The Last Word On Nothing

Science vacations are the best vacations. I’ve been ridiculously fortunate to visit some great science-related destinations, and I’m trying to figure out which ones to visit next. I’ll share some of my recommendations here, in no particular order. I hope you’ll share your favorites with me and the rest of the Last Word on Nothing community. 

A science vacation, for me, means anywhere with interesting wildlife, plants, fossils, rock formations, caves, mountains, museums, reefs, astronomical observatories, engineering marvels, science history sites, etc. Any destination can be a science destination if you look at it right. 

Going to the Galápagos is like a pilgrimage for non-believers. (Believers are welcome, too.) I had studied plenty of evolutionary biology—you probably have, too—but when you go there and see the finches and the tortoises and tree-like cacti and the fearless mockingbirds and how they interact and co-evolve on different islands, it just makes all of Earth’s living history make sense. You can swim with marine iguanas, see penguins and flamingos on the same coast, visit HMS Beagle landing sites, and laugh at boobies dancing and frigatebirds puffing out their throat pouches. 

Mount St. Helens erupted 45 years ago (I know, I know, I had to double-check the math) and you can still see the devastation it caused—and the ecosystem’s recovery. Any volcanic park makes for a great science trip, as long as it’s inactive or you’re at a safe distance. Lassen Volcanic National Park in California, Haleakalā in Hawaii, and Mount Rainier in Washington are all relatively young, accessible, ridiculously dramatic volcanoes. Devil’s Tower in Wyoming (the one in Close Encounters) is the core of an ancient volcano. You can walk through lava tubes at Craters of the Moon in Idaho (bring a headlamp). 

Meteor Crater in Arizona is privately owned, so the tour is goofier than what you’d get at a national park, but it’s still worth a trip to see the 1,200-meter-diameter impact crater and imagine what it’d be like to have a major asteroid strike Earth today. (For a fun time, Google “DART mission.”) 

Kangaroo Island in Australia is a great place to see the other two ways to be a mammal: marsupials (kangaroos, koalas) and monotremes (echidnas, duck-billed platypuses). 

The Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies is another classic pilgrimage site for the science-minded. Read Stephen Jay Gould’s Wonderful Life first, if you haven’t already, for a great explanation of the Cambrian Explosion and how it changed our understanding of evolution. The hike to Walcott Quarry (the classic Burgess site) is tough, but the guides will get you there. A slightly less strenuous hike takes you to the Mount Stephen Trilobite Beds. (Reserve a tour with the Burgess Shale Geoscience Foundation). Trilobites were some of the most successful and abundant lifeforms on Earth for 250 million years, until they were wiped out 250 million years ago, which sometimes gives me perspective.

I visited Mammoth Cave last month and was impressed with the geology-focused tours. They also do a good job explaining white-nose syndrome and the catastrophic die-off of bats in parts of the U.S. The cave, like the name implies, is enormous and twisty and endless, and it’s fascinating to imagine an underwater river eating through all that limestone. 

Iceland is a geological marvel. You can see the geyser that gives geysers their name. You can walk along the mid-Atlantic ridge, the only place where the boundary between the North American and Eurasian plates is above ground. It’s got hydrothermal vents, ice caps, glaciers galore, volcanoes, mudslides, lava tubes, whales, puffins, a penis museum, geothermal power plants, ghost towns, and delicious rye bread that’s baked in hot springs. 

I had a blast producing special packages on science tourism when I was an editor at Smithsonian Magazine (featuring the La Brea Tar Pits, Isle Royale, Jurassic Coast, and more) and the Washington Post (Cahokia Mounds, Atchafalaya Swamp, Green Bank Observatory, and more.) I’ve visited some of the places we covered in those packages and want to get to the rest. I’m filling out a spreadsheet of travel ideas now, organized by trip length, season, and transportation means (drive, boat, or fly there). I hope to see the Bay of Fundy sometime, the Great Barrier Reef, and prairie chickens lekking. 

What about you? What are some of your favorite science trips so far, and what are you hoping to visit next?