The Year Ahead

By GAIL HARRINGTON

Right spot, right time. In a world of possibilities, the question isn’t “Where next?” – it’s “Where now?” Here are 12 spectacles to set your vacation clock by in 2010.

JANUARY
Avg temps: 27/17 F 

See Norway by night-light. Take a dogsled tour or reindeer-pulled sleigh ride, cruise a fjord, and watch for a splash of green dancing across the sky. Alta, a Norwegian seaport well above the Arctic Circle, is one of the best destinations for viewing the northern lights and was home to the world’s first northern lights observatory. In January, Earth’s rotation brings the region into the aurora borealis’ premier viewing zone. Take your time as you soak it in – unlike a shooting star’s streak, each borealis burst can last from two minutes to several hours.

Go: Mush a dogsled team, herd reindeer with the indigenous Sami, and try your hand at king crab and ice fishing on Norwegian Adventures’ wilderness tour from Alta. The seven-day privately guided trip includes nightly opportunities to catch the northern lights as well as instruction on how to best photograph them. Departures: Any day through April 1, 2010; from $34,674 for two, including all meals, beverages, and activities.

FEBRUARY
Avg temps: 81/63 F

Tail whales in Maui. Skipping the Winter Olympics? Catch one of nature’s greatest competitions in Maui as humpback whales breach, spar for mates, and blast air through their blowholes at 300 mph. February marks the height of whale season off the Hawaiian island and a time for learning during the Maui Whale Festival, put on by the Pacific Whale Foundation. Among this year’s events: a 5k and half-marathon Run for the Whales (February 6), a whale-watch photo safari (February 14), Whale Day (February 20), and the Great Whale Count (February 27), when researchers welcome volunteer counters – last year’s tally was 1,010.

Go: Spend eight days at the newly remodeled 463-room Ritz-Carlton, Kapalua with
Classic Vacations, complete with a rental car and tickets for a whale-watching cruise. Departures: Any day through February 28, 2010; from $4,264 for a family of four.

MARCH
Avg temps: 78/58 F

Taste Mendoza. Sip malbec amid Mendoza’s rolling vineyards during Argentina’s Fiesta Nacional de la Vendimia (the grape harvest festival) the first weekend of March. It’s the best time to sample food, wine, and music from 18 departments of the province all in one place, Mendoza’s Plaza Independencia. Wineries celebrate with events and activities such as harvesting grapes for your own private label, and there’s a parade with floats passing fruits, vegetables, and bottles of wine into the crowd, escorted by gauchos on horseback and horse-drawn carts. After a show at a mountainside amphitheater, the festival queen is crowned with a garland of grape leaves, and fireworks explode against a dark blue sky.

Go: Pick grapes and take a cooking lesson on Abercrombie & Kent Argentina’s trip to Men-
doza’s harvest festival. The five-day customizable itinerary features plenty of wine tasting, great meals, and accommodations at the 186-room Park Hyatt Mendoza, which presides over the parade route, across the street from Plaza Independencia. Departure: March 4, 2010; from $3,550.

APRIL
Avg temps: 64/50 F

Catch Tokyo in bloom. Picnic beneath flowering cherry branches, stroll on pink-petal-lined paths, and row boats along the fragrant banks of the moat surrounding Tokyo’s Imperial Palace. Starting in early April, a cherry blossom obsession overtakes Japan, where residents have celebrated the spring flower since the eighth century.

Virtually every neighborhood of the world’s largest city is generously planted with cherry trees. You’ll find some of the best displays in Tokyo’s largest parks – Chidorigafuchi, Shinjuku Gyoen, and Ueno – along the Meguro and Sumida rivers. Though flowering is dictated by the weather, plan to visit early in the month: Blossoms begin falling within two weeks of blooming.

Stay: The 314-room Peninsula Tokyo overlooks the cherry trees in the Imperial Palace gardens. Guests can tour the grounds and nearby parks on the property’s BMW bicycles ($28 for three hours) or check out an iPod for complimentary walking tours. Doubles from $657, including breakfast and a $115 hotel credit.

MAY
Avg temps: 59/42 F

Dance around Saint Petersburg. The night sky has nearly disappeared by the third week of May in Saint Petersburg, but you’ll see stars aplenty when Russia’s former capital kicks off its cultural event of the year, Stars of the White Nights. May 21 through July 19, under the direction of the Mariinsky Theatre’s celebrated conductor, Valery Gergiev, the festival showcases more than 100 performances by the Mariinsky’s opera, ballet, and orchestra companies, plus international performers on the stage where Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty debuted.

Stay: Saint Petersburg’s Taleon Imperial Hotel features 89 rooms with butler service on the Moika River at Nevsky Prospekt. During White Nights, guests staying three nights enjoy a private boat tour of the city (during the day or at night to see the open drawbridges), a tour of Peterhof Palace, and a guided visit to the Hermitage Museum. May 16 through June 30, 2010; doubles from $5,714, including three nights’ accommodations and breakfast.

JUNE
Avg temps: 64/48 F (Cape Town)

Get a kick out of South Africa. FIFA World Cup 2010 takes over South Africa on June 11. Locals will toot their vuvuzelas (three-foot-long horns that sound like elephants) not just for the national team, but also for five stunning new stadiums, including Green Point in Cape Town, set between the Atlantic and Table Mountain. Nine cities around the country host matches over the 30-day competition, making it easy for soccer fans to work in safaris, wine-tastings, and coastal tours. After a kickoff concert at the Orlando Stadium in Soweto, the world’s largest sports event after the Olympics opens in Johannesburg with 32 teams battling to take home the gold cup.

Go: Premiere Sports Travel’s World Cup options include six-day trips that let fans take in two matches in the final rounds or save all their cheers for Cape Town’s gold cup final. Multiple departures; from $5,995.

JULY
Avg temps: 70/62 F

Watch day break on Easter Island. We’re no rocket scientists, but NASA’s Fred Espenak is (or at least an astrophysicist), and he says Easter Island is the best landfall to catch the July 11 total eclipse. Beginning northeast of New Zealand, the path of totality will streak across the Pacific Ocean in a narrow band that will be viewable from land only on Easter Island, Mangaia in the Cook Islands, and a handful of isolated atolls. On Easter Island, the moon’s shadow will begin blocking out the sun at 12:40 pm and reach totality at 2:08 pm, fooling birds and wildlife into sleeping or roosting for four minutes and 41 seconds before passing back into a partial eclipse that ends at 3:34 pm.   

Stay: Have it made in the shade at the 30-room, all-inclusive explora en Rapa Nui, where travelers will experience the total eclipse and their choice of guided activities ranging from snorkeling to volcano treks to horseback and mountain bike rides. Through 2010; seven days from $4,350 per person, including guided activities and all meals and beverages.

AUGUST
Avg temps: 77/64 F

Trot off to Siena. Nothing preempts the Palio in the Tuscan city of Siena; the race was established in 1659 and has been run twice a year (July 2 and August 16) since 1701. The entire town turns out for this wild bareback horse race between riders representing 10 of the 17 contradas (historic neighborhoods of Siena). Arrive a few days early to catch the processions and feasts leading up to race day, when the contradas bless their horses in their local churches and form parades, which meet up in the Piazza del Campo before the event. After the bells toll and an explosive charge signals the start, jockeys race three times around Piazza del Campo in less than two minutes.

Stay: Explore Siena and the Tuscan countryside from the Grand Hotel Continental. The 51-room, seventeenth-century palace sits in the heart of the city less than a quarter-mile from Piazza del Campo. August 14 through 17, 2010; junior suites from $4,604, including three nights’ accommodations, breakfast daily, a wine-tasting, and a four-course lunch.

SEPTEMBER
Avg temps: 77/49 F (Nairobi, Kenya)

Migrate to Kenya. By all accounts, one of nature’s greatest spectacles passes through Tanzania and Kenya when the dry season arrives. More than a million wildebeests seemingly wake up one day and just decide to move north across the crocodile-infested Mara River, joined by gazelles and zebras on their annual 2,000-mile clockwise loop from the Serengeti to Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve and back. Wildlife viewing can be wonderfully unpredictable, but visit the Masai Mara in September, and you’re guaranteed to see huge herds and the hyenas and big cats that prey on them. Put simply, it’s the world’s largest mass movement of land mammals.

Go: Follow the migration on African Travel Inc.’s 12-day safari in Kenya and Tanzania. Travelers explore the Ngorongoro Crater and either spend time in the Masai Mara (best July through November) or in Serengeti National Park (best December through June). Departures: Any day through 2010; from $6,495.

OCTOBER
Avg temps: 58/37 F (Portland, Maine)

Fall for New England. Shorter days and cooler nights usher in a brilliant time in New England. Fall in these six northeast states is quintessential America, and by the trees’ October peak, leaf pilgrims line the back roads, making October prime time for hiking, hot-air ballooning, and touring farms to taste apples, maple syrup, and artisanal cheeses. Want all the beauty without the traffic? Trace the coastline by ship.

Go: Cruise through fall with Travel Dynamics International’s 11-day voyage from Saint John’s, Newfoundland, to Gloucester, Massachusetts. The 100-passenger Clelia II makes six calls en route, including Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island ports, as well as Bar Harbor and Portland, Maine. Departure: October 4, 2010; from $6,995.

NOVEMBER
Avg temps: 90/51 F

Dive into Jordan. Even Jordan’s King Abdullah II has digs in Aqaba, a once-sleepy village on the northern tip of the Red Sea that’s quickly becoming the region’s next hot spot. When winter closes in at home, Europeans and divers in the know escape to Jordan’s only seaport for some of the top underwater sites around. With warm, clear water and little wave action, the Bay of Aqaba offers 20 sites for stellar diving and snorkeling among sea turtles, 200-plus species of hard and soft coral, and more than 1,000 types of fish. November kicks off the season, and when you’re ready to dry off and explore, you can make day trips to Petra and Wadi Rum.

Go: Two days in Aqaba highlight United Travel Agency’s seven-day Jordan trip. When not snorkeling or diving in the Red Sea, travelers explore Petra and take a sunset jeep ride through Wadi Rum. Departures: Any day through 2010; from $2,068.

DECEMBER
Avg temps: 40/20 F (Antarctic Peninsula)

Chill out in Antarctica. Playful three-foot-tall emperor penguins welcome travelers to the world’s least-visited continent, Antarctica. Look for an itinerary that allows you to catch the wildflowers and the first baby penguin chicks and pup seals in South Georgia and the Falkland Islands en route. By mid-December, the White Continent basks in 24 hours of daylight, giving you more time to spy wildlife.

Go: Catch Antarctica’s spring renewal on Silversea Cruises’ 17-day sailing from Ushuaia, Argentina. South Georgia and the Falkland Islands provide a warm-up for three days on the peninsula aboard the 132-passenger Prince Albert II. Departure: December 19, 2010; from $35,416.

INSIDER EXPERTISE
Virtuoso travel advisors’ picks for off-season vacations.

When               Where                          Why