Deep routes

In the U.S. and Europe, proliferating tourist trails go off beaten path to places with common themes, local color

For the bored and the obsessed, the tourist trail was made for you.

Tourist trails link destinations, sights or attractions that share a common theme. If you are a traveler interested in that theme -- or have gone to a place that happens to be included in the trail, and liked it -- chances are you'll like other places along the trail, too.

If you've come to Virginia to shop for handmade crafts, for instance, local tourism officials and craft organizations have already done most of the legwork for you with their Virginia Artisans Trail Network (artisanscenterofvirginia.org). They have put together 13 trails throughout the state.

Trails have become ways to explore new parts of a world we may have thought we knew, only to turn up new discoveries.

Theme tourist trails are becoming an ever more popular way to encourage visitors to check out lesser-known places and to linger a little longer. Often they are organized by tourism officials along with local government and business leaders and other groups interested in developing a region's economy.

The Fresno County Fruit Trail, for example, was started as a way to help small-scale farmers in California gain another source of income by offering tours, pick-your-own or even bed-and-breakfast accommodations to tourists. It was a way to keep the family farm alive.

That's why the United Nations' World Tourism Organization devoted much of its annual conference last year to tourist trails. Today's travelers want more "experiential" and "authentic" opportunities to see the world, interacting with the locals and learning about their traditions. The trails lead them from the big, famous and often lifeless repositories of history and art back to the places and people of its origins.

The trail idea isn't new. Pilgrimage routes have been around for centuries. People have followed in the paths of famous explorers, such as the Lewis and Clark Trail.

But the ways the trails are set up and how we follow them are changing. Public relations companies are offering theme-route consultations. They work with local people to identify the unique and most valuable resources -- history, art, crafts, geography -- of their communities but also assure that trails offer amenities like accommodations, rest stops, scenic overlooks, etc.

New types of technology are being used to help tell old stories. The Mason County Cultural Trails newly established Barn Quilt Trail and Lumber Heritage Trail may bring you back to the old agricultural traditions of this area of northern Michigan, but you learn all about how to fell a tree or what life was like in a lumber camp from the privacy of your cellphone in recorded and video programs.

Aside from a few famous trails like the Silk Road and the Lewis and Clark Trail, many are not well known. But many organizations have well-funded and established programs and have been researching and developing tourist trails for years -- the Cultural Routes of Europe, for instance. They're scrambling to come up with the maps, brochures and other materials modern tourists take for granted. Small-town trails, like the Mason County Cultural Trails, have become big news -- in their region, or perhaps their state. When planning a trip, the county and state tourism websites are your best bet for unearthing maps to the treasures.

BIG PLAYERS

• Cultural routes of Europe (culture-routes.net): began gaining some traction in the 1980s, when the official Cultural Routes program of the Council of Europe was launched with a route based on the roads along which large numbers of pilgrims from all parts of Europe traveled to one of the foremost pilgrimage sites of the Middle Ages: the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela and the tomb of the Apostle James in Spain. It was not just a religious route, but offered insight into people and civilization and was the first "pilgrimage" theme of what is now half a dozen, with 29 routes in all, covering every country in the European Union.

The routes include The European Route of Historical Thermal Towns. Wellness tourism began in places like Baden-Baden, Germany, and Biarritz, France.

Other themes include the Viking routes, European Mozart Ways, Prehistoric Rock Art Trails, European cemeteries, Route of Cistercian Abbeys, Megalithic Culture and many more.

• The U.S. National Scenic Byways Program (www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep/scenic_byways): Part of the Federal Highway Administration, this grass-roots collaborative effort helps recognize, preserve and enhance selected roads throughout the United States that are deemed significant based on one or more archaeological, cultural, historic, natural, recreational and scenic qualities. There are about 150 specially designated stretches of roadway in the system today.

Over three weeks, I drove the Lincoln Highway, the Historic National Road, Route 66, the Great River Road, Natchez Trace and a smidgen of the Blue Ridge Parkway. In 4,200 miles, the routes took me back to places of significance in America's history, the evolution of small towns, examples of remarkable engineering feats needed to make the roads in the first place. Most of all, these all but lost highways brought me to scenes of an America I thought had long been lost.

BIG TRAILS

• Bertha Benz Memorial Route (bertha-benz.de): Follow the route in the German state of Baden-Wurttemberg in the tracks of the world's first long-distance road trip in 1888. On an August morning that year, Benz and her two teenage sons got in the car her husband, Carl, had newly built and drove from Mannheim to her hometown of Pforzheim. It was only 65 miles, but it took three days. Several bystanders were frightened by the sight of the three-wheeled vehicle. The drive was very helpful for Carl Benz, as he was able to introduce several improvements after his wife reported what happened along the way. She made important suggestions, including an additional gear for climbing hills.

• Castle Road (burgenstrasse.de): The original route of Castle Route was between Nuremberg to Bayreuth but has been extended to Prague, with some 90 castles along the way.

• Trail of the Eagle Nests (orlegniazda.pl/en-US): In southwestern Poland, this chain of 25 medieval castles between Czestochowa and Krakow is in a protected area, the Eagle Nests Landscape Park.

• Scotland's Malt Whisky Trail (maltwhiskytrail.com): Takes you through rich scenery of rural Speyside to seven distilleries, including Chivas Regal, Glenfiddich and Glenlivet.

• Wild Atlantic Way (wildatlanticway.com): Dramatic seaside scenery, history and culture along 1,553 miles heading south on the western coast of Ireland from County Donegal's Inishowen Peninsula to Kinsale on the Celtic Sea in County Cork.

• Barcelona (barcelonaturisme.com): The culture-packed city of Barcelona has more than a dozen theme trails, including the Gaudi Route, Picasso Route, Medieval Route and the Josep Puig i Cadafalch Route, named for a politician who was president of Catalonia from 1917 to 1925. He was an archaeologist, an expert in Romanesque art and influential in shaping the city's architecture.

U.S. HISTORY TRAILS

• California Trail: The largest migration in history followed this trail in the 1840s to the rich farmland and gold fields of California, covering more than 1,000 miles. Info: nps.gov/cali/index.htm.

• Lewis and Clark Trail: This is the famous trail covering 2,000 miles that led fur traders, trappers, missionaries and settlers west. Info: nps.gov/lecl/index.htm.

• Santa Fe Trail: This historic trail took traders, soldiers and settlers from western Missouri west through Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Info: nps.gov/safe/index.htm.

• Trail of Tears: This is the 1830s trail of the forced migration of the American Indian tribes west from the southeastern United States (including Arkansas). Info: nps.gov/trte/index.htm.

SPIRITS

• Wine put California's Napa and Sonoma on the map, followed by the Finger Lakes Wine Trail in upstate New York. Now every state, including Arkansas, produces wine, and each has a wine trail. Information: americaswinetrails.com.

• For a good old brewery tour experience, go to brewtrail.com. There you'll find databases of breweries that offer tours and have taprooms and a search engine that lets you blaze your own trail.

• The Kentucky Bourbon Trail tour gives visitors a look at the art and science of crafting bourbon. A minimum of three days is recommended. Info: kybourbontrail.com.

JUST FOLKS

• The White Lightning Trail of Tennessee (tntrailsandbyways.com): It's a new, 200-mile motor route that starts in Knoxville and winds its way up the Clinch and Powell river valleys to Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. The route includes a drive along the Maynardville Highway, a main artery for running moonshine during Prohibition. It includes five state parks, 15 marinas and numerous craft shops and restaurants, circumnavigating the big cities for small towns in less-visited counties.

• The Crooked Road (crookedroad.org): Subtitled Virginia's Heritage Music Trail, the 330-mile route from the eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the coal field region of Virginia connects eight heritage music venues with a network of jams, festivals and concerts in towns along the way.

Travel on 10/04/2015

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