Chris Santella

""What makes a destination a place you have to paddle before you die?” you might ask. “The chance to take in incredible mountain or coastal scenery? To push your skills to the limit on long endurance paddles or gnarly rapids? To encounter iconic animals that call the isolated places that can only be reached by raft or kayak home?” The answer would be yes to all of the above, and an abundance of other criteria as well."

With this introduction, Chris Santella hooks the reader. He interviewed a range of experts, from white-water rafters, sea kayakers, SUPers, and canoeists, to garner this list of 50 profound places. Some we already know about and are no doubt on all BASKers’ lists (or have already been checked off by one or more of our most intrepid members!) like the San Juan Islands, Grand Canyon, Hawaii’s Na Pali coast, or the Kenai Fjords in Alaska. But there are others that are off the beaten track for most travelers let alone kayakers - places like Tonga, Zambia, Russia, Laos, and Iceland. There’s at least 1 place in this book to meet every reader’s interests and dreams.

Each chapter has at least 1 iconic photo of the place, 2-3 pages of well-written description telling the reader why they’d want to go to the place, and a bulleted list at the end telling the reader some key details: getting there, best time to visit, guides/outfitters, level of difficulty, and accommodations.

Though not the size of a coffee table book, this is a book to leave on your coffee table, page through and dream about while relaxing, or open up and explore with friends after dinner. It’s not really a book to help one plan for a paddle trip. Rather, it’s a book to stoke one’s dreams about paddling in some of the most amazing places in the world.… (mer)