Among the beautiful places in the world to paddle, consider planning a
trip to Mongolia. I've been working with Andy Parkinson of 'Fish
Mongolia', a flyfishing outfitter based in the UK and Ulaanbaatar, and
he has imported a fleet of canoes and gear in order to let me run the
first commercial canoe trip in NW Mongolia.

The tourist industry there is beginning to open up a bit, but its
still definitely in its infancy. Andy is helping the government
spearhead eco-responsible tourism, and adding canoe expedition
outfitting to his array of guided flyfishing trips is the first step
in what he hopes will be another venue to bring responsible tourists
to remote regions of Mongolia, previously only open to a handful of
backpackers and overlanders.

The next few years would be an excellent time for some of the more
adventurous expedition boaters to get to this region that has
previously been inaccessible to canoe trips, because of the lack of
open boats and the lack of knowledgable outfitters in the region to
help with logistics. The costs are not excessively prohibitive, and
Andy has been extremely flexible and cooperative. Once you get into
Ulaanbaatar (serviced by modern airlines), the entire trip costs for a
10 day trip are similar to outfitted trips most places in North
America. And I think if enough experienced people start showing an
interest, Andy might be willing to rent out the boats rather than
provide guided trips, and costs will decrease even more.

If you have ever paddled a region and though "Man, I wonder what this
was like for the first people to explore it, before it became part of
the mainstream and became well-known", this is your chance to find
out.

--riverman