarers office

Closing date for submissions is 31 July 2010. Good luck!

Note: Zipped, hooded and eco-friendly the new Wayfarers' sweatshirts are made with 80% organic cotton / 20% recycled polyester and available in choice of three colors - navy, celery and earth.

Share the Journey

An experience shared is understanding gained.

We think that one of the best parts of a Walk is the shared experience. 

This year we are taking full advantage of the 'new' social media and putting it to good use in a very old-fashioned way - swapping tales and photos from the trail as walks happen all season long. Join in the fun on our Facebook page.

Plus, shortly we will launch new features on our walking vacation website to allow web members to 'scrapbook' their Wayfaring experiences by sharing links to walk photos and journals wherever they may exist online. If you haven't already registered on our website, be sure to do so today to ensure you will be among the first to see the new website features.


We hope to see you soon - online and on the trail!

Sisters Away - Walking, Talking, Sharing on a Wayfarers Walk

Garden of Villa Celsa

By Judy Allpress

My sister Meredith and I are bound for Florence tomorrow where we first fell in love with the city more than thirty years ago. I was living in Rome working in the tourist industry and my little sister took a semester break from Boulder to live with me. I’d been in Rome a few years, spoke decent Italian and drove an orange Fiat 500. She thought I was amazing.

Over the years our favorite stories have always been about the times we shared in Italy…Christmas shopping in Piazza Santa Croce, our favorite village of Orvieto, her favorite lunch, scamorza. When our mother said she’d treat us to trip down memory lane we hugged and cried with delight. Then she handed us a bundle of letters, posted from various places all over Italy during the eight years I had lived there. She had saved every single word, impression and life experience for me to remember later. What a gift!

Now it’s 2010 – where did the time go? Our last trip together was in 1989 when we took The Wayfarers Walk in Dartmoor and Exmoor with our father. Precious memories that only sisters can share! I guess it’s a family thing.

Follow us along the trails in the Chianti region with Alessandro Tombelli, garden designer and horticulture specialist....private gardens, visits to villas and a cooking class by Loredana Betti at Castello di Spannocchia.

Catch Judy's updates on our Facebook fan page May 16 – 22, 2010.

Anticipation

Eileen Walking in Provence with her daughter, Monica

by Eileen Malone-Brown

At the end of this month, my husband and I will embark on another walking holiday with The Wayfarers, this time exploring the lovely Veneto region in northeast Italy, ending in the serene and sublime Venice. Anticipation of the many delights ahead shape our thoughts, discussion and reading these days, because we know that a The Wayfarer’s vacation with their knowledgeable and caring team will enable us to appreciate this region from all the perspectives we love so much. What could be better than walking the ground where ancient civilizations left their mark and so much art was created and history made, seeing Palladio’s villa design features found in so many significant 18th and 19th century American buildings, discovering the wild flowers that we often grow (or struggle to grow) in our garden and most of all, savoring the food and wine of a region so that we can replicate these meals for our family and friends when we return home?



The only thing that surpasses all of these delights is the marvelous people with whom we share the experience. The groups of fellow hikers we have encountered on previous walks represent some of the most interesting individuals we have ever met. Because each group averages around a dozen, there is ample opportunity to chat and share observations as we amble along. Their interests and life stories combined with the walk leader’s knowledge of the local geography, history, architecture, language, fauna, and flora provide you provide a difficult to beat vacation. The manager takes care of all of your day-to-day concerns, moves the luggage, arranges for wonderful meals and snacks so that all you have to do is enjoy the bucolic bliss. Each trip contains several experiences with locals that you could not replicate on your own, such the walk in Tuscany when we visited an Etruscan burial site, which later became a romitorio or hermitage filled with beautiful ancient stone carvings that was used by pilgrims traveling along the Via Francigena. We can’t wait to see what delights await us in the Veneto and the new friends we will make. We look forward to sharing these discoveries from our new Wayfarer’s chapter later this summer.

Reading List - The Outlaw Trail

by Julie Johnson

Robert Redford rode The Outlaw Trail in the early 1970s and wrote about it in his book "The Outlaw Trail." The actual historic Outlaw Trail was used by the Hole in the Wall Gang to travel between Mexico and Canada.  The stopping point in Utah was Robbers Roost, which is east of where we walk, but still fun to learn about. 


The book is out of print, but you may find it in your local library or second hand via Amazon at a bargain price.


Full reading list for The Wayfarers' Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion Walk.













The Wayfarers discover the land of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on their