Don’t put your tent in storage just yet. During our colder months, some great southern hemisphere trails shine and a few too-hot-for-summer circuits open up in our southerly states and in the Caribbean. From a couple of weeks to a few days, here are some worthy long walks to take this winter that don’t involve snow.

W Trek, Patagonia

35 miles;��4 days;��November to March

On the W Trek in Chile’s Torres Del Paine National Park, you’re never far from view of the iconic, glaciated granite spires that sore eight thousand feet into the air above Patagonia. The trek boasts stunning mountain scenery: turquoise alpine lakes, enormous glaciers, and beech forests. Weather on this track is notoriously temperamental but is most stable during our winter. ��runs tours for the uninitiated (from $3,545), but if you’ve been on an overnight and feel comfortable navigating in a Spanish-speaking country, you can do it yourself. Tack on a few more days to do the Circuit—a 10-day, 52-mile journey around the entire , including the W.

Ozark Highlands Trail, Arkansas

165 contiguous miles (218 total);��10 to 14 days;��October to early February

The ��is one of the few American trails etched into the wilderness mostly by hikers, who completed a large portion of system after federal funding stopped flowing in the early 1980s. Switchbacks and connectors sling you east and west over ridgelines and flat topped mountains (maxing out at 2,380 feet), littered with creeks, ponds, and a forest of red cedars, white oak, and pawpaw groves. In summer, the water sources tend to dry up but the humidity soars. It’s doable in fall and spring—just be wary of the cold and wet March and April weather—but if you go in winter, when the days are in the mid-50s and night’s at around freezing, you’ll have the place all to yourself. Stock up in ��about 45 minutes away. Only have a few days? The 37 mile stretch between Fairview and Ozone is especially beautiful.

Tongariro Northern Circuit, New Zealand

27 miles; 3 to 4 days;��December to April

Tongariro Crossing is a 12-mile path that shows off New Zealand’s most otherworldly capabilities—if you’ve seen The Lord of the Rings, you’ll know it as Mordor. Plenty do it on an eight-hour day hike, but there are another two or three days of less crowded emerald lakes, volcanic peaks, and golden tussock-filled valleys in the wilderness beyond. If you plan to hike the entire out, you’ll need��a��permit, which will start to sell out towards the end of the year. You can use the backcountry hut system, which have heat and water during the southern hemisphere summer.

Black Canyon Trail, Arizona

82 miles;��7 days;��November to April

What began as an early Native American trading route became a stagecoach path on the frontier, a livestock road in the 20th century, and, as of 2008, a , run by the Bureau of Land Management. The bike-friendly trail winds along the floor of saguaro-clad dessert at the feet of the Bradshaw mountains and through classic frontier scenery. Stock up in Prescott or Phoenix, which are both about 40 miles away from the trailhead. And even though it’ll be nice and warm, with temperatures ranging from 40 to 70 degrees,��wear good long pants and boots—this is rattlesnake country.

South Coast Track, Tasmania, Australia

40 miles;��6 to 8 days;��December to April

What was once a journey of survival for shipwrecked sailors is now an undulating playground of empty gold-sand beaches, primitive jungles, and the high alpine passes of the Ironbound Mountains. The trailhead to one of the roughest hikes on the island of Tasmania—the —is reached only via air: fly into Melaleuca, a remote finger of land in southwest Tasmania, from Cambridge airport, located in the greater area of Hobart.��You’ll need a permit and supplies, which you can get through , the airline that operates the route. If you’d like a guide, ��(from $2,695) has been running small group expeditions since the 1980s.

Mountains of the Moon, Uganda

43 miles;��8 to 9 days;��December to March

Think of the Mountains of the Moon trail as the longer, more remote��alternative African alpine summit to Kilimanjaro. The trek, which originates in��Rwenzori national park, nine hours’ drive west of the capital of Kampala,��includes the summit of Margherita Peak, Africa’s third highest at 16,762 feet, with views over southwestern Uganda’s snow-capped Rwenzori Mountains. Our winter is the only season where you won’t need crampons to summit Margherita; it’s also the best chance to see the rare Rwenzori leopard. Pick up a guide in the capital of��, or book ahead of time with , which leads guided 13-day��tours that include gorilla tracking.

Waitukubuli Trail, Dominica

115 miles; 14 days;��January to May

The Caribbean’s longest walking trail is driest and coolest in winter. It snakes through , known for its boiling lake and waterfalls, and crosses the ��and northern jungle, before skirting the northern coast to , where you can jump into the Caribbean and check out Dominica’s oldest fort. Along the way you’ll stay in local communities, either camping, at bed and breakfasts, or in home stays. It’s fairly simple to do this one alone—the Park will help you prepare , but you can also find a guide in , the town closest to the trailhead.

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Last week, Portland International became the first airport in the nation to explicitly permit passengers to fly with weed. The new airport policy was posted to the Port of Portland website a few days after the use of cannabis products by any adult over 21 years old .��

Before jumping on a plane with your bud, here’s what you need to know.

First, you can only be flying within the state of Oregon. It’s still not okay��to bring weed on out-of-state��flights, even to other post-legalization places like Alaska, Colorado, Washington, and the District of Columbia.��

Second, be prepared to get stopped. Even though the TSA , weed is still against federal law, and if the TSA finds it they are required to send you to the local police. But the new policy in Portland states that airport police will only check to make sure you’re carrying a legal amount of cannabis products—maybe budget some extra time to clear security if you're holding.

And third, you still have to be discreet. The only place marijuana can be out in the open is at security.

Flying with weed isn’t exactly illegal in the other jurisdictions with legal pot.��Seattle-Tacoma in Washington, Dulles and Reagan in Washington, D.C., and Anchorage in Alaska have no specific policy for or against flying with weed, so your rights are less clear. Like so much in the new world of legal recreational marijuana, it’s still a bit up in the air.��

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Over 6,000 votes for 108 towns were entered into our first Best Towns Wild-Card contest—so many that it took us days to sort through them all. As we did, we had a realization: there were far more deserving towns than we had space for in our bracket. These 12 got us the most excited.

Athens, OH

Beauty (Strouds Run State Park and drives along Ohio State Route 555), brains (Ohio University), bikes (The singletrack at Lake Hope), bread (Fluff Bakery & Catering) and the busy scene on Court Street. Also: you kayak on Mondays.��

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Billings, MT

Montana’s biggest city looks more like a small town—one that’s close to just about everything you could want in Bozeman but without the crowds. Float the Yellowstone River, go climbing at Sandstone Rim, and then take your pick of six breweries all with in 1.5 miles. And when you’re bored? Drive the two hours to Big Horn Canyon or two-and-a-half hours to Yellowstone National Park.

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Brevard, NC

If any of these towns made us want to crack open a can of beer, slap on a trucker hat, and fish, it was Brevard. But readers there also convinced us that bodysurfing down Sliding Rock Falls was a good idea. Plus, they love their Yeti products and teardrop trailers just as much as we do.

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Dayton, OH

Take lunchtime walks or bike share rides along the Miami River. Stuff your face at Second Street Market. Go crazy at the OutdoorX festival. Catch the breeze at Charleston Falls Preserve. And those double black diamond MTB trails they’re building in the MetroParks Mountain Biking Area (MoMBA) look awesome.

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Hilton Head, SC

You should never miss a sunset here, or the fishing on Page Island, waterskating on Bull Creek, exploring Pickney Island Wildlife Refuge, biking on South Forest Beach, or feasting on low country boils. After all that, go jump off the docks��

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Knoxville, TN

Knoxville’s Instagramers showed us that “Knox rocks”— the bourbon selection at Stock & Barrel, trails at Concord Park (biking and hiking), miles upon miles of greenways, and the Old City. And Knoxvillians are quite proud of their proximity to the beautiful 9.5-mile round trip Max Patch Hike, even if it’s technically in North Carolina.

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Nevada City, CA

It’s usually a pit stop on road trips between the Bay area and Tahoe National Forest, but it’s worth more than meal at Three Forks or ol’ Republic. Cycle Champion Mine Road or hike up Deer Creek right from town. Plenty of crafts, boutiques, and a slew of artsy theaters keep it sophisticated, and it’s also got a few wineries. Or, skip town and just go wander the nearby Sierras.

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Richmond, VA

Our Best Towns 2012 winner has a lot to love: Great Shiprock Park, the trails on the North Bank, sunsets from Pony Pasture, ospreys, Pocahontas State Park, the Canal Walk, tasty craft beer (like Legend Brewing Company), a great music scene, and the best parts of the James River.��

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Santa Rosa, CA

You could come and only try the wine—it is the hub of Sonoma—but then you’d miss cycling the epic roads through vineyards, hiking amongst the redwoods in Armstrong Woods, canoeing at Spring Lake, and fishing on Lake Sonoma. Plus, the beach is an hour away.��

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South Tahoe, CA

Gorgeous views of lakes and mountains are smothered with goofy vibes in South Tahoe, where the people seem to approach life with a snarky mix of playfulness and passion. We will always visit for the excellent parties, craft breweries, skiing, boating, biking, ice-skating, and fishing.

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Sun Valley, ID

Know what we learned from Sun Valley’s Instagrams? Every other town that entered the wild-card round was just a little less pretty. Besides that? There’s enormous fish in Mackay Reservoir, mountain biking and skiing at Bald Mountain, and climbing on the remnants of ancient lava tubes.

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Ventura, CA

Surf some of the sweetest swells in Cali, then dine on some of the best dishes in the state. After dark, go see a live show at Squashed Grapes or one of the many other music venues. Periodically, meander over to the Pier or Grant Memorial Park at dusk to catch the sun melting into the Pacific.

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Lake Garda defies logic. Perched in��the foothills of the Italian Dolomites below the snowy peaks of the Mont Baldo ski area, it should be like any other large alpine lake: cold. But the immediate waterbed sustains its own warm, Mediterranean-like microclimate, giving fruit to surrounding olive and lemon groves, vineyards, and wineries��and clear water that looks almost as if you’re in Positano or Portofino.��

“I lived in Northern Italy for many years and first learned about ��from the Italians who would flock there on holidays,” says New York–based photographer , who captured this shot while walking round Torbole, a town at the northeastern corner of the lake known for its windsurfing schools and competitions, kite surfing, paragliding, fishing, and sailing.��

Located between Venice and Milan (it’s approximately 2.5 hours from each), the lake is also renowned for diving. It contains about ten spots, mostly along the lake’s��north and east shores, known for eerie underwater relics.

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A photo posted by Katina Houvouras (@katinaphoto) on Feb 27, 2015 at 11:23am PST

On land, you’ll find excellent mountain biking, especially if you head up to Mont Baldo. Climb?��Base out of Arco on the limestone cliffs just north of the lake. There are more than 1,000 routes—mostly one or two pitch for sport climbing, but also a few airy 2,000-foot ascents.

Unwind with some of the area’s famed Bardolino, an Italian red wine,��and some fresh-caught fish. If you can, try the lake’s trout,��one of the locals’ most sought-after dishes.

Been somewhere incredible? Instagram it with the hashtag and it might be featured here.

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We’ve already picked 60 of the best towns in America to brawl it out in our annual competition. But we need four more to complete the starting round, and we’re looking for your input. If you have a favorite town with easy access to trails and wilderness, farmers’ markets and craft beers, great neighborhoods and friendly neighbors, it’s easy. Just follow the simple guidelines below��and upload your photos to Instagram. �����ԹϺ�����readers could deem your favorite town the “best town ever” when they start voting on the completed bracket on May 4, 2015.

*Update: May 1, 2015: Thank you to all of the 108 towns who sent over 6,000��impressive pictures our way. Picking a winner wasn't easy, but without further ado:��Congratulations to our wild-card round winners!

South: Roanoke, VA
Midwest: Saugatuck, MI
West: Port Angeles, WA
East: New York, NY

Important Dates

• Voting starts at 8 a.m. EST on April 20, 2015.
• Voting ends at 8 a.m. EST on April 30, 2015.

Rules

1. Use the hashtag #BestTowns2015 on each entry.��
2. Include the full name of your town and state in the description.��
3. You can enter as often as you want.
4. If your town was one of the top 16 on our��2014 Best Towns list, sorry, it’s time to give someone else a chance.

Judging

1. First and foremost, enter frequently and encourage your friends to enter as well! We’ll keep a tally of the number of posts each town gets.
2. Beauty, composition, and vibe in the photo all count. Dull, ugly, or ill-framed images will be skipped.
3. The number of likes an image gets matters.
4. In the image description, tell us why your town deserves the wild-card spot. We’ll take that into consideration. But keep it to one or two lines. More than that and our eyes may glaze over.

Here's a Live Feed of��Who You're Voting For:

ext_script = "//snapwidget.com/js/snapwidget.js"

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A day before I was scheduled to take a return flight from Los Angeles to Albuquerque, I realized that my wallet was missing. Credit cards, license, and $60 in cash were gone. My greatest worry: that I wouldn’t be allowed to fly home.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Not only was I allowed to board the flight without a , but I didn’t have to endure a drawn-out process. And I didn’t receive special treatment just because I’m a travel editor. The TSA is surprisingly prepared to help in these situations. Just arrive a bit early and be ready to go through additional screening.

“We say leave a little extra time—about 30 minutes should suffice—since the TSA will have to validate the identity of the passenger using other means,” Ross Feinstein, TSA Press Secretary, explained.��

I decided not to take any chances and arrived at LAX about four hours before my scheduled departure. To my surprise, I was able to retrieve the boarding pass and check my bag without presenting any identification. I asked the ticket agent if she was sure. “That’s a TSA thing,” the American Airlines agent explained. Feinstein later assuaged my fear. “The TSA screens 100 percent of all checked bags,” he said. Well, um, okay.

It wasn’t until I got to the security line that regular check-in process changed.

Once I identified myself as “the schmuck with no ID,” the TSA agent asked me to step aside. A few seconds later, the supervisor came by to verify that I had no acceptable form of identification and then handed me off to one of his agents. From there, it took about 25 minutes until I was sitting at the gate.

The process was easy. The agent and I found an empty corner in the security room (full public view) and she phoned into a third party who provided her with questions to ask me. They were queries that, in theory, only I would know the answers to. In which state was my social security card issued? What are the last four digits of my phone number? What is the make and model of my car? I signed a paper stating that I had answered truthfully and then she ushered me to the front of the security line. I went through the shoe-removal-laptops-and-liquids-out dance, and finally received extra screening. One agent patted me down while the other emptied my bag.

And then it was over and I was on my way home.

Had I not been able to answer the security questions, I wouldn’t have been able to fly. Also, had I been traveling internationally, I may have gotten through security but I would have hit a road block at immigration.

And that’s a completely different issue. It is up to the receiving country to decide if it will let you in without a passport.

What if you lose your passport while abroad? The good news is that you can get a speedy replacement, but you’ll have to work with the local U.S. embassy. To help, with a photocopy of your lost passport, receipts or confirmation of your tickets, a police report if possible, and two replacement passport photo IDs sized two inches by two inches where your head is between 1 inch and 1 3/8 inches from chin to crown.��

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Car Rentals for $10 a Day? Road Trip!
One-way car rentals from Florida to cities up the East Coast cost as little as $10 per day between April and June, thanks to several new promotions aimed at moving a surplus of vehicles.��, , , and ��are all running similar deals—and they’re skipping the extra fee for different-city drop-offs. Out West, Hertz is running a $30-per-day sale in��.

Save $160 on Next Year’s Epic Pass
It’s easy, especially if you’re skiing this spring. From now until April 12, turn in your spring lift ticket to an Epic Pass office and they’ll deduct its value (up to $160) if you buy next season’s pass. And swoon—the is already on sale for $769, so you could snag next winter’s lift tickets for $609.

Own This Maine Bed-and-Breakfast for $125
Want to own a lakeside bed-and-breakfast on 12 acres in Maine with views of the White Mountains? Enter this contest to win the��. Write a compelling 200-word essay about why you should be the owner and send it in with $125. Janice Sage, the inn’s owner, will select her favorite and fork over the keys. Sound strange? Sage is keeping a tradition alive: She came into possession of the property the same way in 1993.

Airfare to Hawaii Is Lower Than Usual
Keep an eye out for deals to Hawaii.����reports that airlines from US Airways to Delta have been offering up abnormally cheap round-trip fares to airports all over Hawaii—under $600 from the East Coast!

Europe Keeps Getting Cheaper
Tickets on , which connects London to Paris, are 20 percent off, and its�� and passes (which get you free entry to the respective city’s main attractions, commission-free currency exchange, and free access to public transportation) are 10 percent off. The catch? Buy before March 24.

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Do what intimidates you. It’s my mantra for a simple reason: it always leads to something amazing.

I am afraid of heights. And not just in an I-don’t-like-it kind of way, but in a nauseating, the-world-is-spinning sort of way. So I’ve zip-lined (piece of cake), hiked nontechnical 20,000-foot peaks (vertiginous and, in the Andes, coca leaf addled), skydived (tandem, nearly puked), hang-glided (tandem, on a date with the instructor, pretending I liked it), and cliff jumped (beer plus Hawaii…).

Rock climbing, however, has been off-limits. As in: no f*cking way. Too dangerous, too technical, and there’s no going tandem. Besides, I still can’t shake that dramatic opening scene from Cliffhanger. But with some prodding and the guidance of editor Matt Skenazy, I finally strapped on a harness.

I quickly learned that there is more to climbing than just hanging out in high places. Like strength. A half hour into my first session at the climbing gym, I excused myself to go eat. I was starving, but really I was concerned about my hands, which had been white-knuckle squeezing the colorful knobs that made up the course on the wall. Never before had the cracked skin on my hands ached so badly. And I couldn’t bend my fingers. When I tried to type a text to a friend, it came out in fluent gibberish, and I couldn’t blame Autocorrect. Driving home, I could barely grip the steering wheel.

Any experienced climber will tell you—as Alex Honnold pointed out to me when I asked him for some advice over email—that beginners should focus foremost on footwork. But even if you do, you’re still using finger, forearm, and back muscles. They’re an underutilized group and require concentration; if you don’t want to fall, you must laser-focus on these muscles while strategizing the best route up the wall. The result, fellow acrophobics might be excited to hear: You’ll have no energy left to get dizzy with fear. Yippee!

After one more go at the gym, Skenazy and I took the operation outside. And everything changed.

Diablo Canyon in Santa Fe offers a spectacular 300-foot wall of rust-colored basalt that could have been in a scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Much better looking than the inside of a gym, it was also freezing on the day we arrived. And, you know, it’s made of real rocks, which are sharp and feel like ice cubes when they’re cold. Those fiberglass knobs in the gym, favorably colored to show me the way up? Gone. The climbing gym’s padded flooring? Nope. Before me was a steeply inclined, vermilion stone wall with skull-cracking scree at the bottom.

This wall was the endgame. Mastering it would be proof that I’d gone from Gumby to bomber climber who could lead a 40-foot-tall, 5.8-level climb with at least one Genghis crux.

Genghis, huh? Ah yes, if you want to learn to climb, you’ll also have to learn the language, or “you'll be left scratching your head,” Cedar Wright, a climber with The North Face, told me a few days later. “Climbing is so much about communication between you and your partner, it’s important to know what’s going on,” he said. There’s no way to explain even the basics of climbing lingo here—it’s easier to understand than Spanish but harder than Irish brogue. Just know that I had to go from rookie to crackerjack, learn the essentials of the route, and be the guy who clips the rope from the bottom of the rock face to the top on a beginner route that has one intermediate section.

When you “lead”—clipping the rope in first—it means that if you fall, you’ll sustain a much more dangerous drop (but not to the ground) than had you been “top roping,” which is the phrase for going up after the rope has already been laid out. The task on my first day at Diablo Canyon was to top rope the 5.8.

In doing so, I quickly discovered the most meaningful aspect of climbing: you need incredible mental stamina and the will to survive. Dramatic? Maybe. But when you’re clinging to whatever naturally occurring grips you can find on a cold, hard wall so you don’t feel the horror of falling and then slam into a crag, the sport starts to mirror a prolonged life-or-death situation in which no one’s coming to the rescue. Well, except your trusted belayer, the guy on the ground who’s holding you in place. When you start feeling exhausted, you can scream, “Take,” and the belayer will pull on the rope, holding you in place as you recharge. Still, taking isn’t a strategy, Skenazy had to tell me more than once; it’s a last resort.

When your energy gets low, hands start to numb, and you’re not sure which way to go—and any mistake could lead to an injury—how will you act? Will you persevere? Prove yourself? Give up? Take a break every two minutes? Pee your pants?

I wanted to do all of those things all at once. And I may have taken lots of breaks, but eventually I barreled through the fear (rookie tip: think about food—it helps!), the aches, the cold, the uncertainty of the route, and the voice in my head that told me to just give up and settle into a life of stand-up paddleboarding. After a few falls, scrapes, encouragement from my coach, and a good 30 minutes of being stuck on a two-inch ledge while talking to myself like a crazy man, I made it to the top.

The process was tedious but worth it. For one thing, there was the view! But also, as I perched at the end of the route in a nook meant only for birds, I felt awesome, my adrenalin-infused relief mixed with pride. It was like how you feel after you find your lost phone, combined with finishing a marathon.

After a while at the top, I peeked down—and you know what? The world didn’t spin, nor had it been merry-go-rounding the entire time. Had rock climbing just cured my fear of heights?

It had, for the moment. And then it was time to be lowered back down—an operation that should have taken all of two seconds, but now that my concentration was freed up, it ended up being a little trickier (read: spinnier). I remembered a toddler in the boulder room at the gym. He was dangling from a nub about six feet off the floor (no harness or ropes), giggling and saying “Magic!” to his parents, who didn’t look nearly as concerned as I felt. Out on Diablo, I was completely strapped in and still couldn’t bring myself to lean back over the four stories of empty space. It’s funny how children have no fear. And how they believe they are magic. Kinda like adult rock climbers. Anyway, soon I found my calm and bounced down the wall, Mission Impossible-style.

Over the next four weeks, I hit the climbing gym nearly every day and practiced at Diablo Canyon a few more times with my coach. A month after first putting on that awkward harness, I successfully led the climb without falling (or taking too many breaks).

Knowing I tried my hardest would have made me content. Succeeding would have been a bonus. But the real win came in doing both things and in discovering that—lo and behold—I like rock climbing! And in the process, I wrestled with and overcame my fear of heights yet again.

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Alpinist Teams Up with Luxe Hotel Chain
Swisshôtel Hotel & Resorts has tapped alpinist and travel writer John Harlin��to create a series of (branded as “Vitality Guides”) that encourage guests to explore the area around their hotels on foot. At launch, the guides, which are free, will be available in Amsterdam, Ankara, Bangkok, Berlin, Bremen, Chicago, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Foshan, Geneva, Istanbul, Kolkata, Moscow, Osaka, Shanghai, Singapore, Sochi, Sydney, Tallinn, and Zurich, with more destinations to be added throughout the year.��

Meet Zimbabwe’s Newest Safari Camp
Wilderness Safaris will open its newest outpost——in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park this May. The non-fenced-in style camp will consist of eight luxury canvas tents with outdoor showers, a swimming pool, and wrap-around deck to view the park’s elephants.

Sleep Atop a Ski Jump?
Airbnb is listing one of the world’s most modern ski jumps, in Norway, for a special once-in-a-lifetime stay. For two nights at the end of March, the very top of Holmenkollen, where the ski jumpers prepare for flight before their jump, will be transformed into a glass-walled penthouse apartment with private rooftop terrace. To snag this pad, ��no later than March 16 at 5:59 p.m. EST, and write about why you’d wanna sleep here. Two winners (who can bring a guest) will be selected to stay one night each.

Ever Been “Archaeobirding”?
Those wishing to combine their love of exploring ancient ruins with bird watching, should check out , a 20-year-old outfitter, which just launched a series of “” expeditions to Mayan ruins (famed for their abundance of rare and beautiful avian species) in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Hondorus, and Mexico.

Your Ticket to Winterfell, Right Here!
While you’re waiting for Game of Thrones season five to��premiere on April 12, consider planning a trip to Northern Ireland, where a majority of the show is filmed. Why? The Northern Ireland Tourism Board has just released a that includes itineraries and planning tools.��

Finally: Rafting Comes to Patagonia Trekking Town!
Until now, El Chalten has been an easy going Argentinian expedition town where treks to Perito Moreno glacier and Fitz Roy begin. But, has just launched the first ever (grade III) leaving from El Chalten, along the Las Vueltas and Fitz Roy Rivers, through Los Glaciares National Park.��

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The city of Venice will impose new restrictions on self-propelled watercraft within its vast network of canals, according to guide company Venice Kayak. A February 20 says that a new modification to the city’s traffic rules, set to take effect March 1, prohibits kayaks, canoes, dragon boats, and SUPs in the Grand Canal—the city’s main thoroughfare.

In a , Venice Kayak owner René Seindal raises questions about the unintended effects of closing the Grand Canal to such traffic. He claims it will change the entire nature of canal transit in Venice and cause confusion and potentially traffic snarls in smaller canals connected to the Grand Canal.

“A lot of very narrow canals lead down to some of the no-go canals, so if you went down there in a kayak, you wouldn’t be able to get out legally,” he wrote. Those one-way canals that open into the Grand Canal would essentially be closed by default, Seindal said. “If you enter one of these nominally ‘legal’ canals, you won’t be able to get out again, unless you paddled backwards through a narrow, winding and [possibly] busy canal.” Seindal has calling for the city to revoke the ban.

A representative of , a kayaking outfitter specializing in Venice, contacted �����ԹϺ��� directly regarding the ban. “Tofino has received limited permission��to run our small set of 3 closely guided trips,” Tofino owner Grant Thompson said. He noted that “cruise ships are the real problem here.”

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