Every trip begins with the tiniest seed of curiosity. You might read a travel article, watch a news report about a foreign land, or see photos from a friend’s journey. The vague desire to go there is planted in your brain. Then one day the timing is right, and that seed germinates, moving from idea into reality.

Since 2006, B.C. Ferries has provided seven instructors who offer hourlong sessions on local ecology and camping etiquette to those travelling between the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island.

In 1996, a peace accord ushered in a new era of calm. The guerrillas have laid down their arms and the bloodthirsty dictators are collecting pensions, making possible a backcountry biking adventure that would have been a fool’s game at the height of the civil war.

Vijay Dayal sells seashells by the seashore—lots of them, in fact. For more than 20 years, the Horseshoe Bay merchant has made a pretty good living peddling what amounts to beach debris to the tourists who wander into his small souvenir shop, Dayal’s Variety Store (6655 Royal Avenue, West Vancouver), from the nearby B.C. Ferries terminal.

Call it mob mentality or peer pressure, but even if you aren’t a die-hard Oprah Winfrey fan, it’s oh so easy to get sucked into a cult of personality when in the presence of the richest woman in show biz. So there I was, next to my best friend, my youngest sister, and my mom, four rows from the stage at Harpo Studios in downtown Chicago. We were in the midst of a cheering and screaming crowd of 300, almost all women, many fulfilling lifelong dreams of paying homage to Oprah on syndicated television.

Paksong was blissfully quiet, yet mysterious. It is a beautifully peculiar place with a real air of adventure to it, but it was quite out of the way on our intended trip to the Cambodian border.

Last month, this column introduced the benefits and drawbacks of hostelling (“Hostels yield benefits for single travellers”, May 1-8). Now on to the practical: how to make a hostel work for you.

If you time it right on your trip, you can arrive on the plain to witness the first dramatic thunderstorms soak the land and change it from brown to green and also spot the arrival of the wildebeest and their arch nemesis, spotted hyenas.

The 12 wooden trestle bridges on the Kettle Valley Railway Trail that were burnt down during 2003's forest fires have been replaced, reinstating the 18 kilometres from Myra to Ruth stations as the diamond in the ring.

New York isn't just the fantasy of Sex and the City. Its fantastic ethnic diversity is concentrated in its outer boroughs, and that’s why it's worth making the trip.

Once you've negotiated the Devil’s Gorge and hammered through the Jaws of Death, take the plunge and swim the Washing Machine rapid on one of the world's best rafting trips.

They say that a friend with mead is a friend indeed. I say strangers with mead and some sweet single-track mountain biking in their back yard are friends to be. So when I hear that Middle Mountain Mead, a maker of the honey-based fermented alcohol, is on Hornby Island—which is also home to a network of exceptional mountain biking trails—I decide to make the trip. Plus, there’s this toilet I want to check out…

For anyone who spent high school dreaming about sleeping in class, eating in the auditorium, and writing obscenities on the blackboard, an Oregon hotel called Kennedy School promises to make all that a reality.

Thanks to a sweet exchange rate, more Vancouverites are willing to brave long border lines and perilously high gas prices to take a road trip south. Those heading to the U.S. might be interested in stopping by Trader Joe’s, a popular grocery chain that has gained cult status in many U.S. cities thanks to remarkably cheap gourmet food that’s free of preservatives and artificial colours and flavours.

For Lower Mainland residents, one of the easiest summer getaways is Whistler. Located 123 kilometres north of Vancouver on the Sea to Sky Highway, the resort is more affordable in summer because hotel-room rates are lower. But here’s a warning: many people may not realize that Whistler has been hosting more visitors during the summer than during the winter for many years, which means the village is often just as crowded in July as it is in December.