Water Travel Hall of Fame 2010

Because the heat of summer is upon us, we scoured the globe for the greatest sailing, fishing, paddling, diving, floating, surfing—you get the idea—trips out there. And since you can't always pop over to Indonesia, we picked a few close-to-home adventures, too.

By Abe Streep

Mongolia's catch-and-release regulations for taimen are strictly enforced. (Hamid Sardar/Corbis)

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Fishing Mongolia's Eg-Uur River Basin
Outside Editors' Choice
I fantasize about sight-fishing to brown trout in New Zealand, hooking salmon in Iceland, moving to Patagonia. But when I picture the fish I most want to catch, I think of a wolf. A Mongolian taimen—nicknamed "the river wolf—can reach six feet and eats, among other things, ducks. To catch one, you need to go to a place that's wilder than any bonefishing lodge; northern Mongolia is still populated by nomadic herding communities, meaning you'll be fishing alone. A friend of mine once rode in a jeep 18 hours alongside a freshly removed goatskin to catch a taimen. Luckily, there's a better way. Livingston, Montana–based Sweetwater Travel runs the best operation in the country, based out of two ger camps in the Eg-Uur river basin, where guests can expect to hook at least one taimen a day, plus netloads of lenok, a feisty Mongolian trout. $5,900, one week; sweetwatertravel.com

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The details, dates, and prices mentioned in this article were accurate at the time of publication.