About five years ago, I randomly purchased a book called How to Stay Alive in the Woods by Bradford Angier.  Given that I found it in a fancy home decor store, I think the green rubber-bound volume with safety orange print was meant to be ironic, aimed at a dedicated urban dweller, like me, whose absence of knowledge about the natural world is profound.  

As a New Yorker, I can perfectly navigate the maze of Manhattan streets and bus routes, sizing up potential predators (hostile crackheads, speeding taxis, pitbulls) and prey (cafes with excellent lattes, sample sales, clean-ish public restrooms).  But if Internet/cellphone/GPS civilization as I know it suddenly crumbled, it's doubtful I'd be able to last very long "living off the land".

Knowing this, however, has never been enough to prompt me to change (the aforementioned book remains unread).  And though I'm not a mandatory high-heels and make-up wearing kind of gal, I would definitely put camping high on the list of "Not My Idea of Fun".  Perhaps then, it was an over-abundance of city hotels and beach resorts that recently tempted me into the wilderness of Montana by the promise of five-star camping or "glamping".

Paws Up, "the last best place," was as pretty as its website pictures: lots of tall, spindly trees, rolling green plains, and the expected big sky (it really does seem bigger in Montana).  Owned by a family who made some of their fortune via Fredericks of Hollywood and SuperCuts, it was a tad tedious to get to: a two-hour flight from New York to Chicago, followed by a three-hour flight to Missoula, one of the state's progressive hubs (as evidenced by the popularity of "Keep Missoula Weird" bumper stickers).  From there, it was about a 30-minute drive to the resort's 60 square miles of adventure, where one could stay in River Camp or Tent City (a dozen 270-square-foot tents with real beds, electricity, and butlers); get rubbed down in Spa Town (10 treatment tents); or drive ATVs (this is apparently what the Rolling Stones did when they stayed here), fly-fish, repel, go tubing and white-water rafting (in summer), or go dog-sledding, skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, and ice skating (in winter).  The site of the resort is a working ranch that was once owned by the son of Charles Lindbergh.

Montana itself is sort of intriguing as well.  Though rich people from California love to buy second homes here, the state is fourth largest in size, but ranks 47th in terms of density of people per square mile (the total population is not even a million).  Why is a place this lovely so unappealing?  Well, the winters are very long, rumored to last from October to June.  Also, the state isn't very developed -- which is why it's so pristine, preserved in time as it must have looked when Lewis & Clark traversed it -- but there aren't a lot of job opportunities.  This explains why there is no sales tax in Montana.

But back to "glamping". Well, apparently, I didn't read the fine print on my invitation.  My first night at Paws Up River Camp was fine, except for the fact that I had to share my tent and my one place of solace, my bathroom (which was chic with modern plumbing and heated floors), with someone else: namely the publicist for the resort.  At night, you fall asleep to the soothing sound of the Blackfoot River (this is the river that inspired the famous Montana novel A River Runs Through It).  Also, with a price tag of $675/night, though everyone who worked at the resort was friendly and attentive, I was shocked that the food (included in the meal plan) was lackluster, and nothing ran smoothly (we waited until 4 p.m. to check into our tents).  Still, had I stayed there, I probably would have enjoyed myself.

But instead, the second day we had to pack up and head out on a Paws Up excursion to Encampment at Bull Creek, an adventure that started with a five-hour trek on horseback.  It would have been one thing if we were a bunch of journalists from Outside or National Geographic Adventure, but as it were, there were four of us who had never spent more than an hour on a horse our entire lives.  The dead giveaway were the fashions we donned for the day:  one had a pair of black boots with 4-inch heels; another wore a pair of $500 Cole Haan soft calfskin boots in whiskey brown; and, not being a big fan of jeans (the suggested attire), I decided on a vintage '70s denim jumpsuit.

I am going to devote my entire next blog to my horse, Kodiak, but suffice it to say that after just the first two hours, snaking up the mountain on a rubble trail with steep cliff drop-offs, I was rubbed raw in a place on my body I didn't even know could hurt (inner upper thigh near your anus).

When we finally made it to camp after nearly a whole day of dead silence (all of the participants, including our cowboy guides, were either too exhausted or mortified to speak), we arrived at the camp site.  To be fair, with real camping, we would have had to set up our own tents and cook our own food, and we wouldn't have been sleeping on such comfy cots.  That was taken care of for us by a really lovely woman who stayed up at the camp site for the whole summer season (bless her).  But given that people pay $1,200 for this 48-hour experience, I was expecting something better than the second grader school lunches (Doritos, white bread with ham and cheese, and Oreo cookies anyone?); the stinking long-drop outhouse (two of my colleagues later confessed to me that they didn't poop for the whole two days we were there); and having to pick ticks off myself.

I would compare the endless trek up on horseback to Encampment (or Internment, as I would come to refer to it) to an 18-hour flight to Johannesburg in coach.   But even exhausted, I didn't sleep peacefully because nature continued to test me.  I awoke twice with a cricket on my face.  Also, I had to pee badly, but rather than gather my Bear Bell (yes, a bell to prevent sneaking up on bears, but which I thought might rather alert mountain lions to come attack me) and head up to the horror-show outhouse, I decided to pee into a cup and pour it out a few feet away from my tent for the deer (we were told the deer were stalking us for our pee: They needed the salt).

The next day might have been okay if we had been able to rest, but instead we were rallied for a three-mile hike to a glacier lake the locals call Dead Horse (nice).  Three miles didn't sound too bad: I mean, I go to the gym and do that on a treadmill several times a week.  But I didn't realize the climb would be 2,000 feet straight up to an elevation of 7,300 feet.  I was huffing and puffing, my head was pounding with the onset of altitude sickness, and I was so miserable, I thought I might actually expire.  Again, no one said anything.  We walked in silence, at some points through the snow, at some points sweating like marathon runners, feeling like we couldn't complain to our cowboy hosts who already thought we were a bunch of soft city fillies.

The weird thing is that once we got to the glacier lake, it was a non-event.  Sure, it was pretty, but there weren't even blankets to sit on, just the dirt and patches of grass, as we dug into day two of all-American crap foods.  We had each paid $25 for a fishing license, so our guides talked us through hooking a few tiny trout (all of them released back into the river).  At one point, I was lying down and trying to relax when the guide hooked me right in the armpit.  When he came to take the hook back, he ripped it out of my shirt, only afterwards asking, "Oh, was it in your skin too?"

I know for a fact that I was the biggest complainer on the trip.  I was sick of me too.  It just wasn't what I thought I had signed up for and my mind boggled.  How did I end up here?  Yes, Montana is quite beautiful, but the idea of paying $600 a day to be tortured and made miserable seemed ludicrous.  I think I could have managed to do it some other way in some other locale Rachael Ray-style for $40 a day.

I'm still picking ticks off myself back in NYC, but I will say this: After the five-hour ride back to Paws Up (the horses were anxious to get home so they started trotting -- double ouch!), my first hour in a modern bathroom with a flush toilet and a hot shower was simply DIVINE.

Cathay Che is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Travel & Leisure. She posts every Tuesday and Thursday.

Gosh, I just never got the appeal of the Hamptons.  It's like all the social status obsessed people I dislike, who clamor to get into Manhattan restaurants, bars, parties, and clubs, and make it impossible for me to enjoy myself, concentrated on one thin strip of oceanfront.  And since there are only two or three hot spots in the Hamptons, like Dune, the Pink Elephant, and the Country Club at Conscience Point (site of the infamous incident where Lizzie Grubman backed her SUV into 30 people, which occurred July 6, 2001, and brought so much attention to the soullessness of this summer playground for the rich and famous and their wannabes), they get to over-charge in a way that makes the meat packing district scene seem like a budget-friendly destination.

Plus, if you've ever been stuck in the two-lane highway traffic that can make it take up to one hour just to crawl along from East Hampton to Sag Harbor, you really have to question whether it is worth it to go out there, even if you've gotten an invite to a fabulous private estate.

These were my thoughts as I pondered an invite from Land Rover to come test drive their cars on a Mud and Ruts track at a major spread in East Hampton.  They were also offering free seminars with "experts"  including: one of Architectural Digest's top interior designers, Roderick Shade; chefs Tom Schaudel and Michael Ross from Jedediah Hawkins Inn (on Long Island in the North Fork); and adventurer and conservationist Nicholas Bougas.

The drive out there on a Thursday, mid-day, was a breeze (even though I had a crap rental car and the GPS was broken).  And the estate was very elegant -- a tasteful white house, Martha Stewart perfection, with a pool and manicured lawn.  But driving the Land Rover was really fun. 

I'm not sure, but I think these gas guzzlers are maybe one step above a Hummer in terms of miles per gallon.  The first ridiculously luxurious thing: My seat had a temperature control.  Soon I felt a chill spreading under my rump and worried that I might have wet myself (but I liked it).  It helped keep me alert too, as I drove almost sideways through crazy man-made valleys, and up one very steep incline.  My driving instructor (yes, a Land Rover expert was in the car the whole time, thank stars) made me stop at the top of the hill, and it was just like that moment on a roller coaster when you climb and climb up before the big drop, and there's that pregnant pause as you are about to go over the falls.  After putting the car in first gear on the Mud and Ruts setting on the toggle wheel near the gearshift,  he said, "I know this is going to be hard for you, but I want you to take your feet completely off the pedals as you go down this incline.  Just let the car take care of it."

I digested that info intellectually, then I just did it.  Gave it enough gas to get over the hump and start rolling and lifted my feet.  The car shifted into auto-drive and controlled its speed all the way down.  Cool.  It did weird, subtle adjustments the whole time we were on rocky terrain. It's an amazing machine, but I wondered as I sped up and splashed some major mud on the perfectly polished grill, what percentage of Land Rover owners actually go off-roading?  I mean, I always associate them with the Real Housewives of Orange Country and rich MILFs.

Next up, the experts.  I learned to prepare duck l'orange with chef Tom Schaudel, which is really not so hard if you have an assistant who shops for you and chops everything up, like he had for the demo.  I don't eat duck, but I'm happy to know I can prepare it "Hamptons style" for my next French paramour.  Also, I was impressed that nothing was wasted.  The duck fat was saved to make duck fat croutons (like pork rinds), and the orange peel was thinly sliced, soaked in simple syrup, and baked to make orange peel candy: Both were used as garnish.

Decorator Roderick Shade was fabulous too, saying there was really no wrong, it's all about what you like.  And really, we all do know what we like: colors, style of furniture, etc.  Just look at the stuff you already own and want to keep and incorporate it into a new space.  Now, if only I had a six-room beach mansion and the budget to hire a interior designer! 

And then I was utterly charmed by Nicholas Bougas, a British expat who now lives in Belize and runs an eco resort called Gracie Rock Reserve.  He's been working for years to conserve this area of jungle lands and protect the species that live there, and apparently he's succeeded in having all but one central plot declared conservation land.  That one plot, unfortunately, is owned by Taiwanese businessmen who want 4.5 million dollars for it.  So, he's trying to raise that money by offering tours to foreign visitors and getting them invested in the solution and the beauty of the wild.  Great guy.  I assured him 4.5 million wasn't really that much: The right celebrity could raise it in a night. But that is a fortune in Belize.  Bougas will also be leading a new Abercrombie & Kent jungle safari in Belize.  This is like the Rolls Royce of adventure companies, so if you can afford it, this is the way to go!

Bougas had a great Land Rover story too: He once led a group of visiting journalists on a jungle safari during an unexpected flood, and the Land Rovers literally drove through rivers.  I believe it.  I was in a customized Land Rover while stalking animals in the bush in South Africa a couple years back, and not only was it totally silent, but I swear that car could drive over anything, even the tops of trees.

I still left disliking the hell out of the stuffy Hamptons, but I quite enjoyed my day of mini adventures in spending money that I don't have.

Cathay Che is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Travel & Leisure. She posts every Tuesday and Thursday.

"Traitor," a gay acquaintance hissed at me as I entered the Fresh Market, the gourmet grocery store that opened in The Pines, Fire Island, in 2007.  As a dedicated fag hag, I've been going out to the Pines since the mid-'90s, but times are a changin' in more ways than one.

A dozen years ago, I would stay with my struggling 20-something gay male buddies in a group house -- seven bedrooms split 14 ways.  This allowed a revolving cast of 28 people total, each with a half share, to come every other weekend.  I think people paid about $2,000 a summer for this arrangement. If you do the math on that, that's $48K total for the whole house, and yes, landlords get away with it because The Pines community on Fire Island isn't just another beach town: It's like the gay utopian summer camp most of these men never had.  The costume parties and the canapes and the cattiness do sometimes get out of hand (every house seemed to have at least one major scandal and one major relationship drama), but it's like a big homosexual fraternity party.

Don't get me wrong: The Pines also has many natural charms -- big sandy beaches, wild deer, and battering surf.  And I love the process of getting out there: taking the LIRR train from Penn Station in New York to Sayville Station on Long Island, then getting a $5 shuttle bus to The Pines Ferry, then sitting on the roof and sunning during the $7.50, 30-minute jaunt across to Fire Island.  Once you arrive, its a picturesque land of wooden walkways with no cars.  Everyone walks and transports their stuff in old-fashioned red wagons.  It's always 95 percent gay men, some young and beautiful, most older and wealthy, with just a handful of heteros who got smart and like it better than The Hamptons, and fag hags like me.

BTW, though "fag hag" has a negative connotation to many, it does not to me (though I once tried to spearhead a movement to call women who are best friends with gay men "fruit flies" instead).  It's just a fact that gay men, from Andy Warhol to my Uncle Flloyd (who had a glass eye and a penchant for green velvet jumpsuits), influenced me in my formative years.  I have a similar aesthetic and sense of humor to many gay men, and find their company comfortable and yet stimulating.  That's just how it is.

I digress, but flash forward to the present, summer 2008, and yes, I'm still hanging out with fags and summering in The Pines.  Now my gay best friend has a private house with four bedrooms (one of them is mine all the time, whether I'm there or not) right on the sand with a pool facing the ocean.  It's occupied by three dogs and their doggy "manny," Raoul.  And according to my best gay friend's boyfriend, who defected for many years to the Hamptons, a house in The Pines is still a steal at $60K for the summer compared to $200K in Amagansett.

And we're different, too, in our thirties. Instead of heading out to High Tea at 5 p.m. each day, we are on the island to mix and mingle. We cook, read, play games, watch DVDs, banter, and flip through The New Yorker, New York, and Newsweek by the pool. We rarely leave the house, except to maybe get a Starbucks in the harbor. Yes, this is progress and related to my original point -- there's some new retail blood in The Pines.

Literally for a dozen years, it was just The Pantry grocery store, the bar where Tea happens, the Sip and Twirl bar (frequented by older gay men), a few clothing boutiques, and a pizza joint.  But now one wealthy gay man (rumored to be a bit of a megalomaniac, but what guy worth dozens of millions isn't?) has bought the floating "Boatel" and the adjacent retail strip and is shaking things up.

The Starbucks is inside a little cafe with the slowest service on the planet.  But the Fresh Market is the biggest change. At first it was rumored to be a full Citarella, but they just get produce from there.  But it's almost as good, with campy sandwiches with names like the Brad Pitt, the Johnny Depp, and the Leonardo DiCaprio, and a lettuce wrap called the Mary Kate Olsen (hysterical).  And there's all that gourmet foodstuff that I like eating as long as someone else knows how to put it together and serve it up.  As for the prices, they are no worse than The Pantry, which serves up petrified Boar's Head deli-meat sandwiches.  And over the years, I never felt like the people who worked at The Pantry really liked gay people or even went out of their way to stock the food that people wanted. 

So, in short, go ahead, call me a traitor.  But I think having some competition and some motivation to be better/nicer only helps make The Pines, my fag hag paradise, even more sublime.

Cathay Che is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Travel & Leisure. She posts every Tuesday and Thursday.

Ahh ... Berlin.

A city teeming with energy and life. I get  one day only to go there. I have been in Halle, Germany, performing with Big Art Group in the Theatre Der Welt - Theater of the World, a festival that changes cities in Germany every year with shows from all over the world. This year, 18 countries are represented. Halle is a small city, and we're thirsty for a big one.

A small group of us decided to take one of our only days off to see Berlin.

Going from the Halle Hauptbahnhof (central train station) to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, do buy your tickets in advance and you will pay about half of what we did on the day of. It cost a grand 34 euros each way from Halle, which is in East Germany, to Berlin on the fast train with no connections (one hour and 20 minutes). This is a steep price that could have been avoided had we purchased tickets the day before. And I was warned, so I can only blame myself. The train from Halle had no air conditioning on top of that, which was not fun as it was a 90-degree day.

We left Halle at noon. We arrived at the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, which is overwhelmingly huge and modern. It has a glass-paned roof and glass-paned walls and, with three levels and many escalators, it truly feels like the future. When we arrived there, we got on another train -- the subway there has two lines, called the U Bahn and S Bahn.

They don't have turnstiles like in the subway in NYC, but you must have a ticket, stamp it on the platform, and hold on to it, for if you are caught without it by the undercover train cops, you will be fined 50 euros on the spot. Also, be sure to get a subway map.

We each got a day pass for six euros and hopped on the S Bahn to the Hackescher Market stop. We walked straight over for lunch at Mr. Wong (Monsieur Vuong) on Alt Shonhauser Str.

Mr. Wong serves Vietnamese food and is usually packed, but since we went on a Sunday, it was very easy to get a table for six with no wait. On a Saturday, good luck, they do not take reservations. The meals are cheap and there are great specials and fresh fruit drinks and they have booze if you are in the mood.

We had a fresh watermelon drink and, being a vegetarian, I had tofu and veggie curry over rice noodles and a delicious Vietnamese espresso afterward, which had a bit of condensed milk in the bottom of the glass. Yum. Lunch cost about 12 euros.

In Mitte, we could only window shop because all the shops were closed, an important fact to remember if you are there on a Sunday. This made me very sad, since the same street as Mr. Wong (Alte-Schonhauser Str.) has some of the best boutique shopping in Berlin for a fashionista who can afford it, or a window-shopping fashionista who wants inspiration and might get lucky and find a sale.

Directly across the street form Mr. Wong is Herr Von Eden: gorgeous suits for men and women, both formal and informal, with impeccable tailoring. Claudia Skoda Knitwear is made in Berlin and seriously the most beautiful knitwear I have ever seen or touched with my own hands. There is also Best Shop Berlin, which features an eclectic array of clothes with interesting shapes, patterns, and colors. That's just naming a few.

Luckily, on Sunday, museums are open, so we hopped back on the subway over to the Hamburger Bahnhof museum of contemporary art.  Four to eight euros for entry.  We were there for two hours while we viewed Wolfgang Tillman's Lighter exhibit and looked at some of their permanent collection, including a room of Andy Warhol, which was fabulous.

Suddenly it was 6 p.m., so  we were kicked out of the museum and we were pooped. Time for a drink. Continuing on the modern art vibe, we went to the Newton Bar, named after photographer Helmut Newton, which has a life-sized photo of Helmut Newton's Nudes Walking covering one wall. It's a very glamorous spot.  A glass of Roederer champagne, 11 euros.

This was a costly day but well worth it.

Then we zoomed over to Friedrich Str. to see Checkpoint Charlie, even though by now it was getting dark. Checkpoint Charlie, an important part of Berlin's history, was the checkpoint by foot or by car between East and West Berlin before the Berlin Wall fell in the late 1980s. It is a symbol of freedom for East Berlin and a Cold War memorial. There are graffiti-covered pieces of the wall up as memorials all up and down Friedrich Str. Right there is the Mauer Museum, but, alas, it was closed.

After that, we went to have a bite and some of us stayed in Berlin, but a friend and I went back to the big old Berlin Bahnhof, thinking we were getting on an 11 p.m. train back to Halle, only to find we had misread the time of the train for the date and had to wait until 12:45 a.m. to get back to Halle. I tell you this so you don't make the same mistake. Still, a late train is better than no train. So to kill time, I tried about 10 different hand creams at the 24-hour apothecary in the station. I paid 80 cents to take a piss and finally got on the train, arrived back in Halle at a little after 2 a.m., and slept like a baby.

Theo Kogan is giving MOLI View readers an insider's look at her world travels. Look for her regular column, appearing Tuesdays and Thursdays in the MOLI View's Fashion & Design.