SmarterTravel.com’s list of 10 Amazing Adventures Under $1,000 is a round-up that’s worth reading. They’ve hunted down some cool ideas for adventurous vacations that hit the inexpensive end of the spectrum. And six of the suggested trips (hiking, rafting, camping, sailing, biking) are outside the good ‘ole US of A (Peru, Canada, Croatia, Tanzania, Laos, New Zealand). Trips range in length from four to 10 days. Most are packages offered by tour operators, and none include airfare in the price.

If you’re going to be in New York this weekend and you love travel, consider checking out the New York Times Travel Show, a veritable smorgasbord of travel information from resorts, hotels, spas, cruise lines, tour operators, tourist agencies and adventure travel companies from around the world. Along with vendor booths and live entertainment performances representing a vast array of cultures, the show features a Taste of the World Pavilion filled with international cuisine and cooking demonstrations, a Spa Pavilion offering sample treatments and discounted packages at spa resorts, travel author appearances and special travel deals offered to folks brave enough to book their next vacation on the spot. And with travel experts Rick Steves, Arthur Frommer, Ian Wright and Stephanie Abrams - among many others - leading seminars, the show offers a rare chance for face-to-face learning from leading peeps in the industry. Cost: $15.

Today, Gadling pointed us to UK company PHD Mountain Software and its new Design Your Own Sleeping Bag Service, a D.I.Y. approach to securing the perfect sleep sack for your outdoor adventures.

Okay, it’s not D.I.Y. in the strictest sense of the word(s). A computer does the work, but you get the joy and satisfaction of knowing your powerful little brain sat in the captain’s chair (mwuh-ha-ha-hah). You can choose bag length, width, minimum temperature (-58F to 50F), fabric, color, fill weight and comfort features like mummy hoods, collars, cords, draft tubes, etc. Great for gear nerds and outdoorsy travelers with a penchant for extreme activities (like those nutty ice climbers), as well as people who happen to be taller or otherwise larger than average (NBA players, you can finally camp comfortably). Cost depends each bag’s specifications, but expect to drop upwards of $500.

Design Your Own Sleeping Bag

Ah, to be a college kid again. Students with big ideas about traveling the world - for free - stop day dreaming about the hottie across the hall and check this out. Each summer, STA Travel chooses one college-aged intern for its STA World Traveler Internship. The job? Oh, just spending the summer hopping from Europe to Asia to Australia to New Zealand to Buenos Aires to the freaking Galapagos Islands. Pretty rough. Along the way, the intern will share their adventures through photographs and video, interviews with fellow travelers, blogging and social networking through STA’s Student Travel Community. The whole idea is to show your impressionable peers how much fun you’re having and, in so doing, convince them to spend their next break following in your footsteps, preferably using plane tickets purchased from STA Travel. Applications are being accepted through March 1, 2008, so get cracking.

Here’s an example of the sort of travel video interns produce:

Yeah, last minute travel can be cool. But it can also leave you cash poor, especially when you’re talking high-season travel in major vacation destinations. But as with most things in life, a just little edumuhcation can go a long way. Case in point: Kayak.com’s Fare Alerts.

Create a Fare Alert (or 12) on Kayak.com or SideStep.com for the summer getaway(s) currently sequestered in your noggin by clicking on the “Get fare alerts for this trip” link on the top right-hand corner of the flight results page. You can track fares for specific dates, a flexible span of time (e.g. summer weekends or, say, the month of June) or an entire region (e.g. Europe). When your daily or weekly Fare Alert (you choose how often it arrives) touches down in your email inbox, you’ll be able to make informed travel decisions.

Depending on what you ask it to track (specific dates, flexible span of time or even top cities in a region), each Fare Alert can show you:

- How much the fare for specific dates has increased or decreased in dollars since the last alert

- The airfare history for your trip dates based on searches made by Kayakers over the past 90 days

- A snapshot of prices in Kayak.com’s matrix view, so you can quickly compare prices by carrier and number of stops

- The lowest fare available during a specific span of time (e.g. the next four weekends)

- The best fares available for popular destination cities in a region you want to visit (e.g. Africa)

Who knows, maybe you’ll still pay craptons to travel to the most expensive resort on the hottest island right in the middle of the high season. After all, it’s high season for a reason. But at least you’ll be pimping it out with full knowledge of your unbridled American excess. Just remember the wisdom of G.I. Joe.

(**Editor’s note: Yeah, Kayak.com owns us. You wanna make something of it? I’ll have you know I was surreptitiously using Fare Alerts to aid in making my personal travel plans long before Kayak.com bought our parent company SideStep.com in December. Nepotism, bias, blah, blah, blah. Fare Alerts just make good travel sense.)

I’ve been meaning to post this for two days now. Here’s an inspiring first-person story told by Charles van der Horst, a doctor who has traveled the world fighting H.I.V., to the New York Times.

It also happens to contain what might possibly be the most hilarious (and lip curling) travel-related paragraph I’ve read all week:

To this day, every place I go I find the time to exercise.

The ultimate eyebrow raiser is on the South African Airways flight back from Johannesburg to the United States. This endless trip is enough to drive anyone crazy. My solution is to go into the restroom halfway through the flight and change into workout clothes. I then do a full hour of calisthenics, crunches, push-ups and lunges in the aisle of the plane. I’ll ask the stewards for a lot of those steamy washcloths, and then retreat to the restroom for a sponge bath. I’ll sleep like a baby for the rest of the flight.

I know, I know. The man does great things. But it’s still hilarious imagining trying to pull off a sponge bath in an airplane lavatory. Pity the person sitting next to him.

Disease Fighter Turns Plane Aisle Into a Gym

The Mountain Outpost (pictured), a brand new eco-adventure complex that’s part of the Kapalua Resort on Maui, opens its doors to the public this week. The opening is the latest of many recent changes around the resort. Earlier this month, the Ritz-Carlton Kapalua reopened after $160 million in renovations. New restaurants, a new fitness center, new hiking trails and a renovated and upgraded deli are among the numerous other improvements to this popular Maui vacation spot.

But because we love adventure, we were most excited about the new Mountain Outpost, which boasts Hawaii’s longest suspension bridge and offers heart-thumping activities like zipline tours, climbing and ropes challenge courses. To get the inside scoop on the new Mountain Outpost and other must-do activities in and around the sprawling Kapalua Resort, we checked in with Kapalua Resort’s Director of Resort Activities Adam Quinn. Read on for his local take on getting the most out of a visit to this 23,000-acre resort area.

It’s 6 a.m. We’re up, thanks to jetlag. Where should we head for early morning adventure?

Well, before starting any activity I usually like to eat a good breakfast. Luckily you can start your culinary adventure at Kapalua Resort’s newly renovated Honolua Store deli, which opens at 6 a.m. The deli serves a wide variety of ‘ono (tasty) breakfast items like Molok‘ai sweet bread french toast and a local favorite, Loco Moco, a generous mound of rice topped with a hamburger patty, eggs and gravy. They also offer new items like a crab cake Benedict and farm-fresh veggie omelette. The rustic Honolua Store, built in 1929, also sells sundries and all the snacks you need to pack for a day of exploring Maui.

On your ideal day off, where on Maui would we find you?

I like to head down to one of Maui’s best white sand beaches, D.T. Fleming Beach, for some fun watersports. This long beach is great for running, and the shore break is good for kayak surfing and boogie boarding. During the summer, it has great snorkeling around the lava rocks, too.

What activities at Kapalua Resort are most likely to satisfy our inner adrenaline junkie?

Anyone seeking an awesome eco-adventure should check out our new Kapalua Adventure Center where you can jump into a bio-diesel Mercedes-Benz Unimog for a journey to our Mountain Outpost located about 1,500 feet up the mountainside.

The Mountain Outpost’s eight dual-track zipline course is among North America’s largest—spanning nearly two miles with two ziplines more than 2,000 feet long. Adventurers can also put their endurance, balance and strength to the test with a comprehensive ropes challenge course and 35-foot climbing tower.

All activities are led by guides who have extensive knowledge of Hawaiian culture, history, geography, flora and fauna.

Can you suggest a great excursion for a family with one or more kids under 12?

The Maui Ocean Center is a great place to take the kids. This aquarium has the nation’s largest collection of living coral, and parents love taking pictures of their little ones in the see-through acrylic tunnel within the 750,000-gallon deep sea tank.

Where are the best spots for romance at Kapalua Resort?

At Kapalua Resort, The Plantation House Restaurant offers open-air island style ambiance and amazing panoramic views of the ocean.

Where would you send us to score postcard-worthy views?

Honolua Bay, a marine life conservation area, has fantastic snorkeling. Buy a waterproof camera to snap unbelievable photos of colorful coral and tropical fishes. To get there, hop in a catamaran sailing charter from Lahaina Harbor or Ka‘anapali Beach, and you’ll be taken to a picturesque bay with a scenic mountain backdrop about ten miles north of Ka‘anapali.

When friends and family visit you, what’s one place you always take them to see?

Watching the sunrise from the summit of Haleakala, the world’s largest dormant volcano, is a rare treat. I usually like to take my visiting friends and family to Haleakala National Park to enjoy the incredible above-the-clouds view, hiking and cultural activities.

What should every Maui visitor take home?

Maui Pineapple Company offers the nation’s only tour of a working pineapple plantation. Guests learn about planting, cultivation, and harvesting pineapple. A highlight is tasting pineapple in the field and then picking your own Maui Gold pineapple to take home. Kids especially love these tours. If you don’t want to carry fruit on the plane, order Maui Gold online at mauipineapple.com to be delivered right to your door.

A trip to Maui wouldn’t be complete without _______.

A trip to Maui wouldn’t be complete without attending The Feast at Lele, an intimate, oceanfront Polynesian lu‘au experience that includes traditional, upscale cuisine from Hawai‘i, New Zealand, Tonga and Tahiti, small beachside tables in a lush garden patio, beautiful sunsets and authentic hula and fire dance performances.

Note: All activities can be arranged through the Kapalua Adventure Center’s adventure concierges. For more information call 808-665-4FUN (4386) or toll-free at 877-665-4386.

Freelance writer Lorraine Sanders has been editing the TravelPost.com Insider blog since 2005. You can reach her at news (at) lorrainesanders (dot) com.

One part Goodyear Blimp, one part Ritz Carlton, the Manned Cloud by Jean Marie Massaud for French aerospace research lab ONERA may just be the high-end adventure travel be-all, end-all of the future. Designed to carry passengers on a non-stop journey around the world in a mere three days (80 days is, like, so 1870’s), the aircraft contains 60 rooms to accommodate 40 passengers and 15 staff, a restaurant and bar, spa, fitness center, library and even a terrace from which passengers may take advantage of being that much closer to the sun’s damaging rays - or put on sunblock and observe the sites below. The whole idea behind this flying luxury hotel is exploration without intrusion. Designer Massaud reportedly hopes his craft, if it ever becomes reality, will offer adventurous travelers (with deep pockets) the opportunity to see exotic and remote sites without causing the damage that comes with excess industry pollution and foot traffic. Says Massaud:

You can read more about Massaud, his project and see additional pics via the Dezeen blog.

Travelers the world over rely on the old school, charmingly low-tech moleskin notebook for capturing thoughts, ideas, sketches and tidbits from their travels. Among backpackers and adventure travelers, these little black books have a cult following. There’s just something addictive about documenting your travels in one of these smooth, pocket-sized volumes. And while many no doubt prefer the basic black, my eyes lit up when I saw this laser-engraved version being sold on etsy. It’s the hardbound original with blank pages, but spruced up a bit by this pop design. Cost: $20

Sometimes, the best gifts are the small, cheap and simple ones. Case in point: the rubber water bottle holder with carabiner attachment. One of these little gizmos made its way into my stocking this year, and I’ve got to say that it’s one of my favorite new possessions. Perfect for frequent travelers, the rubber holder attaches to the neck of a plastic bottle and then clips onto the outside of a backpack, handbag, jacket, etc., where it keeps your fluids easily accessible and - now this is crucial - apart from water-averse items that might be living in said backpack, handbag, jacket, etc. It’s also a great option when for travelers hitting the slopes or hiking during warmer months - I’d much rather have my water bottle hooked to the outside of my gear than taking up valuable space inside. Cost: $3.99