Exploring local trails is a fantastic way of forging a connection with nature, maintaining an active lifestyle, and uncovering the inherent beauty of your surroundings. And your options for how to do so are plentiful, including hiking, running, and mountain biking. To help you embrace the great outdoors, here’s a closer look at three exhilarating methods, including essential tips and safety measures to ensure that you maximize the benefits of your excursions.
Hiking is a simple yet invigorating activity that’s ideal for novices and experts alike. These types of trails vary in difficulty, so it’s important to do some research before setting out on your first trek; this can give you a better idea of which options may be best suited for your physical abilities. Check out the AllTrails website or app for more information about your local trails and their difficulties.
The right gear can make all the difference when hiking, so if it’s something you plan on doing often, it’s worth investing in a good pair of hiking boots or trail shoes that provide proper support. You may also want to dress in layers to better accommodate any changing weather conditions, and don’t forget to wear a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen to help keep you protected in unshaded areas.
Additionally, pack hiking essentials in a small backpack, including a simple first aid kit, a headlamp or flashlight for low-light conditions, a multipurpose tool, and a navigational device such as a map, compass, or GPS. Most importantly, bring enough water and energy-rich snacks like trail mix, granola bars, and dried fruit to keep you hydrated and fueled throughout your hike since dehydration and low blood sugar can lead to fatigue and discomfort.
When hiking, make sure to follow the Leave No Trace principles, which are guidelines to help minimize your environmental impact. Don’t take anything from the trail and surrounding areas, properly dispose of your trash, and keep your distance from any wildlife you may encounter. Also practice good etiquette by yielding the trail to uphill hikers, talking in a quiet voice if with a companion, and keeping your cell phone silenced. And always let someone know where you’re going and when you expect to return. These practices can help create a positive experience that energizes you, gets your heart rate up, and keeps you coming back for more.
If you’re looking to jazz up your exercise routine, trail running may be just the thing you need. This activity combines cardio and the beauty of nature for a unique workout, but it does require some specific equipment and strategies for a safe and enjoyable experience. Since it typically involves running on dirt, single-track, or forest trails, footwear plays an essential part in keeping you secure. While you can use your road shoes, they won’t have the same amount of traction as ones designed specifically for trail running. Trail-running shoes provide additional grip, protection, and support, thereby reducing the risk of injury on any uneven surfaces you may encounter.
For newbies, REI Co-op, a recreation services corporation, recommends starting with a dirt or gravel trail at a city or state park since such places are typically low-commitment areas, which can help you adjust to the different terrain. The uneven landscape can be challenging to maneuver, so be sure to pace yourself, perhaps even running slower than you otherwise would. You may even want to pick a trail that’s a shorter distance than you typically run since the rougher surface can make it take longer to traverse. To find information about trails near you, visit the American Trail Running Association’s website.
While running, always be mindful of your surroundings, keeping your eyes on the trail rather than on your feet so you can adjust your footing and avoid any rocks, roots, or other obstacles that could appear. If you’re running in the wilderness, stay alert for potential animal encounters. And make sure to keep hydrated by carrying a water pack, especially if you plan on running for an extended period. Much like hiking, you may also want to bring energy-boosting snacks to help maintain your stamina throughout your run.
Mountain biking may seem like an extreme sport, but that’s not always the case. “It can be whatever you want it to be,” says Becky Timbers, also known as the Two Wheeled Wanderer. “When some people think of mountain biking, they think of riders going Mach 10 down the side of a mountain, but that’s just one style of mountain biking.” If you’re new to riding, Timbers recommends using an app like Trailforks or MTB Project to find trails that suit your skill level, or you can stop by your local bike shop for recommendations. It’s also a good idea to opt for a shorter trail for your first ride so you don’t exhaust yourself and lose interest in the activity before giving it a real shot.
Apart from a bike to ride, you’ll want to invest in a helmet with a multidirectional impact protection system (MIPS), which helps protect your head from the impact of twists and rotations. Bring a hydration backpack or hip pack to make sure you’re adequately hydrating throughout the entirety of your ride and a plug kit for tubeless tires, tire levers, and a hand pump in case you should have any issues while out riding.
To learn how to use these bike-repair items as well as basic bike-handling techniques, consider attending a beginner’s clinic with a coach or business. Timbers also recommends finding a local biking group to ride with. “One of the things that made me a better rider was riding with people better than me,” she says. By watching someone more experienced, you can learn how to maneuver trails and build more confidence in yourself and your abilities. Your local bike shop may have a group you can join, but you can also find one by visiting the MTB Project website or searching on Facebook.
Exploring local trails can be a fulfilling and enjoyable experience, whether you’re hiking, trail running, or mountain biking. So don your hiking gear, lace up your shoes, or hop on your bike and start exploring the beauty that awaits in the great outdoors.
Art can have an awesome power to inspire and touch our emotions, but there is something especially profound about an original piece. With such a vast pool of amazing works to choose from, selecting just one to start your collection with can be a daunting and expensive experience. If you’re looking to add a high-end and unique composition to your home, utilize this guide to streamline the process and help you choose something that can enhance your life for years to come.
A critical first step in buying art is getting to know what speaks to you most. For example, if you enjoy the serenity of impressionistic nature scenes, a painting reminiscent of Claude Monet’s The Water-Lily Pond might be a good choice. Meanwhile, an abstract creation similar to Jackson Pollock’s colorful Convergence may be more fitting if you’re looking for something more modern. Also factor in your preferred medium, whether you’d want a painting, photographic print, sculpture, or another art form. To get a feel for what you might like, consider browsing galleries and museums or peruse online platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, and Etsy to discover up-and-coming artists and browse their portfolios.
Think about where the art will live in your home, taking into account the room’s style and color and whether you want the work to complement those factors or contrast them for a more vibrant look. Just as importantly, measure the space where you intend to display your new acquisition to ensure that it will fit perfectly; this will help you avoid the common mistake of choosing one that’s too small, which may cause it to be dwarfed by empty space. As a general guideline, any artwork mounted on a wall should cover about 60 to 75 percent of it, excluding areas obscured by furniture or moldings. An alternative is to combine it with other pieces to create a gallery wall that fits an equivalent amount of space.
Given that original art can vary widely in cost, it’s essential to set a budget before you shop. Having one can help you identify the best places for you to search for art within your price range—such as at a high-end gallery or an art school showing.
What you can expect to pay will depend on factors like the artist’s celebrity, the medium, and how in demand or rare their work is. For help finding fine art that fits both your budget and aesthetics, consider hiring an art consultant or interior designer to select and price pieces for you. Another option is to shop at an online retailer like Artfinder, where you can find abstract paintings, sculptures, and collages signed by artists for anywhere from about $65 to tens of thousands of dollars. Works at art fairs tend to have a smaller range: from $100 to a couple thousand dollars. Vintage or preowned works, which you may find at secondhand shops, are another affordable consideration.
No matter what you decide to spend, though, aim to buy art that brings you happiness rather than trying to identify something that may make a profit since it could take years, or even generations, to increase in value—so focus on the impact it can have on you right now in your home.
As with any other important purchase, be sure to do your due diligence. If possible, view any piece you’re contemplating in person before buying it to fully gauge its craftsmanship and personal impact. It’s also wise to research its artist and seller to ensure their credibility; always ask for a signed certificate of authenticity (COA) to verify the artwork’s origin and pertinent history, including previous ownership.
Selecting and purchasing art for your home can be a complicated and long journey, but if you’ve carefully done your research, it will bring joy and beauty to your space for years to come.
There may be nothing more universal than our love for food. In various global communities, people have handed down word-of-mouth recipes and loving instructions for generations, resulting in exceptional cooking techniques capable of crafting soul-stirring dishes.
If you’re unsatisfied with the same old homemade meals, eager to elevate your home-cooking skills, or simply enthusiastic about finding new flavors, take inspiration from the storied halls of international cuisine. Embark on this tour to learn about some of the most unique and impactful methods you can incorporate into your skill set.
We’ll begin in the vibrant, bustling cities of the Sahara. Moroccan cuisine is perhaps best known for its tagines: stew-like dishes featuring meats with aromatic produce and spices. Tagine also, though, refers to the vessel used to make such a dish—a beautiful, ceramic, cone-shaped pot for steaming food. It distributes heat evenly, locking in moisture and intensifying flavors, and is surprisingly simple to use. You only need to toss a protein and a few veggies with some fragrant spices and olive oil, sauté them in the tagine’s base on a stovetop over low heat, add water, and cover the mixture with the hood to let the dish cook.
It’s easier than you may think to find tagines in the States; various retailers such as World Market and Williams Sonoma offer them in stunning patterns and colors. Once you select one you like and grow confident in using it, turn to your tagine for making various meals, such as stews and creamy casseroles, noting how this method lends each dish a delightful texture and more impactful seasoning.
Salsas, the flavorful and sometimes-flame-packed sauces of Mexican cuisine, may often be thought of as just mixtures of tomatoes, peppers, and seasonings, but they also encompass far more intricate recipes, including mole and chipotle sauces. The secret to all of them? The dry-roasting technique, which unlocks the complex flavors dormant in peppers and spices, imbuing them with a delightfully distinct smokiness. To achieve this, char ingredients on an unglazed clay or cast-iron pan on medium heat until they are fragrant. Just take care not to overcook them; veggies should remain intact and pliable, and spices should change color only slightly.
While dry-roasting is central to Mexican salsas, it’s certainly not limited to them; you can also add this step as you prepare your usual home-cooked recipes. For example, dry-roast shallots to elevate their flavor in a stew, or toast whole cinnamon sticks and pecans before crushing them to add to a pie. You’ll be amazed at the difference it can make.
Korean cuisine’s unique identity may be rooted in its funky, aged products known as jangs: a family of pastes and sauces made with fermented beans that lend richness and depth to any regional dish. Simply put, something just won’t taste Korean without an ingredient like ganjang, doenjang, or gochujang, which may be stirred into a stew or tossed with veggies to soften them. While they all vary in method, use, and taste, each adds powerful flavor to staple dishes like bulgogi and kimchi.
You can likely find such sauces at your nearest international market, so try taking home a few and testing them in your standard recipes. You could add a tablespoon of rich, briny doenjang to elevate chicken noodle soup or blend a salad dressing with spicy-sweet gochujang. And if you can’t hunt down any jangs, simply apply an American take on the Korean saucing technique, such as by stirring a few tablespoons of brown mustard into a slow-cooker stew or using pickle juice to brine a chicken before roasting.
There is much to learn from Italians’ strict cooking approaches—which has helped make theirs among the most beloved cuisines the world over—but one of their greatest contributions is featuring wine not just as a beverage but also as an ingredient. Deglazing with it can transform all kinds of dishes, from a weeknight spaghetti meal to a comforting weekend roast, infusing them with flavorful sugars, a bouquet of complex aromas, and scrumptious pan drippings.
To master this technique, first select a dry wine with a flavor profile that suits your recipe, seeking guidance from your local wine purveyor if needed. (As you shop, bear in mind another statute of Italian cuisine: only use quality ingredients that are good enough to enjoy on their own. That means deglazing with a wine that’s also tasty to drink.) Then after sautéing foods, pour in the wine and scrape the cooking vessel as you stir to enjoy its fruits to the fullest.
These tips are just a sampling of the many ways we can learn from one another and celebrate the monumental power of food. To expand your culinary skill set even further, try researching an ingredient like Brazilian sal grosso, a technique like Indian spice blooming, or a serving preparation like Ethiopian wot or injera. Open your heart and your palate to these cuisines—there’s a whole world to savor.
In the modern drive for urbanization, a shiny glow of artificial light has come to envelop cities, suburbs, and even once-remote rural areas. As a result, the stars, once a central part of our history and imagination, have become increasingly less visible. And yet in certain places, a quiet revolution is underway.
Real estate developers and local authorities are embracing the concept of Dark Sky Communities—areas recognized by DarkSky International as showing “exceptional dedication to the preservation of the night sky” through urban planning and development, restoring the beauty of the natural expanse above us.
This isn’t the fantasy of a few starry-eyed romantics longing for a bygone era of oil lamps and quill pens. Rather, the dark-sky movement is a practical, forward-thinking response to the consequences of excessive artificial lighting, and at the heart of it lies a very simple principle: less is more. By reducing unnecessary and poorly directed artificial lighting, Dark Sky Communities can simultaneously conserve energy, protect wildlife, and improve the quality of life for their residents.
The real estate industry is beginning to recognize that sustainable development can be both profitable and responsible. From a financial perspective, these communities can enhance property values and attract buyers who appreciate environmental stewardship and a high standard of living. Meanwhile, local economies benefit from reduced energy costs due to the efficiency of well-designed lighting systems.
On the responsibility front, well-planned lighting not only enhances public safety but also helps to safeguard the local environment. The former is achieved by better illuminating walkways, and the latter is the result of minimizing the disorientation, habitat destruction, and other negative effects of light pollution on wildlife.
The result is considered a win-win: property values rise, local economies benefit from lower energy bills, residents enjoy healthier, sustainable, and more livable environments, and the night sky is preserved. In this way, Dark Sky Communities serve as a model for holistic-minded urban planning.
Flagstaff, Arizona, offers a prime example of this balancing act. The home of several observatories, the city realized a while back that preserving its night sky was a matter of both environmental stewardship and economic importance. Due to its efforts, it became the first Dark Sky Community in 2001. And to this day, it continues to showcase how a city can reduce light pollution while maintaining its status as a modern urban center.
We can also learn from the initiatives of other Dark Sky Places, including parks. In the UK, Northumberland National Park and Galloway Forest Park demonstrate that thoughtful urban planning and the use of innovative lighting technologies can balance the needs of public safety with the desire to preserve the natural environment. Smart street lighting, for instance, directs light downward, minimizing sky glow while ensuring that roads and public spaces remain well lit. This contrasts sharply with the high-intensity lamps and floodlights that dominate many urban areas.
The future of the dark-sky movement will depend on the continued dedication of communities to push back against the encroaching tide of artificial light, requiring collaboration among local governments, businesses, and residents. But the rewards—healthier ecosystems, lower energy costs, and the return of the stars—make it an endeavor worth pursuing. In an age of constant distraction and overexposure, Dark Sky Communities offer a rare opportunity to slow down, look up, and appreciate the simple beauty of a night sky in all its glory.
And who knows? By darkening the night, we may just brighten our future.
For more info, visit darksky.org
