Jbel Sahro is a mighty long way from Christmas. You should see absolutely no one driving around with a pine-bough wreath for a hood ornament there. Breakaway Adventures will lead you away from it all on a 14-day trip departing Marrakech Dec. 20. For $1,095, you get three nights with breakfast and dinner in Marrakech. The rest of the time you’ll be camping in the Moroccan desert, behind a Berber guide with a mule team. (800-567-6286)
FAMILY FARE
Sometimes, the best welcome mat is a “sale” tag. For $109 a night, up to eight people can stay in a two-bedroom villa in South Carolina at Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort. The resort itself is located on a 15-acre island in Shelter Cove Harbour, and each villa has a fully equipped kitchen, private porch and whirlpool tub. The rate is good any night of the week, Sept. 21-Nov. 24 and Nov. 29-March 11. (800-453-4911)
CUISINE
Start dieting now and you may save enough calories to do justice to Le Cirque’s “symphony of desserts.” That indulgence is part of the Ultimate New York Food & Wine Weekend, presented by the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Food & Wine. A peek at the menu for the Friday night dinner at Le Cirque 2000 reveals hors d’oeuvres, lobster, roasted venison or halibut with calamari, coffee and petits fours — and the symphony. The Oct. 9-11 trip includes round-trip air, lodging, lunch in the Village and dinner Saturday at Asia de Cuba; dinners include wine, taxes and gratuities. AIWF members pay $1,125, non-members $1,200. Executive Meeting Travel is booking the tour into the Shoreham Hotel, which serves continental breakfast and a late-night dessert buffet — not a symphony, perhaps, but surely a concert. (800-323-6738)
FREE STUFF
Here’s a nice big map of Indiana that shows you where to take a scenic drive, pick your own vegetables or rent a canoe. Lists on the back give a harvest calendar, best dates and regions for fall foliage and favorite train rides. The only thing the Get Out & Go guide doesn’t give is the distance between towns. (800-469-4612) . . . There are at least nine drives in western Massachusetts that will take you through The Berkshires; one brochure, Touring the Berkshires and the Mohawk Trail, will tell you all about them. (800-237-5747)
FALL FOLIAGE
Autumn leaves spread out across four states for the 20th Century Club’s “Seven Trains in Seven Days” excursion, Oct. 15-21. The tour hits Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and North Carolina to ride dinner trains, excursion trains and passenger trains, including the Great Smoky Mountains Railway. A show at the Grand Ole Opry, a ride on the Ober Gatlinburg Aerial Tramway and stops at several railroad museums are part of the week’s activities. The price — $998 double — includes six nights in first-class hotels, admissions, 10 meals and round-trip transport by a Mid-America Tours motorcoach from Chicago or Hammond, Ind. (312-829-4500)
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Tour prices generally are per person, based on double occupancy.
