Tim was a little boy. He was only ten years old.But he liked traveling. Tim was studying in a primary school. Last week he went on a school trip with his teachers and classmates.

They spent one hour on the bus and finally got to the hill.

After they got to the top of the hill, they took out the food. Tim had lunch with his classmates. Then they began to dance and sing and they played games on the hill.

Finally, it was time for them to go home.

Extreme tourism (极限旅游) is travel that has a strong sense of adventure or even physical danger. Some extreme tourists like to travel to places that are considered fairly or even extremely unsafe for some environmental reasons. For example, they may travel to areas that have been influenced by some disasters, or to countries that are at war.

Another form of extreme tourism includes traveling to a place in order to take part in one or more relatively dangerous activities. While there are many different extreme activities for extreme tourists to choose, most of these activities are physical in nature. For example, an extreme tourist may take a trip which includes staying with great white sharks, base jumping, traveling across a desert, or exploring underwater caves.

Some tourists plan their own extreme travel trips, while others work with an extreme travel company. As extreme activities and places can be dangerous to the tourists, many travel experts advise extreme tourists to book trips through a company. Working with experienced extreme travel professionals can help make sure that the tourist is provided with proper things during his or her trip and that he or she receives proper medical attention if he or she is hurt. An extreme travel company may also be able to connect the tourist with local guides or translators when necessary.

People who are against extreme tourism think that this form of travel may bring damage to certain areas of the planet. For example, extreme travel to the Antarctic (南极) rose greatly from the late 20th century to the early 21^st century. Many environmentalists and scientific researchers argue that continued Antarctic tourism may lead to the pollution (污染) of the area as well as the introduction of some harmful foreign things, which could threaten the safety of its ecosystem (生态系统).

Working as a tour guide in the scenic White Island of New Zealand sounds like a dream come true for an adventurous man, unless of course, the incredible happens.

At 21, Jack Stevenson was working as a tour guide on White Island when he was caught in the middle of a killer volcanic eruption. Considered an active volcano, many have questioned the decision to allow tourists to visit White Island. But its splendid scenery, warm and skilled natives there and adventurous exploration attract more than 18,000 people travel to that spot every year.

Jack along with a group of tourists hiked its winding trails, admired the impressive beauty, dived into its cold lakes, and fished for treats in its streams. Of course, he knew the mountain was an active volcano... Still there is a village at the foot of it.

Suddenly Jack found himself in the middle of the deadliest and most destructive volcanic event in its history. Black smoke rolled down the side of the mountain towards the village as soon as they felt the earthquake, and then ash and rock erupted everywhere. Men, women and children tried their best to go as far away from the volcano as possible as the lava melted its way quickly.

During the hurry to escape, Jack offered to help.

Jack is now back home in Whakatane, from where he can see White Island and read the letters from tourists.

“Maggie, I’ll go to Edinburgh tomorrow for business. Would you like to come with me?” Grandpa asked his young granddaughter.

She looked up at him with excited eyes and said, “Grandpa, I’d love to go. Can we go to the castle (城堡)? Can we shop on the Princes street? Can we go on a double-decker bus (双层巴士)?”

“Hold on there. I can’t promise we will be able to go to the castle ,but perhaps we can do a bit of shopping and go on the bus,”he said, “Go and ask your grandmother if it is all right with her.”

Maggie ran off to find her. She was outside in the garden. “Grandma, can I go with grandpa to Edinburgh tomorrow?”

Grandma stopped weeding the turnip patch. “Go and have fun,” she said.

“Why don’t you come too, Grandma?” Maggie asked.

“I’ve got too much work here. My garden needs weeding and I’ve got to tend to the sheep,” she explained . “You go and enjoy yourself. ”

Maggie hardly slept that night, she’d only been to Edinburgh once before. She was up before the sun rose over the horizon. Grandpa said they were to get an early start. Maggie ate breakfast, which consisted of porridge and a banana, then dressed and was ready to go. Grandpa waited for her outside. “Are you ready?” he asked, smiling down at her.

Maggie was wearing a bright red skirt, a white blouse (衬衫) with little red flowers embroidered on the corner, a red cardigan (开衫),white socks and red shoes, and her brown pigtail (马尾) were tied in red ribbons. “I’m ready, grandpa,”she said excitedly.

He took her by the hand and they walked down to the bus station. They boarded soon after arriving and found a seat near the front. Maggie sat by the window. During the long drive down to the town, she sat staring out of the window. “We are almost there ,”grandpa nudged (轻推) her. “Look up there on the hill. That’s the castle,” he said softly.

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At last the bus stopped at the bottom of the hill near the castle.

Grandpa and Maggie walked down the hill, through the park and over to the bus station.

I think that you are never going to be as happy as you were when you were little. There are no worries when you are little. The things that worried you most are not important things. My most memorable moments happened when I was a child. I can not remember a lot of them because I was very little but I remember the most exciting thing for me at that time.

Some of my friends that I have now have been my best friends since childhood. It is really nice to still have them in my life. Most of them I know are from school but some of them are because of our mothers. And it is really strange to think that you have spent all your life with them. We often went out for sightseeing during holidays, which really made us kids happy and helped establish sincere friendship.

One trip that I remember a lot was when I went with one of my best friend Kate to a cruise (乘船游览) to the Caribbean islands in a summer holiday when I was 10 years old. Going there was a perfect thing that I’d always dreamed of. On the way to the cruise, we were very excited. We both were going with our families. We were together all of the time. Sometimes she came to sleep in my room and sometimes I went to hers. When we got down in the islands we also spent all of the time together because our mothers are also very good friends. On the morning of the last day of the trip the cruise stopped near a mall to let tourists go into the mall to do some shopping. Both Kate’s and my parents were busy in choosing clothes and we showed no interest in clothes, so we felt a little bored, having nothing to do.

Kate and I decided to go to a toy counter to buy some Barbie dolls.

Tour disappointment, our mothers didn’t appear.

The bus ran along the winding mountain road. Trying not to look at the road, I stared out the large window at the tropical greenery (绿色植物) that covered the mountain.

Next to me, my mother was as absorbed by the view as I was. She had won the trip to Costa Rica as an award for her high performance at her job. She had decided to take me with her so that we could have some “girl time” together in a new place, and I couldn’t be happier to be in such a beautiful place.

Our bus came to a small parking lot surrounded by forest. Our guide had told the tour group that it was a cloud forest we were visiting. People started to rise from their seats and moved toward the door. My mom and I picked up our bags and started down the narrow passage, excited to finally get to go on a hike after the hour-long bus ride.

When the entire group had gathered outside, the guide smiled at us. “This is an active volcano we are standing on top of now,” he said. “You have the opportunity to explore without a guide. There are two paths you can follow when we get into the woods: the first is a shorter loop (环线) and will take you back here in forty minutes or so; the second will take you a longer way, and you should be back here in an hour and twenty minutes. The longer loop is very steep, but certainly doable. All of you should be back here in two hours, which should give you plenty of time to admire the beautiful wildlife of Costa Rica! Go ahead and get started!”

Mom looked at me uncertainly. “I assume you would like to do the longer loop,” she said after a moment. I nodded. We only had five days here, and I wanted to see as much as I could during that time. Mom finally agreed.

We set out on the trail that led further into the dark cloud forest.

Gradually both of us realized the road got steeper and steeper.