TRAVEL INSIGHT FEATURES for the MISSISSIPPI RIVER and other great world waterways.
Waterway Cruise Reports by Pat and Richard Middleton

Welcome to our Travel Insight Features on the great waterways (including the Mississippi River) and great journeys of the world!! Click on BLUE VERBIAGE LINKS or the PHOTOS to reach the full travel feature!

 View INDEXED Travel Reports by Country and Category or continue browsing through this page...

 

   Exploring the MIDI-PYRENEES of Southern France..... A rural journey through Medieval villages along the rivers of the Pyrenees.

   Luxury River Cruising with AMA WATERWAYS through
"Europe's Heartland"   

With our Mississippi River cruising steamboats inexcusably shut down for the moment, the European waterways have been teasing me to come explore a few more of the world's most renown rivers.  In this Waterway Cruise Report we explore the Mosel, Rhine, and Main Rivers!

 

     Ride the European Rails for Flexibility, Comfort and a touch of Adventure… but do pack light! We have just posted our story on traveling by TRAIN  along the Mosel, Rhine, and Main Rivers in Germany!

   Let us know your comments which are now easy to post on our PHOTO ART SITE. Looking for a great photo to commemorate your trip to Alaska, Mexico, or the Caribbean? You'll find some of the best from traveler and photographer, Rich Middleton. We will gradually be posting our extensive travel photo collections at our site, www.greatriver.smugmug.com/Travel

 

Nearly Every year Sandhill Cranes return to the Upper Mississippi River in Mid-March. But one of the great birding spectacles of all time is in Nebraska!
Wings Over the Platte River... Birding Report on the Sandhill Cranes near Grand Island, Nebraska  (click Crane Photo left, to view story)              
Mike Forsberg Photo

 Classic Train Journey, Anchorage/Seward, Alaska
Click Photo, left..

OR...

To Glacier National Park and The Izaak Walton Inn  ....Footsteps of the Empire Builder  Click Photo, right.

 

October on the Mississippi! Mississippi River Houseboating with Fun 'N The Sun Houseboat Vacations

 

We hope you enjoy our PHOTO ESSAYS which compliment our Travel Insight Features!  You'll find a growing number of photo collection (we're working on Panama, the Calgary Stampede, a display of our real photo note cards and hand-painted historic maps) for all our adventure trips featured on this small boat cruise report site. Please visit. You can order prints online and we'll offer the same great detail that you get in our other top-rated Waterway Cruise Reports. PLEASE, give us some feed back on how you like this new photo format. Enjoy!

 

Paddlewheeler Day Cruises, Sight-Seeing Cruises, and Dinner Cruises
are among the most popular visitor activities along the Mississippi River.

 Click here to experience the typical offerings of riverboat cruises available in such places as St. Paul, Galena, Winona, Alton, St. Louis, Hannibal, La Crosse, and many other small towns along the Mississippi.

 

     Cruising with the St. Lawrence Cruise Line from Kingston to Montreal and Quebec City.      
          Small boat river cruising at it's most comfortable, and scenic best! 

 

Wilderness! Wilderness? Explore the exquisite world renown natural beauty of the Canadian Rocky Mountains... Jasper and Banff National Parks, Lake Beauvert, and Lake Louise.

  Canada's Classic Train Journey, Vancouver to Jasper, along the Fraser and Thompson Rivers... CLICK photo left

  The BC Ferry System makes possible a fascinating road trip along the Strait of Georgia in British Columbia's breathtakingly beautiful Sunshine Coast. "10 Best Bets" and a sample itinerary!

 

 

The JBS and her Steamboating Fraternity
Steamboating on the Upper Mississippi

 

Houseboat Cruising on the Upper Mississippi...
        The REAL Huck Finn Experience!

 Click photo to see story.

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  Alaskan Adventure... Small Boat Cruise with DISCOVERY VOYAGES on Prince William Sound!  

Sometimes words are not adequate to tell a story! Our Prince William Sound Cruise on the small explorer boat, DISCOVERY, was that kind of trip. We have tried something new... our new Photo Art Site to tell this story.

 

 

 

 Cairo, Egypt, and Cruising the Nile River!
    (Click photo, left to see stories)

We'd been traveling for nearly 24 hours since leaving Savute Elephant Camp in Botswana, but our excitement at finally reaching the Land of the Pharaohs was impossible to contain. Ahead of us that great, ancient city was coming to life as it had every day for more than a thousand years.

The Rhone River Delta and the French Camargue

France is a country full of distinctive "regions" and one of the least visited is the Camargue Region of Southern France. Tour the Petit Rhone in an authentic steamboat, stay at a "dude ranch" and work the bulls with the Gardians!

 

Barging on the Canal du Midi
Southern France and the Mississippi River Connection  New! We've posted our photo album!

 

 

   Birding and Beaching in Panama.  Sunrise over the Pacific, wildlife and birds such as we only dreamed of in Costa Rica and the Amazon... We've just returned from an excursion to Panama combined one week at the Playa Blanca all inclusive resort with a week in Panama's rainforest with a group of Midwestern birders. We posted our pictures online, will be working on verbiage for the rest of the month. But go ahead a take a look! We enjoyed the beach as well as we did the birding... plus $500 each member of the birding group went to support a bird banding station we visited in a national preserve.

  Mexico's RIVIERA MAYA offers a rich pallet for the history and natural history buff. The indigenous Mayan culture, the adventure of swimming in cenotes and underground rivers, exploring Mayan ruins, and snorkeling with sea turtles proved to be highlights for us.  Our third new travel report is also greatly enhanced by a rich collection of photographs.

 

Birding in the Riparian Habitats of SE Arizona.
           
 We recently visited the San Pedro River Basin in Southeast Arizona. Like the Bosque del Apache and the Platte River in Nebraska, wetlands in Arizona are home to thousands of wintering Sandhill Cranes and other birds.  
Riparian = water-dependant environments

 
 

 

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Touring the Oregon Coast, Newport to Astoria
                       One can't cruise the Columbia River without touring the rugged coastline and windswept beaches of Oregon so close to Portland!  This road trip through fishing villages, upscale resorts, and vast wilderness areas,  is a great compliment to cruising the Columbia River.

 

 Oh, my dear fellow riverboat travelers, you will love this clip from the New York Times...Click on the photo. Then go to our BLOG at  http://www.greatriver.com/wordpress/  and see another great video and more on the debate.

 

Click each Photo to view the full article.  

DESTINATION MEXICO! 
Every year, in late summer and early fall, millions of Monarch Butterflies from the Eastern United States and Southern Canada begin a journey down the Mississippi River to the Transvolcanic Mountain Range, located west of Mexico City. How YOU can make the journey to see them clustered by the MILLIONS.... 

    Destination SPA .... The Kohler Waters Spa
at the American Club Resort
Kohler, Wisconsin  Click SPA photo, left, to see story!

 

 

 

 Just Back from ...
San Jose del Cabo on the Sea of Cortez!   Estuary Birding and Snorkeling and WHALES...

Click Photo to see story!

The River Barge Explorer, Cajun Country, and New Orleans (Lower Mississippi River) 

 

 

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Click on Envelope, left to request a FREE MINIGUIDE to
America's Great River Road, the UPPER Mississippi.

 

The Flathead River and Glacier National Park.  The Chinese will tell you that a scenic arrangement of Mountain, River and Forest denotes a propitious .... or charmed .... location.

There were once legions of professionals employed by Emperors to locate such rare locales. Somehow they missed Glacier National Park and the three forks of the Flathead River. We did not! Montanta's mountains, rivers and lakes provide outstanding adventure for hikers, backpackers, and rafters of all ages.   [Please allow Extra time for loading...lots of pictures here!]

 

 

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Join our cruise of the Yangtze River in China! This is a SLIDE show with text commentary. Click HERE to begin. Once you have viewed the slide show, the pictures will load instantly thereafter. Photographer, Lisa Middleton, guarantees you'll be glad you were patient about the downloads! If you are looking for high resolution versions of these photos please contact Lisa directly.

 

   Cruising the Columbia and Snake Rivers 

      It was first of all the Columbia River and the inaugural cruise season of the sparkling Columbia Queen that drew us west. What we remember best is the cultural and scenic richness and variety of our journey westward from the vast forests surrounding Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River to Hell's Canyon and the highland deserts along the Snake River in Idaho.

 

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