The 100 Best Affordable Vacations (50 page)

 Scan the local paper for lectures and special events. Weekly alternative papers usually have extensive listings.

 If you’re passing by a college or university, take a few minutes to read the bulletin boards at the student center. You’ll often discover a visiting scholar is speaking or a performance is scheduled.

 Ask questions. People will be glad to tell you about local history or demonstrate how a local product is made.

 Check with a friend, or a friend of a friend, who lives in or has knowledge of the area. They’re sure to have suggestions.

The programs were first designed to give older Americans access to the type of trips that younger travelers enjoy while tramping around Europe and staying in inexpensive youth hostels. Originally most accommodations were in college or university dormitories and most meals were from a cafeteria. Since then Road Scholar has grown up. While their trips aren’t luxurious, most guests stay in motel-style rooms. And meals are memorable too.

Wilkin recently completed a tour of Savannah and St. Simons Island, Georgia. Although the topic was the early colonial settlers, the trip included dinner at Food Network personality Paula Deen’s famous restaurant, The Lady & Sons.

Fellow participants are another bonus. “It’s just a great way to travel with like-minded people,” says Wilkin, “people who are curious and interested in the world.”

The traditional Road Scholar tour includes local bus transportation and group meals, lectures, and tours. Prices can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand. But it’s usually much less than you’d pay for a typical vacation. Some travelers might bristle at being slowed down by a tour group, particularly one that despite the name change tends toward seniors, but you’re always free to venture out on your own. Or you might consider Independent City Discoveries, which are more active and limited to smaller groups. A few specialized tours let you take part in service programs, rebuilding historic cabins in Montana or helping endangered terns in Maine, for example. Other programs include Adventure Afloat, which are based on cruise ships, women-only outings, and intergenerational trips for grandparents and grandchildren. Plus there’s a phone-book-size catalog of international trips.

For Wilkin, who usually takes two trips a year, Road Scholar keeps travel affordable and invigorating. On one trip she stayed at a research center in Bermuda for two weeks at a fraction of the cost she would have had to pay for a hotel on the pricey island. On other adventures she has explored West Texas and Maritime Canada, where many British Loyalists fled after the Revolutionary War. Wilkin, who is single, always agrees to have a roommate. More often than not, though, there’s no one to match her with, so she gets private accommodations without having to pay a singles supplement.

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH

Road Scholar,
11 Avenue de Lafayette, Boston, MA 02111, 800-454-5768,
www.roadscholar.org
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play sherlock holmes

CAPE MAY, NEW JERSEY

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

—
AUTHOR SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE, IN THE GUISE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES,
THE SIGN OF THE FOUR
(1890)

63 |
High ratings for the shows of the
CSI
franchise prove what authors P. D. James, Agatha Christie, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle have long understood: We love to puzzle through murder mysteries.

Did Colonel Mustard commit murder with a candlestick in the library, or was it Miss Scarlett in the conservatory with the rope? Such classic who-done-its are the realm of purists, who sign up for murder dinners and weekends at bed-and-breakfasts around the country, mystery train rides, and the twice-yearly Sherlock Holmes weekends at the Mid-Atlantic Center for the Arts.

For more than two decades, this center in Cape May, New Jersey, has hosted Holmes weekends drawing dozens of participants for each mystery. “Some are really into the search for clues, some are dyed-in-the-wool Sherlock Holmes fans,” explains Mary Stewart, who has been involved with the weekends since their inception. “Some people just seem to be fascinated with the idea of participation; I don’t think they care if they figure it out.”

Part of the lure is the gingerbread-village ambience of Cape May, a designated historic landmark city dating from the late 1800s and home to some 600 Victorian homes. The Holmes and other mystery dinners and events hosted by the center are part of a long-standing effort to preserve the town, in part by bringing tourists to the area during the slow season. (That’s why the mystery weekends are scheduled for November and May.)

The weekend starts with the Friday night coffee-and-dessert event, when as many as 150 guests—many in Victorian dress—meet for the first time to watch the first act of the mystery drama that will play out both on stage and off throughout the weekend. Characters (all with motive and opportunity) are introduced; a crime is committed; a sheet of clues is handed out. Saturday morning is time for leisure, but come Saturday afternoon, mystery hounds embark on a two-hour self-guided Search for Clues Tour through local bed-and-breakfasts, hunting for links between the crime, the clues (often historic artifacts like maps or birth certificates), and those sneaky characters. The “detectives” then submit their clue sheets filled in with potential plots, twists, and solutions—unfortunately before a second act of the play fills in more of the gaps. On Sunday, all is revealed in a third act of the play. The detective whose clue sheet has produced the most correct answers wins $250; one earnest but misguided snoop is dubbed the “Clueless Wonder” and gets a gift certificate for a return visit.

MORE MYSTERIES TO SOLVE

 
The Citadel, Phoenix.
Book at least a month in advance for a chance to battle the Citadel, a spy network at the heart of a live-action, role-playing game complete with high-tech flourishes and live actors who perform at changing locations throughout the city. Don’t come alone; the game requires a team of four, paying $125 per person. And don’t be in a rush; a typical game runs six hours or more.
The Citadel, 40 N. Central Ave., Ste. 1400, Phoenix, AZ, 602-795-0300,
www.citadelphoenix.com
.

 
“CSI: The Experience,” Las Vegas.
If you just want to play CSI for a bit, you can roll it into a Las Vegas weekend at “CSI: The Experience,” an interactive exhibit at the MGM-Grand hotel featuring three murder cases complete with “crime scenes,” “labs” for analysis, and an “office” where you can work out your case. Most visitors stay 60 to 90 minutes. Tickets cost $30 for ages 12 and up (younger participants are allowed, but the experience isn’t recommended for those under 12).
“CSI: The Experience,” MGM-Grand, 3799 Las Vegas Blvd., Las Vegas, NV, 877-660-0660,
www.csiexhibit.com
.