28 LEISURE Travel
“Nothing you can do in nature is as
immersive as ocean swimming,” said
Tom Vanderbilt in Outside. My wife
and 9-year-old daughter could tell you
as much. About a year ago, when we
decided to try a new kind of vacation,
they took to the open water even bet-
ter than I could have hoped. The “wild
swimming” movement took hold sev-
eral years ago, especially in Britain, in
the wake of such books as Waterlog,
by naturalist Roger Deakin. More and
more people, apparently, have been
plunging into forgotten lakes and rivers,
“partly for a spot of exercise, but mostly
just for the unmediated joy of the experi-
ence.” That made sense to me. “I wanted
to see the beauty of the ocean while it was
still there to be seen. I wanted not to sit on
a beach, but to swim to one.”
For our maiden outing, we contacted
SwimQuest, a U.K.-based operator, and
joined a group on Mathraki, a small Greek
island. “The trip was a revelation.” Any
This week’s dream: Swimming with family in the open sea
Getty
,^ court
es
y^ of^ Heckfie
ld^ PlaceGerald Chan’s new English
country getaway “almost
defies labels,” said Chris-
topher Muther in The Boston
Globe. The Boston billionaire
spared no expense dur-
ing a 10-year renovation
of Heckfield Place, a 1790
Georgian manor and estate.
The house is “a vision of
casual elegance,” with tim-
ber floors, patches of bare
brick, and cool, muted colors
on the lime-plaster walls.
The room Prince Harry and
Meghan Markle recently slept
in runs $12,500 a night, but
rates start far lower, and all
guests can enjoy the hotel’s
nature walks, estate tours,
and 67-seat theater.
heckfieldplace.com; rooms
from $440The gold-mining town of Deadwood, S.D., never
did produce much gold, said Richard Rubin in
The New York Times. “When it comes to history,
though, the place is the mother lode.” For nearly
100 years, the former Black Hills boomtown has
been re-enacting its most mythic moment—when
Wild Bill Hickok was shot in the back of the
head during a poker game at Saloon No. 10—
and the town’s excellent Adams Museum still
displays the cards Hickok was holding. Several
casinos line Dead wood’s Victorian-era main drag;
one even occupies the first floor of the Bullock
Hotel, built in 1895 by the town’s first sheriff.
But Deadwood’s history is best glimpsed in the
verdant Mount Moriah Cemetery. There, visitors
can witness the tolls that fires and epidemics took
on ordinary people you won’t see in the HBO
series set in the town. Their moving epitaphs
“make clear that there was more to Deadwood
than legends and gunfights.”Getting the flavor of...
An understated suiteLast-minute travel deals
Georgia’s Sea Island
Through Aug. 29, third nights
are free at two five-star resorts
on the Georgia barrier island
that hosted the 2004 G-8
Summit. With the discount,
rooms start at $126 a night at
the Inn and $366 a night at the
Cloister or the Lodge.
seaisland.comExploring South America
Indus Travel is offering up to
$500 off three South America
tours. “Highlights of Ecuador
and Peru,” a 13-day tour with
stops in the Galapagos Islands
and Machu Picchu, now starts
at $3,199 per person, double
occupancy. Book by Aug. 2.
indus.travelCoastal California’s vineyards
Avalon Waterways is offer-
ing free roundtrip flights from
select U.S. cities and $500 off
various Europe cruises. The
eight-day “Active Discovery
on the Rhine” tour from
Amsterdam to Mainz now
starts at $2,948 a person.
avalonwaterways.comworries I had about floating atop a bot-
tomless sea swarming with sharks vanished
immediately as we paddled the clear, warm,
“ultra-buoyant” water. Accompanied by a
boat, our group swam twice a day, for up
to two hours, sometimes traversing rough
channels, then breaking for lunch at a
beachside taverna. My daughter, a swim-
mer since age 3, had no trouble keeping up
with the adults in the group. And we lovedthe experience so much we quickly
signed up for a more challenging
week in the Bahamas.Mere physical fitness doesn’t make a
good swimmer. As I learned quickly,
“I actually didn’t know how to
swim” and had to modify my tech-
nique on the fly while trying to keep
up with the crowd. Still, “my travails
in the water were what I loved about
the trip,” because my daughter got
to see me struggling to learn while
she sailed ahead alongside a group
of strong women. That felt in keep-
ing with the pleasures of ocean swimming.
“In this other world, freed from the weight
of gravity and the normal sense of time,
people let go in more ways than one.” As
our instructor said, “It’s this peace that
overcomes you.” Our family is already dis-
cussing where to swim next year.
SwimQuest (swimquest.uk.com) offers a
six-day swim adventure on Mathraki for
$1,125 a person.The real Deadwood
“You can probably leave the kids at home for
this one,” said Patrick Connolly in the Orlando
Sentinel. Not far from Florida’s Disney World,
Tank America offers a different sort of thrill
with its FV433 Abbot—a 17-ton British Army
tank you can drive through the Florida jungle.
During my two laps around the three-quarter-
mile obstacle course, I conquered “obstacle after
obstacle,” climbing hills, barreling over tires, and
plunging across trenches that left me covered in
mud. The driving is surprisingly intuitive. There’s
a big throttle pedal and two levers for the brakes.
“Those took some muscle to pull, but otherwise I
felt ready for battle.” Rates start at $349, but vis-
itors can pay more to crush a car, tack on a lap
in an armored personnel carrier, or fire a machine
gun at a nearby shooting range. The basic course
was thrill enough for me. On my hourlong drive
back to Orlando, “I couldn’t wipe the smile (or
the dirt) off my face.”Playing with tanks and machine guns
Hampshire, EnglandHeckfield PlaceSwimmers cross a bay near Meganisi, a Greek island.Hotel of the week