Adventure destinations

Abel Tasman is the smallest national park in the country and the sunniest, a coastline of golden beaches and granite headlands with a 60 km coastal track that can be walked or broken up by water taxi. Kayaking with fur seals is the other main way to see it. Tides govern two of the track's crossings.

The Atacama is the driest non-polar desert on earth, sitting at 2,400 metres and above with salt flats, flamingo lagoons, the El Tatio geyser field and altiplano lakes on the Bolivian border. San Pedro de Atacama is the base for all of it. The dryness and altitude give exceptional night skies, which is why major observatories are here.

Bohemian Switzerland is a sandstone park on the German border, with gorges cut by the Kamenice river and the largest natural rock arch in Europe at Pravčická brána. Trails link the arch, the gorge boat sections and forest plateaus; a 2022 wildfire closed some routes, which reopened in stages. Hřensko and Mezní Louka are the usual trailheads.

Cappadocia is a plateau of soft volcanic tuff eroded into valleys, cones and ridges, which people have carved into churches, houses and entire underground cities since Byzantine times. Balloon flights at dawn are the signature activity, weather permitting, and hiking between the valleys is free and straightforward. Göreme is the usual base.

Chamonix sits directly under the Mont Blanc massif, with cable cars lifting straight from the valley floor to glacier level. In summer it is a hiking and climbing base with the Tour du Mont Blanc passing through; in winter it is a ski town with steep, serious terrain. The valley is walkable and reachable by bus from Geneva.

Corcovado on the Osa Peninsula is the most biologically intense park in the country, holding all four Costa Rican monkey species, tapirs, scarlet macaws and one of the last viable jaguar populations. Entry requires a certified guide and advance reservation, usually from Drake Bay or Puerto Jiménez. Multi-day stays at the Sirena station give the best wildlife.

Coron in northern Palawan is known for two things: karst lakes such as Kayangan reached by a climb over a ridge, and a fleet of Japanese wrecks sunk in 1944 that sit shallow enough for recreational diving. Boat tours combine lakes, reefs and hot springs. The town is a working port rather than a resort strip.

Cotopaxi is a symmetrical 5,897 m glaciated volcano an hour south of Quito, with páramo grassland, wild horses and a refuge at 4,860 m reachable on foot. Day visitors walk to the refuge and the glacier edge; the summit is a technical night climb with a guide. The park closes when volcanic activity increases.

Dunn's River Falls is a 55-metre terraced waterfall near Ocho Rios that runs straight down to the beach, and the standard visit is climbing it in a guided human chain over the limestone steps. Cruise arrivals fill it in the middle of the day. Water shoes are essential and the rock is slippery.

El Chaltén was founded in 1985 and exists for hiking: trails to Laguna de los Tres below Fitz Roy and Laguna Torre below Cerro Torre start from the village streets, with no permits or transport needed. Wind is constant and weather turns in minutes, so flexible days matter. It is three hours by road from El Calafate.

Jebel Jais rises to about 1,930 metres in the Hajar range of Ras Al Khaimah, reached by a well-engineered mountain road with viewing platforms along the way. Temperatures run several degrees below the coast, which makes it usable when the lowlands are too hot. The world's longest zipline runs from near the summit.

Khor Al Adaid, the inland sea, is a tidal inlet in the far south of Qatar where the Gulf reaches into high dunes on the Saudi border. It can only be reached by four-wheel drive across the sand, so visits run as guided trips from Doha. The area is a UNESCO-recognised nature reserve with flamingos and dugongs in the shallows.

The Kinabatangan is Sabah's longest river, and the remaining forest along its banks funnels wildlife into a narrow corridor. Dawn and dusk boat cruises regularly find proboscis monkeys, macaques, hornbills and pygmy elephants, with orangutans less predictably. Lodges along the river run the cruises and night walks.

Komodo National Park covers three main islands and the water between them, protecting the Komodo dragon and some of the richest reef in Indonesia. Visits run as boat trips from Labuan Bajo on Flores, combining ranger-guided dragon walks with snorkelling at Pink Beach and manta cleaning stations. Currents here are strong, so guided diving is the norm.

Ladakh is a high-altitude desert in the Indian Himalaya, with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries on ridges above the Indus and passes over 5,000 metres. Leh, at 3,500 metres, is the base, and altitude acclimatisation is a real planning constraint rather than a formality. Road access from Manali and Srinagar is seasonal; flights operate year-round.

Bohinj is bigger, wilder and quieter than Bled, lying inside Triglav National Park with mountains rising straight out of the water. Swimming, kayaking and lakeside walking are the main activities, and the Vogel cable car climbs to a plateau with a view over the whole valley. It is the better base for hiking, including the approach to the Savica waterfall and routes up towards the Triglav massif.

Landmannalaugar is a rhyolite mountain basin in the highlands, striped in ochre, green and black, with a natural hot river running through the camp. It is the northern trailhead of the Laugavegur trek and the base for a set of strong day hikes. Access requires fording rivers or taking the scheduled highland bus.

Lençóis Maranhenses is a field of white sand dunes on the north-east coast where rainwater collects between the ridges into thousands of clear blue lagoons. The water arrives with the rains and evaporates by the end of the year, so the lagoons are full roughly from June to September. Four-wheel drive from Barreirinhas is the standard access.

The road from Vlorë to the Riviera climbs to just over 1,000 m at Llogara before dropping to the sea in a series of hairpins, with a view along the whole Ionian coast. The pine forest at the top is a national park with short walking trails, and the ridge is Albania's main paragliding site. It is a stop rather than a base, but the best single view on the coastal drive.

Cusco

The 15th-century Inca citadel above the Urubamba valley. Entry is by timed circuit and sells out weeks ahead.

The Makgadikgadi is a complex of salt pans left by an ancient lake, covering an area larger than Switzerland, empty and reflective in the dry season and filled with water and flamingos after good rains. Quad bike trips onto the crust, habituated meerkat colonies and sleeping out on the pan are the usual activities. Zebra migrate through in the green season.

Erg Chebbi is the accessible Saharan dune field of southern Morocco, with dunes to 150 m and camps set among them reached by camel or 4x4 from Merzouga. The standard trip is a sunset ride in, a night at camp and sunrise on the dunes. It is a long drive from Marrakech, usually broken at Dades or Todra.

Bromo is an active cone inside the much larger Tengger caldera in east Java, surrounded by a flat sea of volcanic sand. The standard visit is a pre-dawn jeep ride to a viewpoint on the caldera rim, then a walk and stair climb to the smoking crater. Nights at 2,000 metres are genuinely cold, which surprises most first-time visitors.

Kilimanjaro is the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895 metres and the highest free-standing mountain in the world, climbed without technical equipment but with real altitude risk. Routes take five to nine days, and longer itineraries such as Lemosho or the northern circuit give much better acclimatisation and summit rates. Guides and porters are compulsory.

Kinabalu rises to 4,095 metres in Sabah, the highest peak between the Himalaya and New Guinea, and is climbed over two days with a compulsory mountain guide and an overnight at Laban Rata. Permits are limited daily, so bookings are made months ahead. The park below holds pitcher plants, orchids and montane forest worth a day on its own.

Toubkal is the highest mountain in North Africa at 4,167 m, climbed over two or three days from the village of Imlil via a mountain refuge. No technical skill is needed in summer, though crampons are required from roughly November to April. Guides are mandatory under current rules.

The Okavango is an inland delta where a river from the Angolan highlands spreads across the Kalahari and evaporates rather than reaching the sea. The flood arrives in the middle of the dry season, filling channels that are explored by mokoro dugout canoe and by boat, alongside vehicle and walking safaris on the islands. Access is almost entirely by light aircraft to camp airstrips.

The Pantanal is the world's largest tropical wetland, flooding and drying on an annual cycle that concentrates animals along rivers and waterholes in the dry months. It offers the most reliable jaguar sightings anywhere, along with giant otters, capybara, caiman and hyacinth macaws. Access is via the Transpantaneira road in the north or Campo Grande in the south.

Perito Moreno is a 30-kilometre glacier in Los Glaciares National Park with a five-kilometre front standing about 70 metres above the water. Unlike most glaciers it has remained roughly stable, and blocks calve off the face regularly in front of the viewing walkways. Boat trips and guided ice walks put you at water level and on the ice itself.

Pico do Fogo is an active volcano rising to 2,829 m inside a collapsed caldera, with villages farming vines and coffee on the crater floor. The last eruption in 2014 buried part of Chã das Caldeiras, and the lava field is still visible. The summit climb takes three to four hours up and about one hour down through ash.

The Picos are a limestone massif rising to 2,600 m just 20 km from the Atlantic, with deep gorges, cable-car access to high terrain and a strong tradition of blue cheese and cider. The Cares Gorge walk is the signature route, cut into the cliff between Poncebos and Caín. Weather changes fast and cloud can close the Fuente Dé cable car.

Preikestolen, or Pulpit Rock, is a flat cliff platform 604 m above the Lysefjord, reached by a four-hour return hike from the car park near Stavanger. The path is well built but rocky and busy through the summer. Fjord cruises from Stavanger pass beneath it for the other perspective.

The Salar de Uyuni is the world's largest salt flat, about 10,600 square kilometres of hexagonal crust at 3,656 metres. In the dry season it is a blinding white plain with cactus islands; after rain a shallow film turns it into a mirror. Multi-day jeep tours continue south to coloured lagoons, flamingos and geysers near the Chilean border.

Saxon Switzerland is a national park of eroded sandstone towers, gorges and plateaus along the Elbe upstream of Dresden. Marked trails link viewpoints such as the Bastei bridge and the table mountains of Lilienstein and Königstein, and the rock towers are a historic free-climbing area. Trains from Dresden run along the river to most trailheads.

Semuc Champey is a 300-metre natural limestone bridge in the Alta Verapaz jungle, carrying a staircase of turquoise pools while the Cahabón river runs underneath it. A steep path climbs to a viewpoint over the whole formation. Access is by rough road from Lanquín, which is the main reason it stays relatively quiet.

The Soča runs turquoise the whole way from the Julian Alps to the Italian border, and the valley around Bovec and Kobarid is the country's adventure centre: rafting, canyoning, kayaking and paragliding. It is also the ground of the Isonzo Front, and the Kobarid museum and outdoor trails explain the mountain war in detail. Roads over the Vršič pass connect it to Kranjska Gora in summer.

Taroko is a marble canyon on Taiwan's east coast, where the Liwu river has cut vertical walls and the road runs through tunnels cut into them. Trails such as Shakadang and the Swallow Grotto follow the water at gorge level. Earthquakes and typhoons close sections regularly, so current trail status matters more here than anywhere else in Taiwan.

Theth is a stone-house valley deep in the Accursed Mountains, with a lock-in tower, a waterfall and the Blue Eye of Theth within walking distance of the village. Most visitors come for the day hike over the pass to Valbona, one of the best-known mountain crossings in the Balkans. Guesthouses are family-run and half-board is the norm.

Tongariro is the country's oldest national park and a dual World Heritage site for both landscape and Māori cultural significance, centred on three active volcanoes. The Alpine Crossing is a 19.4 km one-way walk past crater lakes and lava flows, and requires a booked shuttle and settled weather. In winter it becomes a mountaineering route.

The Verdon river has cut a 25-kilometre canyon up to 700 metres deep through the limestone of upper Provence, ending in the reservoir of Lac de Sainte-Croix. Rim roads on both sides link a chain of viewpoints, while the floor is reached on foot by the Sentier Blanc-Martel or by kayak from the lake. Villages like Moustiers-Sainte-Marie make practical bases.

Wadi Rum is a protected desert of sandstone and granite mountains rising from red sand, inhabited by Bedouin communities who run the camps and jeep tours. Nights in a desert camp with clear skies are the point as much as the landscape itself. Scrambling routes and rock climbing are available for those who want more than a jeep tour.

The Wahiba Sands are a 180 km dune field of orange sand, reached by deflating tyres and driving in from the edge, usually with a camp arranging the transfer. Dune driving, camel rides and very dark night skies are the draw. It is an easy overnight between Muscat and Sur.

The White Desert is a protected area of chalk rock eroded into mushroom and tower shapes, standing white against the sand of Egypt's Western Desert. Trips run from Bahariya oasis as overnight camps, which is the point: the formations are at their best at sunset, under stars and at first light. Four-wheel drive and a licensed guide are required.

Zion is a narrow sandstone canyon in southern Utah where the Virgin river runs between walls up to 600 metres high. The main canyon is served by shuttle bus for most of the year, and its two signature routes are Angels Landing, which needs a permit for the chain section, and the Narrows, walked upstream in the river itself. Flash flooding governs whether the Narrows is open.