Tag Archives: holidays

10 HIKES FOR HOLIDAY VISITORS

In today’s Lunch with GetHiking! session, we share tips for hiking with visiting friends and family. You can join that Zoom session at noon by clicking here. In today’s blog, which is suspiciously similar to a blog we ran this time last year, we share 10 hikes we think are especially well-suited for visitors who might not have their hiking legs under them, but might well enjoy a venture into the woods.

The holidays are upon us — and so, too, are our holiday visitors. 

You’re eager to show your visiting friends and family why you love living in the region: the outdoor opportunities that make this such a wonderful place to explore. You also don’t want to alienate your guests — or worse, harm them! — by taking them on an outing beyond their capabilities. Fortunately, you can do the former while avoiding the latter with the 10 hikes below, hikes that offer considerable esthetic bang for minimal physical exertion.  read more

Keep your healthy mojo revving thru the holidays

The following originally ran in November 2012. We rerun it today, with some tweaks, because its message is timeless come November. Here’s why.

Come November, we’re usually in fighting’ shape. A lot of folks start hiking again, in earnest, come September; by early November we’re hiking farther, we’re spending more time on the trail. Then come the holidays. read more

Serenity now! Natural holiday escapes just minutes away

Tranter's Creek, near the put-in.

We are, in case you’ve been trying to ignore it, on the cusp of the holiday season. The crazy, demanding, nerve-wracking, gift-wrapping, inlaw-visiting, party-attending, work-must-go-on-and-then-some holiday season.
Which is to say, we’re entering a time of elevated stress and precious little time to do anything about it.
Or so you think.
True, you may not have time to burn a day, head to the mountains and hike 12 miles. But that’s not necessarily what you need. Sometimes, just an hour in the wild can ease your defcon level and reestablish you as a functioning member of society. And the good news: there’s likely one of these restorative escapes — a sliver of wild terrain that not many people may know about — close to you.
Throughout the holidays, we’re going to share some of these retreats statewide on the BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina blog.  We’ll do five posts in all, each focused in a geographic area, each with five escapes. Our first post, on escapes at the coast, runs today. You can find it here.
Here’s a look at our upcoming posts: read more

Move! (And eat right, too)

Tasty — and entertaining, too

I wrote the following story for the Charlotte Observer and The News & Observer in Raleigh. It appeared in both papers on Nov. 20,2012, it reappears here with helpful (and occasionally entertaining) links.

If it feels like there’s a conspiracy afoot to make you gain weight over the holidays, well, you may just be right. Sadly, there’s science to prove it. read more