Enjoy the small town vibe that's hiding in plain sight of Vancouver, British Columbia when you take time to visit Bowman Island.

It's across this extraordinary kind of a body of water where you see orchas and obviously eagles and seals.

Work your way up the Alaska Marine Highway and then head inland to explore the great land beyond the cruise ship ports.

If you wanted a real Alaska... great land beyond the cruise ship ports.

If you wanted a real Alaska experience, say,

then you might hop into a mail plane.

And let the midnight sun surprise you

on a summer hike across the back country of Iceland. It gave one Texan more than a few things to write home about.

The sunset is not a moment that you watch happen and then you pack it up and go back into the house. It's more something

that you just see unfolding for hours. Let's chill Northern style for the hour

ahead from a cozy Canadian island to the wilds of Alaska and Iceland on Travel with

Rick Steve's.

We're heading north for adventure in the hour ahead on today's travel with Rick Steeves.

A hiking and guidebook author from Anchorage recommends exploring all of Alaska with advice on how to get there.

And a creative writing instructor from Texas tells us how he

had to wing it on his long envisioned summer hike across Iceland. The isolation

keeps it free of bears and mosquitoes, but not from a sense of mystery.

Let's start out on a relaxed island that measures a mere six by 12 kilometers

where the ferry ride to Snug Cove is just a short hop from the north shore of Metro Vancouver.

It's like a gem hiding in plain sight of Vancouver, BC.

Bowen Island is a low-key, relaxed community 20 minutes by ferry from the Vancouver North Shore.

Anthropologist and author Wade Davis has made it his home for the past few years

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