BIRDING
Alabama
FLY ZONE
Forty-five minutes northwest of Selma, Christopher Joe and his father, Cornelius, operateConnecting with Birds and Nature Tours on their two-hundred-acre working cattle farm in Newbern. “It’s a multi-habitat piece of land,” the younger Joe explains of the farm’s prairie, creeks, hay fields, and deep hardwood forest. “Over in the wetlands we see white ibis, wood storks, herons, and egrets. We see bald eagles every tour.” Visitors hike, cycle, and camp, but the site’s most popular activity is bird-watching. The family partners with Alabama Audubon and can accommodate private tours and small groups as well as large gatherings for up to 140 people. They’re as comfortable showing beginners how to use binoculars as they are guiding seasoned bird-watchers to find Mississippi kites, petite Southern birds of prey. The Joes also believe birding is for everyone regardless of mobility, and they offer accessible tours via an eighteen-foot spring-loaded trailer that they can move around the property to scout out swallowtails, pileated woodpeckers, and vibrant indigo buntings.
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CYCLING
Arkansas
GO-GO GRAVEL
Some 85 percent of county roads remain unpaved in the Natural State, and for cyclists, that means miles and miles of heaven, bliss, and Valhalla all bundled into one giant scoop of Ozarks rocky road. “It’s so big and so untapped,” says Danny Collins, an Ozarks native who founded 37 North Expeditions with his wife, Cristina Bustamante, after moonlighting as an expedition manager for National Geographic at a lodge in South America. But while the roads looping around Fayetteville and
