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A canoe trip is a great way to appreciate Nature!

A well-planned canoe trip is always filled with fun and adventure. If you love cruising the sea or the beautiful lake areas then a canoe trip would be a great choice for you. You can spend hours paddling about on a canoe trip and have plenty of time to enjoy the scenic beauty as it unfolds around you.

There are many such canoe trips available through canoe outfitters and trip coordinators worldwide. Depending on where you are situated, you can plan a canoe trip as part of your family holiday enjoyment or alternatively as part of a group outing.

A canoe trip is a popular choice for many people as it provides all the beauty associated with nature while the canoe itself is not that difficult to maneuver. The canoe used in modern day canoe trips is a relatively small and rigid craft. Depending on the size of the canoe used on your canoe trip, it is paddled along by one or more people sitting and facing the direction of travel.

The craft is propelled through the water by the use of single blade paddles and thus the speed reached while on a canoe trip is controlled and maintained by the paddlers. The canoe that you utilize for a canoe trip will probably be open on top and have a pointed area at each end.

Of course, a canoe trip is not the only way to enjoy a canoe. Competitive canoeing is enjoyed worldwide and features sprint canoeing (racing) and slalom as part of its many aspects. A slalom canoe is closed like a kayak to afford protection from the water and this kind of craft is not generally used for a casual canoe trip. The aim of slalom canoeing, vastly different from a canoe trip, is to navigate a canoe or kayak through a course of gates placed among river rapids, at the fastest possible speed!

Competitors are timed as they complete a descent of the rapids while passing through the different colored gates at an incredibly high speed, a far cry from the peaceful paddling of a Sunday afternoon canoe trip! Still, if excitement is your game, you can still pursue it by enjoying a canoe trip through fast moving waters, as the experience earned by paddling and maneuvering your craft will stand you in good stead should you do it competitively.

There is also another sport that offers excitement to any competitive canoe trip enthusiast. It is the game of canoe polo and is not for any faint-hearted casual canoe trip paddlers. This is a competitive sport played between 2 teams of five players each. Each team is seated in a canoe and must try and get the ball into their opponent's goal area, the winners being the team who score the most goals. The best way to work out in preparation to playing canoe polo is to take part in vigorous canoe trips as often as possible. This canoe trip training will help to increase strength levels while also increasing the paddlers ability to control the craft.

It's always exciting to travel and camp while on a canoe trip. Large distances can easily be covered on a canoe trip and the canoe can transport bulky loads with ease. A canoe trip offers a vastly different experience than does backpacking and allows for observation of aquatic life and wildlife typically found near the shore.

Any fishing you might intend as part of your vacation plan is easily accomplished while on a canoe trip. Remember when planning a canoe trip that the USA and Canada boast the most beautiful lakes and canoe trip vacation areas. Almost one quarter of the worlds freshwater lakes abound in Canada, so you can be sure of a huge available choice for your canoe trip. Not only are day trips available for canoe trip enthusiasts but long excursions of 3 weeks or more are often also available.

There are also weekend courses on the water, which will help you to spruce up your canoe trip skills, an important consideration before embarking on any canoe trip, however short it might be! Safety whilst enjoying a canoe trip should be everyone's top priority and some canoeing skills will go a long way to enhancing your whole canoe trip experience!

Copyright 2005

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