Hiking tips

After a mild yet miserable winter spent hiding indoors, many Europeans are craving some quality time in nature.

Destinations across Europe are battling overtourism - visit Venice and you’ll have to pay an entry fee, book for Amsterdam and you’ll be asked to take a quiz about your holiday activities, head to the Canary Islands and you might see graffiti telling tourists to go home.

As the snow melts, the flowers bloom, and the cows return to their lush-green pastures, the Austrian Tirol gets ready for a vibrant summer season.

Landlocked in the heart of the Balkans, Serbia is the crossroads of different cultures and historical influences, making it a unique and diverse travel destination.

After a four-hour, lung-busting ascent, we climb the last steps up the rocky scree to reach the vertiginous summit of the Valbona Pass.

On January 1, 2024, more than 1,000 hikes will be available in state parks throughout the county. The distance and rigor of the hikes vary from park to park, but they all aim to create a fun experience for the whole family. Savor the beauty of our state parks’ natural, cultural, and historical resources, and be inspired to take advantage of these local treasures all year long.

With landscapes ranging from glaciers to deserts and home to every adventure activity imaginable, it’s no surprise that Latin America is a prime destination for trekkers. If you’re planning a trip, you’re covered with this travel gear for Latin America list. Whether hiking on glaciers in Argentina, trekking to Machu Picchu in Peru, driving 4WD through the deserts of Chile, or swimming with sea lions in the Galápagos, you’ll be ready for any adventure.

Hikers have been permanently banned from a popular Patagonian glacier that has become unstable due to ice melt.

I set clear intentions for my mini holiday. As a self-employed entrepreneur living on the chaotically beautiful island of Sicily and the mother of an ‘energetic’ toddler, I desperately needed ‘me time’.

Between Estonia and Lithuania lies the unspoilt parkland of Latvia.

Azerbaijan is home to some of the world’s most dramatic hiking trails, which wind through wild landscapes, jagged mountain peaks and remote villages.

Krakow has no shortage of medieval monuments and tucked away bars to explore. But a few days in Poland’s compact second city is enough, giving you time to explore further afield.

Autumn is the perfect season to discover Algarve with its favourable temperatures, making it ideal for exploring the region. Blessed with a stunning coastline, as well as hilly and softly contoured mainland, this part of Portugal offers fantastic hiking trails to suit all ages.

Yosemite National Park will not have a reservation system for the summer of 2023 and will embark on a process of gathering community input as whether it should to reinstate it in the future. Yosemite put a reservation system in place for two years because of the pandemic and continued it because of park construction projects. But the reservation requirement set off a chain of consequences for local communities, including traffic jams because cars weren’t allowed to drive through the park.

The narrow path weaved along the side of a vertiginous promontory carpeted with ferns and the occasional cluster of buttercups and purple hollyhocks. Wispy tendrils of fog dissolved, and the June sunshine warmed my back as I stood on a wind-sculpted granite boulder and peered into the Atlantic Ocean's cobalt depths. The cries of gulls mixed with the sound of waves crashing against the rocks, releasing cascades of salt-charged spray. I could still see the fingernail outline of the creamy beach we'd traversed earlier, where plovers scuttled from the incoming tide.

Yosemite National Park, perhaps more than any other, is responsible for the broader vision of wilderness conservation in this country, thanks to a Scottish immigrant named John Muir who fell in love with this land, fought to protect its natural wonders and, in the process, founded the Sierra Club.

Another August means another summer drawing to a close, and pangs of desire for one last fair-weather trip. Late summer and early fall travel can be a science that’s hard to perfect, but do it right and you’ll find great shoulder-season deals in destinations perfect for one last warm-weather getaway.

Whether you’re going on a trekking trip or visiting a mountain town, casual attire is becoming increasingly popular and stylish—which is a godsend for frequent travelers. The comfortable fabrics and easy-to wash-materials are perfect for those constantly on the move.

Among its 232 square miles of mesas, canyons, and terraces lies the highlight of Zion National Park: the 16-mile-long, 2,500-foot-deep Zion Canyon, where the north fork of the Virgin River has been sluicing its way through red-and-ochre sandstone of Utah’s plateau for more than a million years.

You may not be familiar with PyeongChang, the host city for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, but it has been a popular holiday destination for South Korean tourists seeking clean air and green pastures for years—even before it gained worldwide attention. With rugged mountains, ornate temples, and delectable local cuisine, this South Korean city has much to offer.

It’s no secret that millennial travel is a huge trend, with many group tour operators offering special budget-conscious trips, or ones with age limits. REI is the latest to join game, with nine new tour offerings across four different geographical areas.