TRAVELLING IN STYLE : EXCELLENT ADVENTURES : Just Do It! : When a mere vacation seems mundane, try diving with sharks, dog-sledding with Eskimos or flying a supersonic jet

WHILE CONFLICTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST, THE RECESSION AND THE possibility of having to sit next to John Sununu in four-across coach seats might discourage some of us from taking off right now, to any destination, there’ll always be travelers who will go just about anywhere and do just about anything for a really odd and wonderful vacation. And we’re not just talking dinner at Spago or a front seat at Sea World, either. We’re talking about the kinds of trips daydreams are made of. More timid types might flop in their rockers, with their heads laid back and their eyes closed, and sigh, “I wish I could.” Today’s truly adventurous traveler, though, actually can.

Can what? Well, for instance:

DIVE WITH SHARKS. A dive cruiser takes 10 people at a time out into the ocean off Port Lincoln in South Australia to hunt--up close--for live sharks, each January and February (Australia’s summer). The boat is equipped with three cages, each holding as many as four people. (Use of scuba gear is required, but because cages remain close to the surface, even non-divers can use the equipment successfully.) The ultimate thrill--not guaranteed but not uncommon either--is to see a great white shark feed on a giant tuna smack in front of your face. According to Carl Roessler, who runs the tours, no human has been nibbled yet. The seven-day sail also includes exploration of remote coral reefs and islands off Australia and lots of diving, much of it in the company not of sharks but of sea lions and seals. Cost: $8,500 per person from Port Lincoln, which is near the port city of Adelaide. For more information, telephone See and Sea Travel Service of San Francisco, (415) 434-3400.

A considerably less expensive and more easily accessible version of the shark-cage experience, available to certified scuba divers only, is offered by Steve Whitaker out of Avalon, on Catalina Island. All year round, from six to 12 times a month, depending on demand, Whitaker runs two shark-diving trips: one on a large boat holding as many as 24 passengers, the other on a small craft limited to six. Lowering his cages in spots anywhere from seven to 28 miles off Catalina, Whitaker claims “a 99% success rate in putting divers in the water with sharks,” which include makos, an occasional thresher and blue sharks ranging from 12 inches to 17 feet in length. Sightings of dolphins, whales and other sea creatures are also common. Cost of the one-day excursions that include snacks, lunch, beverages, air tanks and weights--but not other scuba equipment, which may be rented: $199 per person for the large boat, $250 per person for the small one. For more information, telephone Whitaker at (800) 677-4274.

DOG-SLED WITH ESKIMOS. In March, when Greenland starts to warm up a bit (comparatively speaking, of course), you can take part in the Thule Traverse, a three-week dog-sled trip with Inuit guides. The trek begins in northwest Greenland and continues westward along the coast to the frozen straits that take you to Ellesmere Island in Canada, at about 80 degrees north latitude. The sledding progresses southward to Canada’s northernmost permanent settlement, Grise Fjord. Along the way, you’ll see glaciers and as many polar bears, arctic birds and such as you can manage to spot through the whiteouts. Cost: approximately $10,000 per person, not including transportation to and from the departure point, which is the town of Resolute in the Northwest Territories. The tour is organized by Ecosummer Expeditions in Vancouver, British Columbia, (604) 669-7741.

FLY A SUPERSONIC JET. “We call it Rocket ‘n’ Roll,” says John Alexander, the head of Dreams Come True, an adventure-travel-planning firm founded in 1984 to offer clients the chance to do “anything fun and legal.” Alexander has contracted with a man he refuses to identify by name, who is said to have the only privately owned supersonic jet in America. This mystery man will take you up in the dual-control, state-of-the-art T-38 for as long as a full tank of fuel will carry you. The T-38, a plane used by astronauts for training flights, speeds from solid ground to an altitude of 37,000 feet in less than a minute and can execute a 720-degree roll in less than a second. “The owner describes it as a blowtorch with wings,” notes Alexander. Before climbing aboard, you must go through a half-day of ground school, learning emergency procedures and basic facts about the plane. Then you tell the owner-pilot how to use your fuel tank: If you want to break the sound barrier, the fuel will go quickly; rolls and other tricks get slightly better mileage. Cost: an appropriately astronomical $9,999. Experientia Travel in Los Angeles books the flights for Dreams Come True; telephone (213) 962-3505 for details.

BUY A TICKET TO TIMBUKTU. The very sound of the name Timbuktu bespeaks exotic travel. At one time, the city, on the edge of the Sahara near the Niger River, was a major capital of Islamic scholarship and the center of West African commerce--a place that was the destination for the richest of caravans. Although caravans still leave from modern Timbuktu (now officially spelled Tombouctou ), it is no longer primarily a trade hub but rather an important historic and cultural center for the poverty-stricken nation of Mali. The adventure touring company Mountain Travel-Sobek conducts an 18-day excursion to the city from Mali’s capital, Bamako, including a four-day desert trek through villages populated by Dogon tribespeople. Upon reaching Mopti, a lively and picturesque market town on the Niger, travelers transfer to a dugout (a boat hollowed out of a log) for the two-day river trip to fabled Timbuktu itself. Once there, they have the chance to ride camels themselves, just as the ancient caravan travelers did. Cost: $4,090, air fare to Bamako not included. For details, telephone Mountain-Travel Sobek in El Cerrito, Calif., (800) 227-2384.

SEE THE “LOST WORLD.” Mt. Roraima, in the remote rain forests of Venezuela, was the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fantasy classic, “The Lost World,” and with good reason. Roraima has been called a “landlocked Galapagos,” because within its environs live hundreds of species of birds, insects, plants and animals that cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Wilderness Travel guides you through the area on foot (about six hours of hiking per day). And after you’ve seen Roraima, a quick bush-plane ride delivers you to another tabletop mountain, Auyan Tepui, where you’ll find Angel Falls--at 3,212 feet, the highest waterfall in the world. Then you go by dugout down a tributary of the wild Orinoco River for two days, landing at the base of Angel Falls to explore yet another tropical rain forest. Cost: $2,590 for the 20-day trip, not including air fare to and from Caracas. Berkeley-based Wilderness Travel can be reached at (800) 247-6700.

RIDE AN ICEBREAKER TO THE NORTH POLE. Not just any icebreaker, but the Sovietskiy Soyuz, a new Russian vessel. For this trip, you fly to Murmansk in Soviet Lapland and board the Sovietskiy Soyuz for a 21-day flow through the floes of the Arctic Circle. (There are three departures next year, in July and August.) Every couple of days, you land--Franz Josef Land, Wrangel Island, various ports in Siberia--for exploring and wildlife sightings. But even while at sea, there is much to see: the ship’s bubble-top helicopter takes passengers out over the frozen waters, to watch the icebreaker do its work (and the icebergs do theirs). The crew is Russian, but there are German and American doctors on board as well as guest lecturers from various nations speaking on appropriate scientific subjects. The Sovietskiy Soyuz even has a gym and a swimming pool--indoors, of course. Cost: $18,000 per person, double occupancy, not including air fare. For more information, telephone Quark Expeditions in Stamford, Conn., (800) 223-5688.

RAFT THE YANGTZE RIVER TO TIBET. China’s a place you want to get used to a little at a time, so Earth River Expeditions’ Yangtze voyage begins, each June and September, with a few day trips around Beijing--the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the usual stuff. Then travelers, a dozen maximum per trip, fly out to the Tibetan plateau, where they four-wheel-drive past the yaks and the yurts up to a pass at 16,000 feet for a magnificent view of the Himalayas. Just below is a tributary of the Yangtze, where the river trip begins. For nine days, you drift past the most remote of Tibetan villages, monuments and peaks on four-person self-bailing rafts custom-designed by Earth River for the Yangtze (the firm has been in the raft-tour business for 30 years), before returning to land for another four-wheel-drive trek--this time between 25,000-foot peaks to Lhasa, the two-mile-high Tibetan holy city. Cost for the 17-day journey: $6,300, including air fare from Los Angeles or San Francisco. For more information, telephone Earth River Expeditions in Provo, Utah, (800) 937-7238.

TREK OVERLAND FROM NEPAL TO LONDON VIA AFRICA. Said to be the longest organized adventure trip in existence, the Great Overland Encounter takes 29 weeks to complete and covers 23 countries (more or less, depending on who’s conquering whom that week). Three times a year (February, May and September), tours of approximately 20 people leave Katmandu to travel through India, Pakistan, Iran (as of press time, U.S. citizens cannot enter Iran, so they must overfly the country and rejoin the tour on the far side), Turkey, Syria and Jordan before taking a ferry to the Sinai Peninsula. Transferring to a bus, tours head down along the Nile, then take a river steamer and a train to the Sudan and Ethiopia (local conditions permitting). Then, everybody (this time) flies--going briefly “over land,” as it were, instead of overland--to Tanzania. Then it’s trucks again, through Kenya, Uganda, Zaire, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, Niger, Algeria and Morocco before crossing the Straits of Gibraltar for Spain, France and England. Just for variety, four times a year (February, May, August and December), the same tour works in the other direction. Total cost: varies with the season and direction traveled, but 1992 prices range from $7,990 to $8,590, not including air fares either during the tour or to/from Katmandu/London. For more information, telephone Encounter Overland in Emeryville, Calif., (415) 654-1879.

SAVE ORANGUTANS. From September through December every year, the Orangutan Research and Conservation Project invites interested parties to journey into Borneo and help reintroduce captive orangutans to their natural habitat. These wonderful orange anthropoids are endangered, as are the Indonesian rain forests they inhabit. The project allows you to do your part to save the animals as well as to monitor wild orangutan behavior and, if you’re lucky, to see a baby orang being born. In addition, you’ll learn about rain-forest conservation, spot exotic Bornean birds and live with native Indonesians, sopping up a little human culture along the way. Cost for the two-week service vacation: $2,050, not including air fare to Kalimantan, Borneo. Tour may be booked through Earthwatch in Watertown, Mass., (617) 926-8200.

DO SOMETHING ADVENTUROUS EVEN IF I’M DISABLED. Lois Bonanni at Directions Unlimited has been putting together tours for the blind and disabled for a decade. “The best one I ever went on was to Israel,” she says, “where they let us take antiquities out of their cases so blind people could feel them. The people on the tour made me touch everything myself, and it’s true, feeling those ridges really made me feel part of history.” She has also organized safaris for the physically disabled and ski vacations for paraplegics. “It’s not that people intentionally discriminate against the handicapped,” Bonanni says. “They just don’t realize that because you’ve lost a leg, it doesn’t mean you don’t want to take amazing trips.” To reach Bonanni, who also offers unusual tours of other kinds, telephone Directions Unlimited in Bedford Hills, N.Y., (800) 533-5343.

GO TO THE MOON. Unfortunately, this is one trip that has been discontinued. A generation ago, TWA was whimsically taking reservations for its anticipated first commercial flight to the moon--then expected to take place around the year 2000. Today, TWA--along with a number of other major airlines--is having trouble just filling flights on Earth, and, according to a company spokesman, has no current plans, whimsical or otherwise, to take anyone to the Sea of Tranquillity.