The 100 Best Affordable Vacations (63 page)

If the animals are lucky, the owner will come to their senses, or animal-welfare advocates will be alerted, and the creatures will end up at a place like Peace River Refuge & Ranch, founded in 1998 in Zolfo Springs, Florida, about 70 miles southeast of Tampa. The shelter takes in a host of wild animals, from cougars and leopards to wolves and fruit bats. Some come from pet owners, while others are seized by authorities from zoos or carnivals. What they all have in common is the need for care, and Peace River relies on the help of volunteers to help do the job. Visitors can come for as little as a weekend to help build cages or paint rooms. But the longer you stay, the more you can do.

Volunteers learn about the animals they’re helping. Nearly all were raised in captivity and had never seen their own species until they came to Peace River. “They didn’t even know what they were,” says Lisa Stoner, the refuge’s vice president. But over time, the animals revert to their natural state. “To sit and watch them roughhouse, to climb trees and destroy things. To watch wild behavior out of a captive-born animal is really rewarding.”

Although it can be exciting to spend time near the wild animals, there’s nothing glamorous about it. “It’s hard,” Stoner says. “It’s Florida, it’s hot, it’s buggy.”

Nearly all volunteers help prepare food for the sanctuary’s hundred-plus animals. Preparing meals can require hours of chopping fruit or raw meat and then measuring out portions. Volunteers staying for several weeks may get a chance to feed the animals. The food is usually proffered on 18-inch tongs, pushed through cages. Feeding a feline can be particularly exciting because some crouch, sneak up, and then pounce on their food—as they’d do in the wild.

Janine Ellis of Reading, England, spent a month at Peace River on break from her job as an accountant. The refuge offered her a chance to help monkeys, panthers, and other critters she never imagined she’d encounter. She particularly enjoyed watching spider monkeys. “They’re very expressive. I enjoyed the whole thing, getting to know the animals and their quirky personalities.” One of her jobs was to prepare enrichment activities, like placing peanut butter or other treats inside a paper towel tube, so animals are forced to find a way to reach the food.

HELP ABANDONED PETS

The country’s biggest no-kill animal sanctuary, Best Friends of Kanab, Utah, welcomes volunteers to work with its dogs, cats, horses, waterfowl, pigs, parrots, and rabbits, to name its most common residents. On an average day, the shelter is home to 2,000 animals, rescued from all across the country.

You can spend your days grooming, playing with, and walking the residents. There’s no cost, but you’re responsible for accommodations and food. The shelter’s Angel Canyon Guest Cottages offers Best Friends members ($25 for basic membership) cabins that sleep two for $55 a night off-season, $70 high season. You can even borrow a pet to keep overnight.
Best Friends Animal Society, 5001 Angel Canyon Rd., Kanab, UT 84741, 435-644-2001,
www.bestfriends.org
.

For those able to volunteer for a month, the shelter charges $1,960 for housing and food, although volunteers need to prepare their meals. They must also have proof of a current negative TB test, and if they’re going to work with bats, a rabies vaccination. Hepatitis B and tetanus vaccinations are also recommended. Accommodations are basic. Women stay in a house a few miles from the refuge. The few men who volunteer stay in an on-site trailer, which means they can hear the sanctuary’s wolves howling at night.

If you can’t stay a month, you must provide your own housing and food. Chain lodging is available in nearby Bowling Green, with rates starting about $80 per night.

No volunteers are allowed to physically interact with the animals, but they are invited to watch veterinary procedures and other special interactions. Part of Peace River’s mission is education. “People come here loving the animals,” Stoner says. “But they leave here knowing so much more than they ever did.”

HOW TO GET IN TOUCH

Peace River Refuge & Ranch,
P.O. Box 1127, 2545 Stoner Ln., Zolfo Springs, FL 33890, 863-735-0804,
www.peaceriverrefuge.org
.

hobnob with authors

MIAMI, FLORIDA

Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.

—
P. J. O’ROURKE, POLITICAL SATIRIST

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Whether your idea of contemporary literature is Ann Patchett’s heady novels or Stephen King’s scare thrillers, dozens of literary festivals scattered across the United States offer a chance to shake hands with authors, ask about their writing, and trade words with fellow book lovers.

And nowhere is it more special perhaps than at the Miami Book Fair International. When independent bookseller Mitchell Kaplan of Miami-based Books & Books helped found the then Miami Book Fair in the early 1980s, the United States boasted only a few large book festivals. The Miami Book Fair International is now the oldest and largest consumer book festival in the country.

Book fairs serve as a community tent where people share ideas and passion for words, says Kaplan, a former president of the American Booksellers Association. And like good books themselves, the most intriguing fairs are a prism into time and place. “Most book fairs try to reflect the nature of where they are…by the authors who come, exhibitors, and by the book lovers who are drawn to that fair,” Kaplan says.

The
Miami Book Fair International
(www.miamibookfair.com), held each November on the campus of Miami-Dade College, draws authors who write in Spanish and Creole as well as English. Local pen masters—including mystery writers Carl Hiaasen and Edna Buchanan, humorist Dave Barry, and Haitian-American novelist Edwidge Danticat—have taken the podium, along with such luminaries as Patchett, Barbara Kingsolver, Jacquelyn Mitchard, Mario Vargas Llosa, Al Gore, Margaret Atwood, Garrison Keillor, Iggy Pop, the late Carl Sagan, the late Julia Child, and Barack Obama before he was elected President.

Events spanning eight days include “Evenings with…” major authors that feature readings and Q&As and seminars on writing and book publishing. The apex is the weekend street fair featuring hundreds of vendors, music, food booths, a children’s alley, and dozens of simultaneous and back-to-back author appearances. Prices vary, but most evening author events cost $10. The street fair costs $8 for adults; it’s free for everyone else. If you’re lucky, you’ll catch a year when the Rock Bottom Remainders—a literary garage band made up of mega-authors Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Stephen King, Ridley Pearson, Greg Iles, Mitch Albom, Roy Blount, Jr., Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Matt Groening, James McBride, and Scott Turow—decide to play.

OTHER BOOK FESTIVALS THAT WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS FREQUENT

 
Baltimore Book Festival, Maryland.
Held over a weekend in late September, the festival attracts more than 50,000 attendees each year. Past authors have included Dr. Cornel West, Buzz Aldrin, Jane Goodall, Walter Mosley, Candace Bushnell, and Andrea Mitchell. Free.
410-752-8632,
www.baltimorebookfestival.com
.

 
Los Angeles Times–UCLA Book Festival, California.
Held over a weekend in late April on the UCLA campus. Author events are ticketed at $1 per event. T. C. Boyle, Mary Higgins Clark, Brett Easton Ellis, Sebastian Junger, and Herman Wouk have all attended this festival.
213-237-2665,
http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/
general-information.

 
National Book Festival, Washington, D.C.
At this one-day festival held on a Saturday each September, dozens of tents on the National Mall feature presentations by authors of children’s books, contemporary fiction, history, and poetry. Past authors have included Ken Follett, Isabel Allende, and Jules Feiffer. Free.
888-714-4696,
www.loc.gov/bookfest
.

 
Wordstock, Portland, Oregon.
More than 200 international authors attend this event held over a weekend each October. The festival has featured James Ellroy, John Irving, Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer, Alice Sebold, and Russell Banks. Entry costs $5.
503-546-1012,
www.wordstockfestival.com
.

The college is within an easy people mover/Metrorail (www.miamidade.gov/transit) ride of the
Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts
(1300 Biscayne Blvd., 305-949-6722,
www.arshtcenter.org
), which offers a variety of performances year-round, and the bubbling café scene at the Mary Brickell Village. The Design District, Wynwood Arts District, and South Beach are less than 15 minutes away by taxi.