Science vacations are the best vacations. I’ve been very lucky to visit some fantastic science-related destinations and I’m trying to decide which ones to visit next. I’ll share some of my recommendations here, in no particular order. I hope you’ll share your favorites with me and the rest of the Last Word on Nothing community.
To me, a science vacation means anywhere with wildlife, plants, fossils, rock formations, caves, mountains, museums, reefs, astronomical observatories, engineering wonders, sites of scientific history, etc. Any destination can be a scientific destination if you look at it carefully.
Gonna the Galapagos It is like a pilgrimage for non-believers. (Believers are welcome too.) I had studied a lot about evolutionary biology (you probably have too), but when you go there and see the finches, the turtles, the tree-like cacti and the intrepid mockingbirds and how they interact and co-evolve on different islands, makes the entire living history of the Earth make sense. You can swim with marine iguanas, see penguins and flamingos right off the coast, visit the landing sites of HMS Beagle and laugh at dancing boobies and frigatebirds inflating their throat pouches.
Mount Saint Helens It blew up 45 years ago (I know, I know, I had to double-check the math) and you can still see the devastation it caused and the recovery of the ecosystem. Any volcanic park makes a great science trip, as long as it is dormant or a safe distance away. lassen Volcanic National Park in California, Haleakala in Hawaii and Mount Rainier There are relatively young, accessible, and ridiculously spectacular volcanoes in Washington. devil tower in Wyoming (the close encounters) is the core of an ancient volcano. You can walk through lava tubes in Craters of the Moon in Idaho (bring a headlamp).
meteor crater in Arizona it’s privately owned, so the tour is sillier than what you’d do in a national park, but it’s still worth the trip to see the 4,000-foot-diameter impact crater and imagine what it would be like if a major asteroid hit Earth today. (For a fun time, Google “DART mission.”)
Kangaroo Island In Australia it’s a great place to see the other two. ways to be a mammal: marsupials (kangaroos, koalas) and monotremes (echidnas, platypuses).
He Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies is another classic pilgrimage site for science lovers. Read Stephen Jay Gould’s book. wonderful life First, if you haven’t already, for a great explanation of the Cambrian Explosion and how it changed our understanding of evolution. The walk to Walcott Quarry (the classic Burgess site) is difficult, but the guides will take you there. A slightly less strenuous hike will take you to Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds. (Book a tour with the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation). Trilobites were some of the most successful and abundant life forms on Earth for 250 million years, until they were exterminated 250 million years ago, which sometimes gives me perspective.
I visited Mammoth Cave last month and was impressed with the geology-focused tours. They also do a good job explaining white-nose syndrome and the catastrophic bat die-offs in some parts of the U.S. The cave, as its name implies, is huge, winding, and endless, and it’s fascinating to imagine an underwater river devouring all that limestone.
Iceland It is a geological wonder. You can see the geyser that gives the geysers their name. You can walk along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the only place where the boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates is above the ground. It has hydrothermal vents, ice caps, abundant glaciers, volcanoes, landslides, lava tubes, whales, puffins, a penis museum, geothermal power plants, ghost towns and delicious rye bread baked in hot springs.
I had a lot of fun producing special science tourism packages when I was an editor at Smithsonian Magazine (with the La Brea tar pits, Royal Island, Jurassic Coastand more) and the Washington Post (Cahokia Mounds, Atchafalaya Swamp, Green Bank Observatoryand more.) I’ve visited some of the places we covered in those packages and I want to get to the rest. Now I’m filling out a spreadsheet with trip ideas, organized by trip length, season, and mode of transportation (driving, boating, or flying). I hope to see the Bay of Fundy someday, the Great Barrier Reef, and the lek prairie chickens.
What about you? What are some of your favorite science trips so far and what are you looking forward to visiting next?
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