Top 10 Best Summer Trips 2012 #Part2

6. St. Petersburg, Russia

Photograph by Ripani Massimo, SIME

Peter the Great’s stately Baltic city built on 42 Neva Delta islands celebrates “White Nights” (near-round-the-clock summer light) with joyful abandon. Late May to mid-July the skies above St. Petersburg’s Peter and Paul Fortress (resting place of the tsars, pictured here during White Nights) and Nevsky Prospekt (the city’s main thoroughfare) glow pale blue, pink, and peach well after midnight. Cruise the canals and River Neva on Anglotourismo’s guided White Nights boat tour, and then stroll atop the Neva Embankments
—elegant granite barriers built to control flooding—to watch the four illuminated Neva drawbridges open (around 2 a.m.). Stars of the White Nights 2012: International Music Festival (May 25-July 15) features some hundred opera, ballet, and symphony performances and concerts at Mariinsky Theatre and the Concert Hall. June 18, join the massive end-of-school festival, Scarlet Sails, for free concerts, a multivessel pirate battle, and the dramatic arrival of an 18th-century tall ship, its red sails illuminated by the city’s biggest summer fireworks show.

7. Traverse City, Michigan

Photograph by Carlos Osorio, AP

Traverse City is the biggest little beach town on the “Third Coast”—the U.S. shores of the eight-state Great Lakes coastline. The region’s 180 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline basically trace the upper left edge of Michigan’s “mitten.” Add another 149 inland lakes that are 10 acres or larger and you get a rambling Cape Cod-on-freshwater summer playground: quaint port villages, sandy beaches, historic lighthouses, rolling orchards, family-friendly festivals (including the National Cherry Festival, July 7-14), and summer-only Traverse City Beach Bums pro baseball games (team members bunk with local families). Head northwest from Cherry Capital Airport to the Leelanau Peninsula and Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (pictured here). Michigan’s monumental sandbox is best known for its 150-foot Dune Climb (or roll), but there’s also 35 miles of pristine Lake Michigan beach. Take the 7.4-mile Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive loop in time to watch the sunset from Lake Michigan Overlook observation deck, perched 450 feet above the water.
>> Check out our Family Trip: Lake Michigan Dunes

8. Spencer Glacier, Alaska

Photograph by Matt Hage, Alamy

Spencer Glacier is easy to see from the Glacier Discovery Train that winds through Chugach National Forest south of the Portage Valley, but it’s a bit harder to reach. No roads lead to the glacier, named for railroad employee Bill Spencer, who disappeared “out there somewhere” in 1914. Thanks to a partnership between Alaska Railroad Corporation and the U.S. Forest Service, day visitors can hop off the train at the Spencer Whistle Stop for a narrated ranger hike to Spencer Lake and unguided treks to the glacier. June to September, small group outfitter Ascending Path leads Spencer Glacier ice-climbing treks, combining train travel from Anchorage, Girdwood, or Portage with top-rope climbing on blue ice walls. The hiking terrain is flat and the scenery is pure Alaska—floating crystal icebergs, snowcapped Kenai Mountains, and aquamarine ice caves.

9. Channel Islands, California

Photograph by Kevin Steele, Alamy

Southern California’s Channel Islands National Park and surrounding National Marine Sanctuary (extending for six nautical miles around each island) harbor rich biological diversity, including more than 150 endemic species and a vast, undersea kelp “forest.” The park’s abundant marine life—seals, sea otters, whales, dolphins, and the only breeding colony of fur seals south of Alaska—is best viewed via sea kayak (pictured here near Santa Cruz Island). Strict regulations limit travel around and on the five (rather remote) islands, making this one of the least-visited national parks. To safely and legally navigate through the challenging waters, book a kayak tour with an authorized park outfitter. Santa Cruz, the park’s (and California’s) largest island, encompasses a hundred-plus sea caves, including one of the world’s largest and deepest—hundred-foot-wide Painted Cave. Paddle and picnic on a Santa Cruz day trip that includes food (there are no concessions on the islands), and follows the 3.8-mile route from Potato Harbor to Cavern Point, passing through the Surging T, a 354-foot-long tunnel.

10. Pawleys Island, South Carolina

Photograph by Alamy

White sand, weathered cottages, and low-tech diversions like crabbing and cornhole (bean bag toss) have made “arrogantly shabby” Pawleys a favorite family beach destination since the 1800s. Hurricanes (and subsequent rebuilding) have altered the landscape since rice planters built summer places here to escape the heat and mosquitoes, but the laid-back, low-country vibe endures. There’s no commercial development this side of the salt marsh, so rent a beach house (preferably one with a traditional rope hammock) from Pawleys Island Realty Company. The island is compact (four miles long and a quarter-mile wide), making it easy to walk or bike to the beach, and convenient to cross the North or South Causeway for mainland golfing and grocery shopping, or rainy day entertainment in Myrtle Beach (about 25 miles north). At nearbyHuntington State Beach Park in Murrells Inlet, tour Atalaya, the palatial Moorish summer residence of sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and look (from a safe distance) for alligators in the freshwater lake. Source

#Part1