(Sunset) -- Come home from your next trip relaxed and smarter. Where to learn Spanish, whitewater rafting, astrophysics and more



Sedona Spirit Yoga & Hiking offers four-day retreats among the red rocks.



Sedona, Arizona



Find your path in Arizona



In Sedona, the path to enlightenment involves hiking boots and yoga mats. Sedona Spirit Yoga & Hiking offers four-day retreats where you'll take guided hikes through red rock wilderness to vortex sites, places where the Earth's energy is supposedly strongest. You'll also learn meditation, experience a Native American sweat lodge and maybe even nail that eagle pose. Abbreviated three- to six-hour yoga hikes are also offered.



Play hooky: In between downward dogs and trail switchbacks, check out uptown Sedona's restaurants, which include vegan and raw choices, or browse art galleries.



Info: September-June; from $995, including lodging and breakfast; yoga hikes from $90; 888/282-9901. --Nora Burba Trulsson



Oaxaca, Mexico



Mix up moles south of the border



Learn to tell your chiles from your chapulines (toasted grasshoppers) at Seasons of My Heart, a cooking school in the Oaxacan countryside of southern Mexico that kicks off with some serious market research. Guided by Mexican food maven Susana Trilling, sample and buy local delicacies, then head back to the chopping blocks and stoves of Trilling's spacious blue-tiled kitchen to create complex moles and picante bisques.



Play hooky: While you're in Oaxaca, ascend the ruins of the ancient city of Monte Albán for spectacular vistas of Oaxaca Valley.



Info: Year-round; $75 for full-day class, including transportation from Oaxaca City. -Edie Jarolim



Ensenada,  Mexico



Speak Spanish in Baja



Get beyond your Mexican-restaurant-level Spanish without going back to school by spending a week at the Baja California Language College in Ensenada, Mexico, where there are no exams or grades. Thursday afternoons are set aside for excursions to a winery or a local taqueria to learn the difference between salsa verde and pico de gallo -- en español, of course.



Play hooky: Afternoons and evenings, you're free to surf, explore the area's burgeoning wine region or practice your language skills at the harbor's fish market as you search for the perfect tacos de pescado.



Info: Year-round; $279 for weeklong classes in which you log 30 hours; 877/444-2252. -David Lansing



Near Steamboat Springs, Colorado



Blaze some trails in Colorado



Connect with your inner cowboy at the Vista Verde Ranch, a cluster of cabins and a main lodge on the flanks of the Continental Divide 45 minutes north of Steamboat Springs. With 80 horses, daily clinics and morning and afternoon rides, greenhorns and seasoned equestrians can develop their skills in the arena and on trails threading through the aspen forests. Plus, resident horse-whisperer Orval Bedell is on hand to teach rodeo tricks such as how to rope a calf.



Play hooky: Soak in 105 degree mineral waters at the Strawberry Park Hot Springs ($10; 7 miles north of Steamboat Springs; 970/879-0342).



Info: June-September; from $3,200 per week, including meals, lodging and activities; 970/879-3858. --Jad Davenport



Salmon River, California



Master whitewater paddling



Get command of whitewater paddling basics at Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School, a wilderness hideaway on Northern California's Salmon River, about 112 miles northeast of Eureka. You'll start by practicing stroke technique, wet exits and rolling in the lodge's flat-water pond before graduating to day trips on the warm class I-II water of the Salmon and Klamath Rivers. Don't sweat it if you can't master a roll on the first day: Otter Bar's instructors shadow your every paddle stroke, and if you go over, they're more than happy to right your boat (in kayak-speak, the "hand of God").



Play hooky: The wood-fired sauna and on-call massage therapist can work out your paddling kinks.



Info: April-September
How much is the course? where in mexico it offers cooking classes Seasons of My Heart Where is the school located? that place offers Mexican cooking classes in Oaxaca
$75 for full-day class, school in the Oaxacan countryside of southern in the Oaxacan countryside of southern Mexico Seasons of My Heart,
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