Jen Rose Smith writes about travel and adventure from a home base in northern Vermont. Her freelance writing has appeared in National Geographic Adventure, CNN Travel, and Outside Online, and she covers Vermont travel for Boston.com.

In addition to her work as a freelancer, Jen is the author of several travel guidebooks to Vermont and New England, including the upcoming Moon New England (May, 2018). Jen's writing about travel was selected for the 2012 edition of Best Women's Travel Writing, and translated into Swedish for Gränslös, an anthology of women's adventure tales. 

CNN Travel •

CNN Travel: Hiking the Sinai Trail with Egypt's Bedouin

"We want to teach our sons to work with camels, and to learn about the desert," said Tarabin guide Musallem Abu Faraj, who helped found the Sinai Trail in 2015. These are our traditions, passed down through generations." With no camels, and no work, however, some of Sinai's Bedouin are faced with difficult choices: Move to a town for wage labor, or try to survive in the desert in hope of better times to come.
CNN Travel •

Photos reveal life in travel's golden age

On a September morning in 1830, a throng of people gathered in the English cities of Liverpool and Manchester to see a daring feat of modernity. Nobles, tipsy workers and politicians watched the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, the first railroad on Earth whose cars would be unaided by teams of horses. Almost 100 years later, a 25-year-old Charles Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight between North America and the European mainland, where he descended from his monoplane into crowds of Parisians chanting "Vive l'Americain!"
Boston.com •

Boston.com: How to visit Vermont maple syrup producers

When early spring warmth begins to thaw Vermont’s frozen forests, sugar makers head for the woods. Traveling by snowmobile, snowshoes, or horse-drawn sleigh, they drill a small hole in the trunk of each mature sugar maple, then gather a slow trickle of sap in buckets or plastic tubes. Once the sap has been collected, it’s cooked for hours in a shallow pan called an evaporator, heated from below by a gas jet or wood fire.
Lonely Planet •

Lonely Planet: What to pack for Egypt's Sinai Trail

Founded in 2015 by a collective of three Bedouin tribes, the nearly 250km trail is Egypt’s first long-distance walking path. It might be the country’s most high-profile entry into the world’s trekking scene, but the Sinai Peninsula is no stranger to walkers. Believers have made the overland journey to the storied summit of Mount Sinai for centuries, and the desert’s rocks are scored with drawings left by Crusader-era pilgrims.
CNN Travel •

CNN Travel: 10 foods you must try in Jordan

In the bustling streets of the earth-toned capital city, conversations might be inflected with Syrian, Egyptian or Iraqi accents, while the country's Bedouin tribes remain fiercely proud of their nomadic traditions and desert heritage. And at tables across the country, Jordanian cuisine is a delicious immersion in the country's diverse heritage, a vibrant mix of Bedouin flavors and local takes on the Levant's most iconic dishes.
Sierra Club •

Scientists Learn More About the State of Awe

The Trump administration’s push to weaken the EPA and revive dirty industries like coal is enough to make a nature lover want to literally head for the hills. As it turns out, an awe-inspiring walk in the woods may be just the thing we—and the planet—need. Scientists and psychologists are increasingly studying the sense of awe—that positive feeling of being in the presence of something vast, that transcends our understanding of the world.
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