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A RECENT STUDY by the U.S.
Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association found a 16 percent increase in the
number of tent campers since 1993. In France, the Netherlands, Italy and
Spain, rental-car companies have started running out of RVs; Camping Cheque,
a popular France-based company that sells discounted pitch fees in the
low-season months, has seen business grow from 10,000 to 1 million clients
in the last five years. In response, upscale adventurers are seeking out new
highs in the trees and new lows deep in caves to escape the crowds.
HIGHS: “Our treehouses are discreetly tucked away in the
forest, in the boughs of ancient mahogany trees,” says Trevor Saxty,
president of California-based Adventure Center (adventurecenter.com),
which offers camping excursions throughout Africa. For $275 per night,
tourists can sleep in a timber treehouse overlooking Tanzania’s Lake Manyara
National Park, famous for its tree-climbing lions (not to worry: they climb
only acacia, not mahogany trees).
In 1996, inspired by a class on human-environmental relations,
Hawaii-based architect Dave Greenberg designed four tree houses near Hana,
Maui. Two years later, he expanded his business to the island of Hainan, in
the South China Sea (treehousesofhawaii.com; 86-1380-7500-909). The
result is a small group of secluded cabins overlooking some of the world’s
most pristine beaches. On Hainan, the houses perch in tamarind trees that
sprout from —a sand dune. They overlook a beach and adjoin the 5,000-acre
Sanyan Nashan Buddhist temple and park, filled with pagodas and botanical
gardens. A treehouse on Maui costs $125 per night; in Hainan it’s $43.
At St. Lucia’s Ladera Resort ( www.ladera.com; 758-459-7323;
starting at $295 per night), rooms in the rain forest perch 1,100 feet above
sea level, and guests should expect unexpected visitors. In the morning,
it’s not uncommon to wake up and find a fluorescent green parrot flying
through your room or a friendly lizard near your makeup case, says general
manager Magnus Alnebeck of the three-walled, open-air rooms.
Across the EU, it is still illegal to sleep overnight in trees—or
anyplace not specifically built as an accomodation. But the 2003 Alan Rogers
Western Europe camp guide lists a resort in Holland where balloon-like tents
hang from trees just six feet above the ground. “This is as close as we can
get to a treehouse,” says Rogers. |
