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Best Tubing Spots / Tubing / Rivers / Water Sports / Georgia Travel / → All Tags

Get Ready To Float Down The Hooch In Northeast Georgia

If you’re looking to beat the heat and humidity of the nation’s Southeast, then Helen, Georgia should be on your shortlist. Not only does the town traditionally feature cooler summer temperatures thanks to its location within the Blue Ridge Mountains, but it also does its best to recreate an alpine village; zoning laws ensure that the town’s buildings feature a little bit of Bavaria, including architecture from the old-world and cobblestone streets. It’s not quite the Alps, but it is the Appalachians.

Once you’re done touring a little bit of faux Europe, you’re probably going to want to cool off from all that excitement. Grab a tube and plop your butt into the Chattahoochee River. There’s two different river courses to choose from, but definitely go for the longer 2.5 hour journey. A bus will load you up and take you up river, so when you’re all done you can be fully prepared to peruse the gift shop or chow on some picnic foods.

The Cool River Tubing Company will be floating people down the river all summer through Labor Day. It’s only $5 for adults, and if you want to go all day a pass only costs $9. This is definitely a sweet deal for an afternoon filled with splashes and sunburn. If the river ride gets a little boring they have a waterside too, but that’ll cost you a few extra bucks.

Related Stories:
· Cool River Tubing [Official Site]
· Hot Dogs And Hot Tubing Between Different States [Jaunted]
· Tubing coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Official Site]

Best Tubing Spots / Tubing / Rivers / Water Sports / New Jersey Travel / → All Tags

Hot Dogs And Hot Tubing Between Different States

Between New York City and Philadelphia sits a good place to spend a summer afternoon baking in the sun and splashing in the water. It's Frenchtown, New Jersey, and you’re welcome to sit your behind in a tube and comfortably travel about five to six miles—a dream distance considering many tubing runs are only a few miles.

Delaware River Tubing allows tube travelers to float down the river between the Pennsylvania and New Jersey state lines, so you’ll be able to get two state stickers for that map on the back of your Winnebago.

The unique part of this river adventure is that you’ll be likely spending time with their Famous River Hot Dog Man. Halfway through your journey you’ll put on the turn signal and pull over along the river’s shore to order up a couple hotdogs or a cheeseburger, and enjoy it from the comfort of your rubber seat. Best of all, most tickets include a “free” meal from the floating restaurant.

Weekend tubing starts at about $19 and includes your life vest, a place to stash your keys, and meal on the river. Parking will set you back $6, so try your best to pile into one car. Double and Triple tubes are available on a first come first serve basis for those that just can’t bear to be apart from their sweethearts. Just hurry up and make your plans as the season will end before you know it on September 29.

Related Stories:
·Delaware River Tubing [Official Site]
·Tubing The Apple River: Slow Speeds, Fast Sunburns [Jaunted]
·Water Sports coverage [Jaunted]

[A Vintage Delaware River Tubing Photo: Joe Shlabotnik]

Best Tubing Spots / Tubing / Rivers / Water Sports / Connecticut Travel / → All Tags

Less Boozin' And More Cruisin' On The Farmington River

We’ve quickly discovered that there’s nowhere better to beat the heat than from the comfort of a tube floating down a river. Despite the intense sun heating up the tube so that it almost burns your skin, all is well once you hit a wave and get dumped into the cooling waters below your seat. That’s why we fully recommend a trip to Farmington River Tubing in New Hartford, Connecticut within the Satan’s Kingdom State Recreation Area—scary, huh?

Other river locations may have turned into party scenes, complete with special floating cooler rafts designed to hold your thirty-pack. For better or for worse, booze isn’t allowed on this river adventure, so things are more serene and peaceful. That is of course until you hit some of the rapids with only a tube to help you out. Officials at the river request that you are comfortable swimming through Class III rapids—you know, just in case.

Only $20 will get you a 2.5-mile ride down the river. Bring an old T-shirt to be a little more comfy, since you’ll be wearing a snazzy life jacket during your journey. An old pair of sneakers does wonders to help protect your feet when you try to avoid some of the river’s larger rocks. When you're all done, a bus will bring you back to where you parked your car, and if you want to go again, it’ll only cost you $10.

With all the recent rain in the Northeast lately, the river should be running at full steam, so remember to use the buddy system.

Related Stories:
·Farmington River Tubing [Official Site]
·Tubing The Apple River: Slow Speeds, Fast Sunburns [Jaunted]
·Water Sports coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Joshua.Rose80]

Best Tubing Spots / Tubing / Rivers / Water Sports / Phoenix Travel / → All Tags

Tubing Is The Only Way To Beat The Heat In The Valley Of The Sun

When you think of Phoenix in the summer, you probably think of the sweltering heat and imagine yourself dodging in and out of the comfort of air conditioning. A relaxing trip down a river in a tube doesn’t even seem like a possibility, but it is, and you can beat the summer rays only 30 minutes outside the city.

After a short ride towards Mesa, you’ll find yourself floating and bobbing along the Lower Salt River in the middle of the Tonto National Forest. Although tubing is usually a relaxing experience, there are some rapids along this route to keep you on your toes. Also, they encourage picnicking along the river and even rent out special tubes to float your cooler right along side your group.

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Midwestern Summer / Best Tubing Spots / Tubing / Rivers / Apple River / Water Sports / → All Tags

Tubing The Apple River: Slow Speeds, Fast Sunburns

Someday when the ozone layer has become more hole than layer, summer will be ruined for open-water activities like tubing, because the risk of skin cancer will be too great. So we'd best live it up while we're young and there is still SPF enough! That's a pretty dire way to characterize the best tubing spot in Wisconsin, but no man-made lazy river can compare to the Apple River's natural sloth.

The allure of this tributary of the St. Croix close to Minneapolis is passed around every summer among circles of would-be road-trippers. A few gentle rapids keep tubers moving along, and while the scenery isn't the greatest, the wide, slow rock of the Apple that once made it perfect to float logs downstream from virgin forests to busy sawmills attracts boaters from all over.

The tubing "scene" isn't for kids on the Apple -- online reports indicate a preponderance of casual nudity and beer cans -- but you can always placate them with a later-summer visit to Noah's Ark in Wisconsin Dells.

Related Stories:
· Summer Vacations With an Edge: Rockin' and Rapids [Jaunted]
· Dominica Rides Year Of The Pirate [Jaunted]
· More Active Travel: Rafting Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: chris-williams]

Dangerous Travel / TV Travel / Jeremy Wade / Rivers / Animal Planet / River Monsters / → All Tags

Don't Go Back In the Water...Nevermind, Go Ahead

Did you hear the one about the busload of Brazilian tourists who plunged into the Amazon and were all instantly eaten alive by piranhas? Or the mythical alligator-catfish hybrid that crawls out of rivers to terrorize Texas teenagers?

If stories like these have ever given you nightmares, or caused you to think twice about that river rafting trip, you might want to check out the new Animal Planet show River Monsters. Host Jeremy Wade, who is billed as "an extreme angler," spends the seven-part series exploring the myths and realities behind the world's most dangerous freshwater fish--swimming with piranhas in Brazil, hunting killer catfish in India, and investigating the case of those alligator-like things in Texas.

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