Save Outdoor Fun for Fall--and Save

If you’re an outdoors type and have a bit of patience, you can enjoy some of the nation’s lowest rates for fresh-air sports by scheduling your vacation just after Labor Day. Here are a few major travel areas where prices drop precipitously in September and October.

* Colorado: A sharp autumn drop in resort prices sets the stage for hiking and biking in breathtaking mountain scenery. From Sept. 7 to Nov. 23 the Vail Valley Convention and Tourism Bureau, telephone (800) 525-3875, will provide round-trip air transportation to the elegant mountain resort village of Vail, a rental car and four nights in a studio apartment (queen-size bed, queen sofa sleeper, private balcony, fireplace and fully equipped kitchen) in the highly regarded Lift House Condos. The price: $499 from Los Angeles or San Francisco and $579 from New York, with similar prices from other cities.

* British Columbia: To enjoy the outdoor wonders of the province, turn to California-based Roadrunner Worldwide Hostelling Treks, tel. (800) 873-5872, Internet https://www.roadrunner.com. This outfit is known for its excursions using minibuses for transportation and rustic hostels for lodging. A two-week trip, with four departures from Seattle from late August through mid-October, offers an itinerary around western Canada, including Victoria, Vancouver, the mountain resort areas of Whistler, Lake Louise, Banff and Jasper, and Yoho and Glacier national parks, along with a stopover on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The price: $799 per person ($100 more July through September), which includes transportation, lodging for 13 nights and entrance fees. Air fare to Seattle is extra.

* Golf: With more than 100 courses, Myrtle Beach, S.C., is the capital of golf. And yet business to the beach-side resort falls off so sharply after Labor Day that many resort hotels give away a daily round of golf to attract autumn guests. The best package I know is at the high-rise Sea Crest Resort, tel. (800) 845-1112.

Sea Crest is situated on the beach, with 360 rooms, nine pools, three restaurants and golfing at 30 nearby courses. From Sept. 6 to Oct. 31, the resort charges $44 to $48 per person for accommodations, full breakfast and a daily round of 18 holes of golf. That’s less than most people pay for greens fees alone.

For Caribbean golfing, check out the group of resorts known as Caribbean Villages, the low-cost category of the fast-growing Allegro Resorts chain of all-inclusive hotels. This autumn, the big Caribbean Village Playa Grande in the Dominican Republic and the Caribbean Village Playacar on the Caribbean coast of Mexico will include greens fees in their all-inclusive rate of $79 per person per day for everything--room, meals, drinks, entertainment, sports. Since that daily cost adds up to only $553 for a seven-night stay, a one-week golf vacation comes in for less than $1,000, even when you add about $400 for round-trip air fare to the tropics from many U.S. cities. Tel. (800) 858-2258, Internet https://www.allegroresorts.com.