From a magnificent migration along the Great Plains to a mysterious ceremony in the South Pacific, we’ve got 7 ideas for how to turn your April travels into the kind of spring break you won’t soon forget.
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Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge may be the oldest managed wildlife facility in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, but it remains one of the most under-the-radar parks in our nation. We think that’s a crying shame! A true treasure in southwestern Oklahoma, it boasts abrupt 1,000-foot mountains that tower above grasslands where a heard of 650 bison roam alongside elk and deer. This 59,000-acre refuge also has great granite slabs, giving it some of the best rock climbing between the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. Visit in late April and the fields will be blanketed in prismatic wildflowers, making the 15 miles of trails through the park even more picturesque than usual.
Visit Vanuatu’s Pentecost Island in April and you may stumble across a strange sight: men hurling themselves off 100-foot towers. The locals call it nagol (“land diving”) and you can think of it like bungee jumping without all the modern checks and balances (and without the bungee chord!). Instead, these men and boys of Pentecost Island take a leap of faith from the top of a rickety wooden spire with only two stiff vines to cushion the fall. This terrifying tradition — the inspiration for modern-day bungee jumping — is seen as both a rite of passage and a ritual offering to bring about a fertile year for the crops. Ceremonies typically take place on Saturdays throughout the month
Albuquerque stages the largest gathering of Native American dancers, singers, and craftspeople at an event each April that lures members of more than 700 tribes from across the continent. Called the Gathering of Nations, the two-day festival (April 28 and 29 this year) includes three-dozen musical acts and dance troupes, more than 800 artists and craftsmen, and even the crowning of Miss Indian World. After the pow wow, you can tour some of the Native American pueblos near Albuquerque such as Acoma Pueblo, which sits atop a mesa 60 miles west of the city and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities on U.S. soil.
The long-awaited Museum of the American Revolution will finally open to the public on April 19 in the heart of downtown Philadelphia, inspiring droves of history buffs to make a pilgrimage to the City of Brotherly Love to view Revolutionary-era weapons, letters, diaries and works of art. The field tent used as General George Washington’s wartime headquarters is to be the centerpiece of the museum’s wide-ranging collection and will be shown as part of a multi-layered mixed-media presentation in a dedicated 100-seat theater. The museum’s opening ceremony is slated to feature speeches from the likes of former Vice President Joe Biden and Pulitzer Prize-winning author David McCullough.
Easter celebrations are a big deal throughout the Christian world, but there is perhaps no place on the planet that takes the holiday to the extremes that Antigua does. This colonial city in the Central Highlands of Guatemala stages an entire Holy Week commemoration with lavish street processions, colorful carpets of flowers, and ceremonies that seamlessly mesh Catholicism with ancient Mayan rituals. While you’re in the area be sure to hike up Acatenango Volcano (the tallest of three volcanoes that flank Antigua) and take a trip over to the pristine environs of Lake Atitlán.
Any day is a good day to be in Amsterdam, but King’s Day (April 27) sees some 700,000 visitors join 800,000 orange-clad locals for an all-out bash in honor of, you guessed it, the king. A royal salute is ostensibly the cause for celebration, but it’s not nearly as stuffy as it might sound. Festivities kick off at the pubs at midnight and last well through sunrise. This segues into an open-air citywide street market, public concerts, and large-scale artist-driven events. April is also peak tulip season in Holland, and parts of the countryside near Amsterdam will completely transform into a vast sea of multicolored flowers.
Each spring Nebraska becomes the staging grounds for one of North America’s greatest wildlife phenomena. The Platte River Valley, which snakes through the center of the state, just so happens to be smack-dab in the middle of an eyeglass-shaped flyway that’s the migratory path for sandhill cranes. Some 500,000 of them (about 80 percent of the world’s population) converge on the Platte River between February and April, joining millions more waterfowl in a cacophony of noise. Early April is your best chance to see a rare whooping crane (North America’s tallest bird) in the mix. Make the Crane Trust’s Nature & Visitor Center near Grand Island your base for hikes, tours, and river excursions.
