Are you looking for great trip ideas for your bucket list? Well, you’ve clicked to the right place. This freshly updated story spotlights some of the most iconic wildlands in the U.S., including Glacier (photo above), Yosemite, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, and Sequoia national parks, southern Utah’s national parks and monuments, two wilderness areas, and two international adventures that may not be on your radar—all of them worthy of your bucket list.

All of them are also trips that you must start planning now or very soon to take them this year—including rapidly approaching backcountry permit-reservation dates for many national parks.

The 10 trips described below all stand out in personal memory among the countless trips I’ve enjoyed over the past three decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. They all have links to stories at The Big Outside with many more images and info, including my expert tips on planning and taking each trip. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

I update this list regularly to feed you fresh and timely ideas—and to help your bucket list, like mine, continually refresh as you steadily tick off new trips.

I can help you plan any of these trips—see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how and to read hundreds of comments from people like you whom I’ve helped plan an unforgettable adventure. See also my E-Books page for my expert e-books to many of America’s best backpacking trips, and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

I’d love to read any thoughts, personal experiences, or suggestions you want to share in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Southern Utah is Huge. Get Busy

Okay, you know of and maybe have dayhiked or backpacked in some of Utah’s Big 5 national parks: Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Canyonlands, and perhaps even lesser-known Capitol Reef—which together protect landscapes that almost defy description and a density and breadth of parks and other wild lands that’s arguably unmatched in the country. You almost certainly haven’t finished with them yet.

But have you backpacked gems like Paria Canyon, Coyote Gulch, or Owl and Fish canyons? Or taken more obscure and challenging backpacking trips like Dark Canyon, the Death Hollow Loop in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, or the Maze District of Canyonlands? Or even taken classic adventures like backpacking Zion’s Narrows, Kolob Canyons or West Rim Trail or floating the Green River through Canyonlands? Not to mention the countless great dayhikes of all distances, like the beloved slot canyons Peek-a-Boo Gulch and Spooky Gulch.

I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve returned to southern Utah—it’s dozens—but I’m far from done there. You’ve probably only scraped the surface of this region. Treat southern Utah as a lifetime commitment and every new adventure will amaze you. Spring and fall are the prime seasons and some of these trips require reserving permits months in advance.

See “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest,” “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks,” all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter.

Get Lonely in the North Cascades

On at least three major lists of the least-visited national parks, North Cascades ranks in the top five (and most of the top 10 are in Alaska). For backpackers who prefer to have a beautiful wild place almost to themselves, that’s a good thing.

A sprawling swath of glacier-clad mountains and thickly forested valleys, North Cascades has long been one of my favorite parks—and it has one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever slept in.

On my most-recent trip there, a friend and walked 80 miles through the heart of the North Cascades National Park Complex just as the huckleberries ripened and the larch trees blazed yellow with fall color in the last week of September. Our grand tour from Easy Pass Trailhead to Bridge Creek Trailhead took us through virgin forests of giant cedars, hemlocks, and Douglas firs, and over four passes, including Park Creek Pass, where you turn a 360 overlooking waterfalls and glaciers pouring off cliffs and jagged, snowy peaks amid a sea of mountains.

North Cascades National Park holds an Early-Access lottery for permit reservations from March 2-13, 2026—enter it especially if you’re seeking any popular backcountry camps in the park—and opens general permit reservations on April 29.

See my story “Primal Wild: Backpacking 80 Miles Through the North Cascades,” which has my tips on how to plan and take this trip, including shorter variations of the route, and all stories about North Cascades National Park at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning any trip on this list?
Click here now for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

Backpack Incomparable Glacier National Park

Little wonder that Glacier ranks among the favorite national parks of backpackers: No place in the Lower 48 really compares with it. From its rivers of ice (which are disappearing rapidly due to climate change) pouring off craggy mountains and sheer cliffs that soar high above lushly green valleys, and over 760 lakes offering mirror reflections of it all, to megafauna like mountain goats, bighorn sheep, elk, moose, and grizzly and black bears, these million acres in the rugged Northern Rockies simply deliver an experience you can’t find in any park outside Alaska.

I’ve backpacked multiple times all over Glacier, most recently in September 2023 (lead photo at top of story), when two friends and I hiked for a week mostly on the Continental Divide Trail through the park—unquestionably one of the entire CDT’s best sections. The park’s more than 700 miles of trails enable trips of varying distances, from beginner-friendly to serious, remote adventures in deep wilderness.

My e-books describing two long and magnificent treks through Glacier, “The Best Backpacking Trip in Glacier National Park” and “Backpacking the Continental Divide Trail Through Glacier National Park,” detail all you need to know to plan and execute those trips safely. They also describe shorter variations on those routes.

And, of course, I can give you a customized plan for a backpacking trip of any length in Glacier; click here to learn how.

Glacier holds two early-access lotteries, on March 1 for large groups of nine to 12 people and on March 15 for standard groups of one to eight people, for a date and time between March 21 and April 30 when they can reserve a permit ahead of reservations opening to the general public on May 1. Glacier makes 70 percent of backcountry campsites available for reservations and 30 percent of campsites available for walk-in permits.

See “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in Glacier National Park” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

Read any story linked here and ALL stories at The Big Outside.
Join now and get a free e-book!

Backpack the Wonderland Trail Around Mount Rainier

Backpacking the Wonderland Trail around glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier, one repeatedly sees “The Mountain” (as Washingtonians know it) fill the horizon—a sight that can stop you in your boots. If it’s fair to say that no multi-day hike in the contiguous United States is quite like the Wonderland Trail—and it is—that’s partly because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like Rainier.

But the WT isn’t just about views of Rainier. It also features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever walk through, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” countless waterfalls and cascades, and sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and black bears.

The full Wonderland loop around Rainier is a seriously strenuous, 93-mile trip, with over 44,000 cumulative vertical feet of elevation gain and loss. But because it can be accessed from several trailheads, you can choose between thru-hiking all of it—which takes up to nine to 10 days—or backpacking shorter trips of varying lengths on sections of the trail.

And choices like where to begin the loop and which direction to hike it, and whether to take a popular detour onto the higher and more-scenic Spray Park Trail, all affect the trip’s overall difficulty—which I spell out in detail in my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” and “American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail,” about a 77-mile hike two friends and I took on much of the Wonderland (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my e-book).

Got an all-time favorite campsite? I have 25 of them.
See “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Take Yosemite’s Best Dayhikes and Backpacking Trips

Half Dome, the John Muir Trail, Tenaya Lake, Mount Hoffmann, the Mist Trail, Upper Yosemite Falls, Tuolumne Meadows, and the Cathedral Range and Cathedral Lakes—these names are nearly as famous as the park that harbors them: Yosemite.

But in numerous trips backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing there over the years, I’ve discovered that other corners of Yosemite are equally spectacular if not as well known, including the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, Clouds Rest, Red Peak Pass, Matterhorn Peak and Matterhorn Canyon, Burro Pass, Mule Pass, Benson Lake, and Dewey Point, among many.

This flagship park’s finest backpacking trips and dayhikes offer a variety of experiences that will awe you no matter how much time you have or how many times you’ve been there. For backpacking, plan to apply for a wilderness permit 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the week you want to start hiking.

If you want to backpack Yosemite this summer, the time to apply for a wilderness permit is now.

See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite” and all of this blog’s stories about backpacking in Yosemite, plus my expert e-books to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”

See also “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls,” and all stories about Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.

I know Yosemite’s unique wilderness permit system very well and I’ve helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in Yosemite—including helping some obtain a permit after they had failed applying on their own. Go to my Custom Trip Planning page to see how I can do that for you.

You want to backpack in Yosemite?
See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Explore the Wind River Range

Come up with a list of the best backpacking trips in America that do not require you to reserve a permit months in advance, and rank them in order of scenic magnificence, and Wyoming’s Wind River Range would have to reside near or at the top of that list. The Winds are also one of the few mountain ranges in the contiguous United States where—if you put in the effort to get beyond the very few popular trailheads—you can hike for days below 13,000-foot peaks and count more alpine lakes than people.

Among the most recent of several trips I’ve made to the Winds, my wife, a friend, and I backpacked a five-day, roughly 43-mile loop from one of the less-busy trailheads on the west side of the range, following some of the most scenic trails I’ve walked in the Winds to high passes and gorgeous lakes around every turn. On a four-day hike, a friend and I camped near a lake every night and crossed four passes, including a sort of “back door” entrance into the amazing Cirque of the Towers, and I left there thinking we’d just done the best multi-day hike in the Winds.

And just last September, on a solo, six-day hike mostly on the Continental Divide Trail through the Winds, I went entire days without seeing other backpackers and walked past too many heart-stopping lakes to count. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

See “5 Reasons You Must Backpack in the Wind River Range,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range,” and all stories about backpacking in the Wind River Range at The Big Outside.

I’ve helped many readers plan a wonderful backpacking trip, ideal for them, in the Wind River Range. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at this blog and see hundreds of comments from readers who’ve received my trip planning.

Get the right gear for you. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Trek Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains

Located in the northeastern Italian Alps, with one national park, several regional parks, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Dolomites thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, gleaming like polished jewels in bright sunshine and virtually pulsing with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. They strike a sharp contrast with the deep, steep-sided, verdantly green valleys and meadows. On a weeklong, hut-to-hut trek through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, my family hiked a 39-mile (62-kilometer) section of the roughly 112-mile (180-kilometer) Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends.”

An alpine footpath famous for scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world, the AV 2 is also known for comfortable mountain huts with excellent food—and a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie, or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites. On one of the all-time best adventures I’ve ever taken, we discovered that it was all of those things and more.

See my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomites.”

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable backpacking or hiking trip.
Want my help with yours? Click here to learn more.

See the Glorious Southern Sierra in Sequoia National Park

With some of the highest mountains in the Lower 48 and a constellation of backcountry lakes, California’s southern High Sierra rank among the prettiest backpacking destinations in America. And Sequoia National Park hosts one of the biggest chunks of contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48—a pristine and incredibly photogenic land of razor peaks and alpine lakes so clear you could stand on the shore and read a book lying open on the lake bottom.

On a six-day, 40-mile backpacking trip in Sequoia, my family hiked through a quiet backcountry grove of giant Sequoias and over 10,000-foot and 11,000-foot passes at the foot of 12,000-foot, granite peaks. We camped at two lakes that earned spots on my list of 25 favorite backcountry campsites.

While many backpackers heading for the High Sierra point their compass at Yosemite and the John Muir Trail—creating enormous demand for those backcountry permits—far fewer set their sights on areas of Sequoia like where my family backpacked. That means it’s an easier permit to get, and the scenery rivals anywhere in the Sierra.

Apply for a permit up to six months in advance for a trip during the park’s quota period of late May through mid-September.

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park,” about my family’s six-day, 40-mile loop hike there, and all stories about Sequoia National Park at The Big Outside.

Click here now to plan your next great backpacking adventure using my expert e-books.

Wander Into Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

I have been hiking, backpacking, and climbing in Idaho’s Sawtooths—the wilderness in my back yard (or pretty close)—for almost 30 years. I’ve walked nearly every trail and some outstanding off-trail routes, from the most accessible lakes and mountain passes to the remote interior of the range, visiting numerous, incredibly picturesque alpine lakes that undoubtedly see few visitors. I’ve long thought that the Sawtooths look like they could be the love child of the High Sierra and the Tetons.

I returned there again in August 2025 for a four-day hike that began with walking through a lovely lakes basin I had not seen before. That trip featured several more wonderful and remote lakes (including the above photo), and on which we crossed four high passes and summited one 10,000-foot peak. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

Looking for a beautiful Sawtooths adventure that’s a moderate distance? The multi-day hike I’d recommend is a four- to five-day, roughly 36-mile route in the scenic heart of the range.

See my story “The Best of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Backpacking Redfish to Pettit” and my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains” which tells you all you need to know to plan and pull off that trip and includes three alternate itineraries that allow you to shorten the hike to four days or extend it to six or seven days. And see all stories about backpacking in Idaho’s Sawtooths at The Big Outside.

I’ve helped many readers plan a wonderful backpacking trip, ideal for them, anywhere in the Sawtooths. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, too.

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “The 25 Best National Park Dayhikes.”

Trek Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

Picture this: an Arctic-looking landscape vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, wildflowers, and lichen blanketing glacial-erratic boulders. Cliffs and mountains that look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe. Thick, crack-riddled glaciers pouring like pancake batter that needs more water off starkly barren peaks rising to more than 8,000 feet. Braided rivers meandering down mostly treeless valleys, and reindeer roaming wild. Summit views of a sea of snowy, glacier-clad peaks rolling away to far horizons.

That describes my family’s weeklong, roughly 60-mile/97-kilometer, hut-to-hut trek through Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park—whose name means the “Home of the Giants.”

Our adventure combined pristine wilderness with the most luxurious huts I’ve ever stayed in—some featuring private rooms, hot showers, and restaurant-caliber meals—a trail network that allows for flexibility in route options, and optional side hikes to summits with mind-blowing views of mountains buried in snow and ice, including the highest peak in Norway. Some of us also hiked a spectacular ridge traverse known as “the most famous hike in Norway,” which I’d normally receive as a warning sign, but in this case, it’s a rigorous hike that I’d return to in a second.

Read “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park.”

Find more ideas and inspiration in my All Trips List, which has a menu of all stories at this blog, and in “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

The Big Outside helps you find the best adventures.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

Hiking toward a mountain pass named Furcela dia Roa (photo above), on the first day of my family’s weeklong, hut-to-hut trek on the Alta Via 2 in northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, we stopped in an open meadow of grass and wildflowers overlooking a deep, verdant valley in Puez-Odle Natural Park. Across the valley loomed a wall of cliffs topped by jagged spires, like a castle a thousand feet tall. I looked at our map and back up at the stone wall before us, puzzled. After a moment, I realized: We have to get over that wall.

Scanning the vertiginous earth before us, I eventually picked out the trail snaking across the head of the valley and making dozens of switchbacks up a finger of scree, talus, and snow leading to the lowest notch in that wall: the Furcela dia Roa, the pass we had to cross.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

It was our first encounter with a lesson that would repeat itself many times over the course of our week of hiking on the Alta Via 2: These mountains are so steep and rocky that the trail often traverses ground that, from a distance, looks impassable without ropes and climbing gear.

But in reality, my family, including our young kids, were perfectly comfortable with the exposure, we never felt that any section was unsafe (although we avoided higher-elevation sections that were still snow-covered in July)—and our trek on the Alta Via 2, a footpath sometimes described as “the most beautiful trail in the world,” turned out to be a wonderful and unforgettable adventure .

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter.

My family spent a week trekking hut to hut on a 39-mile/62-kilometer section of the Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends,” a roughly 112-mile/180-kilometer alpine footpath through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, Italy’s Dolomites.

The AV 2 is famous for attributes that possess even more allure than a steaming plate of gnocchi: incredible scenery, comfortable mountain huts with excellent food—and, for the type of trekker who’s drawn to challenge, a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie (plural for alta via), or “high paths,” that traverse the Dolomites.

That last point also makes the AV 2 less crowded (read: easier to get hut reservations) than the more-popular and easier AV 1 and other hut treks in Europe. But it’s the scenery that makes this trek world-class, as the photos below demonstrate.

Scroll below the photo gallery for the link to my full story about this trek.

I’ve helped many readers plan an unforgettable hut trek on the Alta Via 2.
Want my help with yours? Find out more here.

Read my story about that trip, “‘The World’s Most Beautiful Trail:’ Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains,” which has many more photos, a video, and expert tips for planning it yourself. (Like many stories at The Big Outside, reading that entire story requires a paid subscription.)

See “15 Adventures on Earth That Will Change Your Life” and all stories about international adventures and family adventures at The Big Outside.

The Big Outside helps you find the best adventures.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

We can all remember specific places that we consider the best days of hiking we’ve ever had. I’ve been exceptionally fortunate: I have hiked many trails in America and around the world that would probably make anyone’s list of most-scenic hikes. From numerous trips in iconic national parks like Yosemite, Zion, Grand Canyon, and Glacier to the John Muir Trail and Teton Crest Trail and some of the world’s great treks, including the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, the Tour du Mont Blanc, New Zealand’s Tongariro Alpine Crossing, Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails, and the icy and jagged mountains of Norway and Patagonia, here’s a list of the hands-down prettiest days I’ve ever spent walking dirt and rock footpaths.

I think you’ll find some places in here to add to your must-do list.

I’ve taken these adventures over the course of more than three decades working as an outdoor writer and photographer, formerly as Northwest Editor of Backpacking magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog. Many of the photos in this story are from adventures widely recognized as classics, while others are from places you may not have heard of before.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

This list of my most scenic days of hiking runs to 39—yep, I know that seems like a lot of picks for a list of best days ever. (You should see some of the days I cut from this story.) I think as you go through this list of truly great hikes, you’ll understand my struggle to winnow it any further as you try to decide which of them to prioritize for your own to-do list. I think I’m giving you a whole lot of great choices.

Scroll through the photos and short anecdotes from each trip. They include links to stories at The Big Outside about those places, with my tips and information on how to plan those trips. Like many stories at this blog, part of those stories are free for anyone to read, but reading them in full, including my tips and information on how to plan those trips, is an exclusive benefit for paid subscribers to The Big Outside.

And I can help you plan any of these trips or any other you read about at this blog—giving you the benefit of my many years of professional experience identifying, planning, and successfully pulling off great adventures. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, and my expert e-books to some of America’s and the world’s best backpacking trips and treks.

I’d love to hear what you think of any of my photos or the places shown in them, or upcoming plans you have or are contemplating. Please share your thoughts or questions in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Happy trails.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter.

Hiking Yosemite’s Clouds Rest and Half Dome

Traversing the slender summit ridge of 9,926-foot Clouds Rest, we walked what felt like a high wire between sphincter-puckering abysses in the heart of Yosemite National Park. Below one elbow, a drop-off of several hundred feet; on the other side, 4,000 feet—that’s a thousand feet taller than the face of El Capitan. It’s arguably the best summit view in Yosemite and one of the best reached by a trail in all of California’s High Sierra. On the first day of a 151-mile grand tour of that flagship park, four of us walked from the granite-framed shores of Tenaya Lake over Clouds Rest and on to one of America’s most famous summits: Half Dome. And after all that, we still weren’t even finished for the day.

See my story about that hike, “Best of Yosemite: Backpacking South of Tuolumne Meadows,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite,” “The 12 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a Yosemite or High Sierra Wilderness Permit,” and all stories about backpacking in Yosemite at The Big Outside.

You want to backpack in Yosemite? See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.

Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim

We breezed down the narrow crest of the Grand Canyon’s South Kaibab Trail as the first light of day fell on one of the planet’s most magnificent and unfathomable landscapes: a mile-deep chasm with twisting side canyons, walls stacked in multi-colored layers, and an army of stone towers each standing thousands of feet tall. Three friends and I walked across the canyon from the South Rim to the North Rim, and back again—42 miles with over 22,000 feet of up and down—in one very long day. I’ve repeated the r2r2r running and hiking in one day and hiking it over two days. Wherever I hike for the rest of my life, I’m sure I’ll always rank hiking rim to rim among my greatest trail days ever.

See my stories “Fit to be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “A Grand Ambition, or April Fools? Dayhiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim to Rim,” “9 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside.

Do your Grand Canyon hike right with these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim”

Trekking the Alta Via 2 in the Pale di San Martino, Dolomite Mountains

Often described as “the world’s most beautiful trail,” the Alta Via 2 traces a roughly 112-mile/180km path through northern Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, which thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, gleaming like polished jewels in sunshine and virtually pulsing with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. On my family’s hut-to-hut trek of a 39-mile/62km section of the AV 2, jaw-dropping views became routine.

But on the day we hiked from the Rosetta Hut (lead photo at top of story), in the sub-range known as the Pale di San Martino, down to the small mountain town of San Martino di Castrozza, we walked below one sheer limestone tower after another on a path that clung to vertiginous mountainsides, sometimes chopped from the face of a cliff.

See my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.”

Read any story linked here and ALL stories at The Big Outside.
Join now and you’ll also get a free e-book!

Walking Across Zion

From the red-rock Kolob Canyons in the park’s northwest corner to the 2,000-foot, creamy white and blazing burgundy cliffs of Zion Canyon, Zion National Park harbors some of the most uniquely beautiful and beloved natural real estate in the entire National Park System. Hiking 50 miles across the entire park in a day, tagging highlights like Angels Landing and the West Rim Trail, seemed like the perfect way to experience a park without peer. That’s what several friends and I figured, anyway. Our adventure was proof that, even when events don’t proceed quite as planned, it can be a great day.

See my story “Mid-Life Crisis: Hiking 50 Miles Across Zion in a Day,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Zion National Park,” and all stories about Zion National Park at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning any trip on this list?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

Nearly every day that my family spent trekking hut to hut on Iceland’s 34-mile/55km Laugavegur Trail and 15.5-mile/25km Fimmvörðuháls Trail struck me as one of the prettiest days of hiking I’ve ever had.

Among those seven days of hiking, I feel compelled to spotlight four: The morning we spent dayhiking the peak named Bláhnúkur, from the hut at Landmannalaugar in Iceland’s Central Highlands (see the lead photo in this story); our third day on the Laugavegur, hiking from Álftavatn to Emstrur (photo above); and both days on the magnificent Fimmvörðuháls, hiking the spine of a narrow crest between two deep chasms and crossing a moonscape created by recent volcanic eruptions (photo at left) on day one, followed by descending a river valley past more than two dozen big, powerful waterfalls one after another—probably the single best waterfalls trail I’ve ever seen.

My advice: Just go trek both the Laugavegur and the Fimmvörðuháls trails.

See my feature story about my family’s hut trek on these two trails, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails,” “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

Hike one of the world’s great treks using my e-book
“The Complete Guide to Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.”

Hiking from Many Glacier to Logan Pass, Glacier National Park

In the cool hours of early morning, my hiking partner and I set out from the Many Glacier complex on the east side of the park, heading toward Swiftcurrent Pass and eventually Logan Pass on the Going-to-the-Sun Road: a traverse of 15.2 miles with about 2,000 feet of uphill. Neither of us had hiked these trails before, so we carried no expectations—and were amazed at every turn.

We walked below towering cliffs spliced by ribbon waterfalls, climbed to a notch hundreds of feet above the Grinnell Glacier, and followed the Highline Trail, an alpine footpath with sweeping views of the Northern Rockies where sightings of mountain goats and bighorn sheep are common.

See “The 8 Best Long Hikes in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about Glacier National Park at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-books to the best backpacking trip in Glacier
and backpacking the Continental Divide Trail through Glacier.

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc in the Alps

Some hikes need no introduction. The Tour du Mont Blanc is one of them. One of the most storied, popular, and step-for-step majestic trails on the planet, the roughly 105-mile (170k) footpath around the “Monarch of the Alps,” 15,771-foot (4807m) Mont Blanc, passes through three countries—France, Italy, and Switzerland—delivering a cultural and culinary experience to match the scenery.

While there are few mediocre kilometers on the trek, one of our nine days walking it with family and friends really stood out scenically: day four, hiking from the Rifugio Elizabetta Soldini mountain hut into the resort town of Courmayeur, Italy, below a staggering array of knife-like spires.

See my story “Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace.”

Save yourself a lot of time and avoid mistakes.
Get my expert e-book “The Perfect Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc.”

Backpacking the John Muir Trail from Evolution Basin to Mather Pass

The John Muir Trail, aka “America’s Most Beautiful Trail,” is a 211-mile journey through one of the most picturesque mountain ranges in the country—the High Sierra, which Ansel Adams dubbed “The Range of Light.” When a few friends and I knocked off the JMT in a week, we packed two or three normal days of hiking into each day. (The scenery was morphine for our aching feet.)

But I have to give the edge to the day we ambulated from Evolution Lake in Kings Canyon National Park all the way to the Upper Basin of the South Fork Kings River: past the glassy lakes of the Evolution Basin, over 11,955-foot Muir Pass, through LeConte Canyon with its soaring granite walls, and over 12,100-foot Mather Pass, which we crossed as the setting sun set puffy clouds overhead afire.

I more recently returned to the Evolution Basin on a 130-mile hike, much of it on the JMT, and, yea, it’s still just as pretty as ever.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” “10 Great Section Hikes on the John Muir Trail,” and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?“

After the John Muir Trail, hike the other nine of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips.”

Two Days Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

Having backpacked the Teton Crest Trail multiple times and taken perhaps two dozen hiking, climbing, and backcountry skiing trips throughout the Teton Range, I’ve gotten to know these incomparable peaks pretty well. But the two sections of the TCT that stand out scenically for me are the sections from Death Canyon Shelf to Hurricane Pass and from the North Fork of Cascade Canyon over Paintbrush Divide.

My experiences on those stretches of trail include a bull elk waking us by clomping around just outside our tents; early-morning moose sightings; uninterrupted views of these famously jagged mountains; and endless fields of wildflowers. I’ve had many magical days in the Tetons since my first backpacking trip there more than three decades ago, but I still consider those sections of the TCT its finest.

See my stories “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and “10 Great Big Dayhikes in the Tetons,” and all stories about backpacking in Grand Teton National Park at The Big Outside.

Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail and
the best short backpacking trip there.

Hiking Capitol Reef’s Navajo Knobs Trail

Although it dwells in the shadow of the other four of Utah’s Big 5 national parks—Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, and Canyonlands—I’ve long seen Capitol Reef as chronically under-appreciated. And that was before I hiked the Navajo Knobs Trail, which I now consider one of the most beautiful dayhikes in the entire National Park System.

A moderate, out-and-back hike (9.4 miles with 1,620 feet of up and down if you do it all, but the scenery is spectacular however far you go), it shares a trailhead with the short, very popular hike to Hickman Natural Bridge, but soon splits from it—and sees very light hiker traffic beyond that junction. The trail passes an overlook of Hickman Bridge, winds upward to a stunning viewpoint from the canyon rim 1,000 feet above the green Fremont River Valley, and then meanders along the rim, with almost constant views of the cliffs and rumpled topography of the Waterpocket Fold, giant formations like Pectols Pyramid, The Castle, and Fern’s Nipple, and the Henry Mountains in the distance.

It culminates with a fun bit of easy scrambling to the tiny summit of one of the pinnacles named the Navajo Knobs, worth the effort for the prospect it offers of the varied and fascinating geology and topography of Capitol Reef National Park.

See my story “The Best Hikes in Capitol Reef National Park.”

The Big Outside will help your family get outdoors more.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

Two Days in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

The Sawtooths are another place where it’s difficult to pick just one or even a few standout days because there are so many—especially given how many days I’ve spent in those mountains that have been my home range for nearly three decades. But I feel comfortable spotlighting two (with the caveat that I could have chosen so many more).

On a July day some years back, my wife, Penny, and I started hiking in a cool, morning fog that hung thickly over the Sawtooth Valley and, four-and-a-half hours later—after almost seven miles and climbing 4,200 vertical feet uphill, after passing some beautiful alpine lakes and tarns, and culminating with a bit of airy scrambling, we stood on the small stone block that’s the 10,751-foot summit of Thompson Peak, the highest in Idaho’s Sawtooths. Our reward (besides virtually every moment of the hike itself): a 360-degree panorama of the entire Sawtooth Range and the White Cloud Mountains across the valley.

And in August 2025, Penny and I, joined by two friends, backpacked a four-day route deep into the Sawtooths. On our third day, we hiked past several lovely and lonely wilderness lakes (including the lakes we camped by the previous night and that night), bagged two summits, and crossed three passes. It feels both hard to imagine a better day and yet such a common experience in the Sawtooths.

Watch for my upcoming story about that August 2025 trip. Meanwhile, see my story “The Roof of Idaho’s Sawtooths: Hiking Thompson Peak,” my e-book “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains,” and all stories about backpacking in the Sawtooths Mountains at The Big Outside.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
Click here now to learn more.

Backpacking the Wonderland Trail

No multi-day hike in the contiguous United States compares with the Wonderland Trail around Mount Rainier—because there’s no mountain in the Lower 48 like glacier-clad, 14,410-foot Mount Rainier. The sight of “The Mountain” repeatedly filling the horizon at a seemingly unbelievable scale is thrilling every time. But this trail also features some of the most beautiful wildflower meadows you will ever see, countless waterfalls and cascades, crystalline creeks and raging rivers gray with “glacial flour,” and likely sightings of mountain goats, marmots, deer, and possibly black bears.

On the second day of a 77-mile hike on what I consider the WT’s best sections (a route described as one of the alternate itineraries in my Wonderland Trail e-book), two friends and I walked from the glorious meadows of Summerland on Rainier’s east side to more meadows west of Sunrise and eventually our campsite at Granite Creek, drinking in some of the best vistas along a path rich with amazing scenery.

See my stories “5 Reasons You Must Backpack Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail” and “An American Gem: Backpacking Mount Rainier’s Wonderland Trail.”

Want to hike the Wonderland Trail? Get my expert e-book
“The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Wonderland Trail in Mount Rainier National Park.”

Hiking New Zealand’s Incomparable Tongariro Alpine Crossing

I could create a separate list just of the most spectacular days I’ve spent in New Zealand. It would include day two on the Kepler Track, at least one day on the Dusky Track, and sea kayaking in Milford Sound and Doubtful Sound, all in Fiordland National Park, as well as days on the Cascade Saddle Route and the Whanganui River.

And in late fall 2024, I returned to New Zealand for my fourth trip, this one with my family, and we trekked the classic and popular Milford and Routeburn tracks—and the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. A 12-mile/19.4km traverse of Tongariro National Park in the central North Island, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing deserves ranking among the world’s great trails for its almost constant views of active, rugged volcanoes, massive craters, and lakes that all but glow with color. That’s why it’s on this list of mine.

See my stories “Hiking New Zealand’s Epic Tongariro Alpine Crossing” and “Super Volcanoes: Hiking the Steaming Peaks of New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park,” and all stories about adventures in New Zealand at The Big Outside.

Like what you’re reading? Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter!

Five Days Exploring the Wind River Range

Few places foil my attempts to pick favorite days of hiking more doggedly than the Winds—because few days walking through those mountains are mediocre. But I can spotlight a handful that feel extra special.

A one-day, 27-mile, east-west traverse I made of the southern Wind River Range with friends felt like a stroll through mountain paradise. We spent much of our hike above 11,000 feet, drinking up vistas of peaks rising above 12,000 feet on the Continental Divide. We scrambled up 12,250-foot Mount Chauvenet, crossed the Lizard Head Plateau gaping at thick glaciers, and then put an exclamation point on our adventure by walking across the Cirque of the Towers, a horseshoe of sheer-walled granite peaks scratching at the clouds.

On the first day of a 39-mile backpacking trip, two friends and I hiked from the Elkhart Park trailhead, past Island Lake and several others, to camp in Titcomb Basin—an alpine valley at over 10,500 feet, where peaks on the Divide soar more than 3,000 feet above lakes rippling in the wind.

Three companions and I backpacked one of the most audacious and magnificent wilderness adventures in the country: traversing the range south to north on the 96-mile Wind River High Route. While most of that week arguably belongs on this list, our fourth day began with crossing Sentry Peak Pass and passing a tiny tarn reflecting a row of incisor mountains in the upper valley of Middle Fork Lake (photo near the top of this story), moved on to a second 11,000-foot pass and eventually reached 12,000 feet on the Divide at Europe Peak.

Backpacking a 43-mile loop, my wife, a friend, and I started our second day from one of the best backcountry campsites I’ve ever had (photo above of reflection in a tarn), walked a stunning stretch of the Highline/Continental Divide Trail past two of the prettiest backcountry lakes I’ve hiked past and more lakes that came close, crossed three high passes, and finally, camped by a lake that reflected the alpenglow on the peaks.

Most recently, on a four-day hike in August 2023, a friend and I crossed three passes on our third day, the middle one, Texas Pass, depositing us in the Cirque of the Towers via a back door of sorts that may have sealed my impression that we were on the best multi-day hike in the Winds. Watch for my upcoming story about that trip.

See all stories about backpacking in the Winds at the Big Outside, including “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in the Wind River Range,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Wind River Range? Yup,” “Backpacking Through a Lonely Corner of the Wind River Range,” “Best of the Wind River Range: Backpacking to Titcomb Basin,” “Adventure and Adversity on the Wind River High Route,” and “A Walk in the Winds: Dayhiking 27 Miles Across the Wind River Range.”

I’ve helped many readers plan a great backpacking trip in the Winds that was ideal for them. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you, too.

Our 27-mile Winds dayhike is one of “America’s Best Hard Dayhikes.”

Backpacking The Narrows, Zion National Park

Tough call deciding whether the first or second day backpacking Zion’s Narrows deserves a spot on this list. But take this classic, two-day backpacking trip and you’ll get to decide for yourself. Walking down the mostly shallow North Fork of the Virgin River between close sandstone walls that rise up to a thousand feet overhead, with trees and lush hanging gardens contrasted against rock painted in a rainbow of colors, Zion’s Narrows keeps getting more spectacular with every step.

Read my story “Luck of the Draw, Part 2: Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.”

Click here now to get my e-book to Backpacking Zion’s Narrows.

Hiking Above the Gray Glacier, Torres del Paine National Park, Chile

A rumble of thunder ripped through the air, audible over the persistent wind—but it wasn’t thunder. A few hundred feet below our rocky overlook in Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park, a slowly widening ring of small bergs floated in the lake, shrapnel from a massive chunk of ice that had just calved off the snout of the Grey Glacier. We were ascending a trail over a mountainside scoured to bedrock by ancient ice, scaling hundred-foot-tall steel ladders anchored to the earthen walls of gorges, while looking out over a river of ice two miles across and 17 miles long. Part of the spectacular “W” trek in this park in Chile’s Patagonia region, it was a 19-mile day that ended when we walked up to the Paine Grande Lodge after dark, buzzing with excitement.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine,” and all stories about hiking in Patagonia at The Big Outside.

Hiking Mount St. Helens

The catastrophic eruption that decapitated Washington’s Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980, removing almost 1,300 vertical feet of mountaintop, ironically created one of America’s most strikingly beautiful, fascinating, and coveted dayhikes. On a climb up the mountain’s standard Monitor Ridge route—10 miles and 4,500 vertical feet up and down, most of it over a rugged and stark moonscape of loose rocks, pumice, and ash—you’ll soak up views of several Cascade Range volcanoes, and eventually stand atop the rim’s crumbling cliffs, gazing out over a vast hole 2,000 feet deep and nearly two miles across.

See my story “Three Generations, One Big Volcano: Pushing Limits on Mount St. Helens.”

Got an all-time favorite campsite? I have a few great ones.
See “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Three Days on the Continental Divide Trail in Glacier

On a couple of long, north-south traverses of Glacier in September 2018 and again in September 2023, mostly following two variations of the Continental Divide Trail from the Belly River Trailhead to Two Medicine, friends and I saw bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and a grizzly bear, and heard elk bugling almost every morning and evening—and we enjoyed mountain views unlike anywhere else in America.

As difficult as it is to pick out which days on those hikes stood out, I can point to three in particular: hiking the Ptarmigan Tunnel Trail from the Belly River Valley to Many Glacier; hiking below the cliffs of the Garden Wall to cross Piegan Pass; and following the high, alpine Dawson Pass Trail from Pitamakan Pass to Dawson Pass—jaw-dropping, all of them.

Glacier does that to me every time I go there.

See my stories about those two trips, “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier” and “Déjà Vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” “10 Backpacking Trips for Solitude in Glacier National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside.

Save yourself a lot of time. Get my expert e-book to backpacking the CDT through Glacier.

Backpacking Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, Southern Olympic Coast

You won’t find much on the longest strip of wilderness coastline in the contiguous United States, the shore of Washington’s Olympic National Park—just seals, sea lions, sea otters, bald eagles, many species of seabirds and whales, and trees 10 to 15 feet in diameter and growing over 200 feet tall. On the middle day of a three-day, 17.5-mile backpacking trip, hiking from Mosquito Creek to Toleak Point, my family explored tide pools and boulders coated with mussels, sea stars, and sea anemones, looked out on scores of stone pinnacles rising out of the ocean, and camped on a wilderness beach. I’m not sure who had more fun, the kids or the adults.

See my story “The Wildest Shore: Backpacking the Southern Olympic Coast,” and all stories about Olympic National Park at The Big Outside.

Score a popular permit using my
“10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Two Days Backpacking Paria Canyon and Buckskin Gulch

Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon yet again in April 2025, I was reminded just how uniquely spectacular they both are. With walls that rise to perhaps 200 feet tall and close in so tightly at times that an adult wearing a backpack can barely squeeze through, Buckskin is widely regarded as the longest slot canyon in America.

And Paria Canyon, hiked by itself or in combination with Buckskin, has long been widely considered one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest—and I would argue one of the top three or five, for its own deep narrows section stretching for miles.

Walking through these canyons always reveals that the greatest magic of narrow canyons is how the diffused light paints the orange and red walls in too many shades of those colors to quantify, as well as shades of brown and a deep black that looks like an oil spill—creating stark contrasts that delight and mystify the human eye and brain. Buckskin and Paria each deserve a day on this list.

See my stories “Not a Dull Moment: Backpacking Buckskin Gulch and Paria Canyon” and “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon,” and all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.

Explore the best of the Southwest on “The 15 Best Hikes in Utah’s National Parks” and
“The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest.”

Backpacking the High Sierra Trail, Sequoia National Park

We weren’t far into a nearly 40-mile family backpacking trip in Sequoia before I realized it promised to be one of the most photogenic places I’ve ever hiked. Part of one of the biggest chunks of contiguous wilderness in the Lower 48, it’s home to many of the highest mountains outside Alaska, lonely backcountry groves of giant sequoias, and crystal-clear alpine lakes.

On our third day, hiking the High Sierra Trail from Bearpaw Meadow toward 10,700-foot Kaweah Gap, we traversed a cliff face hundreds of feet above the deep Middle Fork Kaweah River. We stopped for lunch and a swim at the Hamilton Lakes, which are almost completely enclosed by towering cliffs and pinnacles. By late afternoon, we found campsites at Precipice Lake at 10,400 feet, its glassy, green and blue waters reflecting white and golden cliffs (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

See my story “Heavy Lifting: Backpacking Sequoia National Park.”

Decorate your walls with beautiful photos from your favorite wild places. Click here now to get professional-quality prints of this blog’s most inspiring images!

Four More Days in the Grand Canyon

If the Grand Canyon looms large in this story—and in others at The Big Outside, like “The 12 Best Backpacking Trips in the Southwest”—that’s because it looms even larger in my perspective and that of probably every backpacker who ventures into it. In fact, besides hiking rim to rim to rim (described above), I can think of at least a few more days of backpacking in the Big Ditch that rank among my most scenic ever.

Those would include the second day on the very rugged and infrequently hiked, 34.5-mile Royal Arch Loop, which featured just about everything that makes backpacking in the Grand Canyon unique: sweeping views, a sandy beach beside the Colorado River, an intimate side canyon with lush hanging gardens, a high solitude quotient—even some spicy scrambling and a fun rappel off a cliff—not to mention one of the best campsites in the entire canyon, below Royal Arch (one of my 25 all-time favorite backcountry campsites).

It would also include the day that two friends and I traversed most of the Escalante Route, one of the of the prettiest and most adventurous “trails” (if it can be called that) in the canyon, on a 74-mile hike from the South Kaibab Trailhead to Lipan Point. And I’d have to include day three on yet another rugged and remote GC hike, the 25-mile Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop, which features some of the canyon’s loveliest waterfalls, narrows, and desert oases.

Oh, and then there’s almost any day on the Gems Route, the most remote section of the Tonto Trail, from the South Bass Trailhead to the Boucher Trail.

See my stories “Not Quite Impassable: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Royal Arch Loop,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” “Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop,” “Let’s Talk Water: Backpacking the Grand Canyon’s Gems,” and “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do.”

Click here now to get 20% off my e-books
to the best first backpacking trips in Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

Backpacking the Rockwall Trail, Kootenay National Park, Canadian Rockies

My family’s second day on the 34-mile (54k) Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park was long and hard—12 miles over two 7,000-foot passes—but we had the most effective painkiller: views that even impressed our 14- and 12-year-old kids. One of Canada’s most popular and stunningly scenic hikes—and really deserving a spot on the list of the world’s finest treks—it follows the base of an almost unbroken limestone cliff up to 3,000 feet (900m) tall. We started that day below 1,154-foot (352m) Helmet Falls, one of the tallest in the Canadian Rockies, and hiked to Numa Creek, crossing meadows carpeted in wildflowers below hanging glaciers, and sighting four mountain goats at Tumbling Pass.

See my story about backpacking the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay National Park.

Get the right gear for your trips. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”

Climbing Norway’s Highest Peak

Under a brilliantly blue morning sky in the highest mountains in northern Europe, my wife, Penny, our friend, Jeff Wilhelm, and I started a 5,000-foot climb of the highest peak in Norway, 8,100-foot Galdhøpiggen. It was the final day of a 60-mile trek in Jotunheimen National Park—another trip which every day could legitimately be the one chosen for this story—and we could have lounged in our last hut, but were glad we didn’t.

Ascending a treeless mountainside, we gained increasingly longer views of a rugged, Arctic-looking landscape vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, and wildflowers, where cliffs and peaks look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe. At the chilly, windblown summit, we stood above a sea of snowy mountains and glaciers. And, of course, it being Europe, there was a hut at the summit where we could buy hot cocoas.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park” and all stories about international trips at The Big Outside.

Let The Big Outside help you find the best adventures.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

I often get asked the question, “What’s your favorite trip?” And I don’t have an answer. To pick just one from all the amazing adventures I’ve had the good fortune to take over more than three decades feels like an impossible task. Instead, I maintain this list of my 10 all-time favorites (so far). It includes some of America’s best backpacking trips, from the Teton Crest Trail and John Muir Trail to Glacier National Park, plus hiking across the Grand Canyon, trekking in Iceland, Patagonia, Norway, and Italy’s Dolomite Mountains (photo above), and some places that might surprise you.

As you’re planning your next great adventures—as you should be doing at this time of year—consider that my picks are chosen from scores of backpacking, dayhiking, paddling, trekking, and other trips I’ve taken, domestically and internationally, over a period of time that includes the 10 years I spent as a writer for Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Some of the trips described below—each with a link to the full feature story about it at The Big Outside, which has my tips on planning it (and those require a paid subscription to read in full)—are classics you’ve heard or read about. But others are places you may not know of—because I feel a list like this should introduce you to someplace new. That’s what adventure is all about.

See also my picks for “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips” for more ideas; some of these trips could have made either list. See also my expert e-books to some of America’s best backpacking trips and my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan any trip you read about at The Big Outside.

I’d love to hear what you think of this list and any suggestions for trips you think belong on it. Share your thoughts in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Start planning one of your best adventures ever right now—to ensure yourself a very happy new year.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter.

Sea Kayaking Alaska’s Glacier Bay

Few corners of the planet remain as pristine as this national park that’s the size of Connecticut, which sits at the heart of a contiguous protected wilderness the size of Greece. On a multi-day sea kayaking trip here, you can see massive tidewater glaciers explosively calving bus-sized chunks of ice into the sea, humpback whales, orcas, Steller sea lions, mountain goats, seals, sea otters, brown bears, and a variety of birds and wildflowers. It feels like traveling back in time to the end of the last ice age.

See my story about my family’s five-day sea kayaking trip in Glacier Bay, “Back to the Ice Age: Sea Kayaking Glacier Bay.”

See my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”

Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail

The Teton Crest Trail is, step for step, unquestionably one of the most gorgeous mountain walks in America, a true classic offering all the elements of an unforgettable backpacking trip: views of the incomparable skyline of the Tetons and deep, cliff-flanked, glacier-scoured canyons; wonderful campsites, wildflowers, mountain lakes and creeks; and a good chance of seeing moose, elk, marmots, pikas, mule deer, and black bears. I fell in love with the Tetons on my first visit, more than 20 years ago, and I’ve returned more than 20 times since to backpack, rock climb, dayhike, bag most of the major summits, canoe, and backcountry ski. I never grow tired of the sight of these peaks.

See my stories  “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” and all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail”
and see this menu of all of my expert e-books to classic backpacking trips.

Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail

If hearing the JMT described as “America’s Most Beautiful Trail”—as it often is—seems to you like a hyperbolic claim, then you really must go see for yourself. For mile after jaw-dropping mile, you walk below incisor peaks of clean granite, past more waterfalls than anyone could name in a thousand lifetimes, along pristine wilderness lakes nestled in rocky basins, and over passes topping 12,000 and 13,000 feet with views that stretch a hundred miles. Whether or not you agree with that nickname “America’s Most Beautiful Trail,” it will be one of the most wonderful research projects you’ve ever done.

See all stories about backpacking the John Muir Trail at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “How to Get a John Muir Trail Wilderness Permit,” an “Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan” for a JMT thru-hike, and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail in Seven Days: Amazing Experience, or Certifiably Insane?”

Want my help planning your hike on the Teton Crest Trail, JMT, or another trip?
Click here now for expert advice you won’t get elsewhere.

Trekking Patagonia: Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park

One of the most prized trekking destinations in the world, Torres del Paine National Park is a place of severely vertical stone monoliths thousands of feet tall, and some of the world’s largest glaciers pouring into emerald lakes. Of twisted lenga trees, raging whitewater rivers, and the maybe most relentless winds you’ve ever encountered. Patagonia is a dream destination for backpackers all over the world. Read this story to learn how to do Patagonia right.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine.”

Want to read any story linked here?
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!

Exploring Deep into the Grand Canyon

Know this before you go to the Grand Canyon: This place will steal your heart. That has been my experience from numerous trips over the years, from rim-to-rim-to-rim dayhikes to multi-day hikes on some of the canyon’s most remote and rugged paths. Now, every return visit just fuels my hunger to go back yet again to explore another corner I haven’t seen yet.

Choose the dayhike or backpacking trip that looks most appealing and suits your skills and experience, and just go see this seemingly infinite complex of shockingly deep and wide side canyons, walls stacked in multi-colored layers, and an army of stone towers. If you’re like me, you will end up going back again and again.

See my numerous stories about Grand Canyon National Park at The Big Outside, including “How to Hike the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day,” “10 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” and all stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, dayhiking the Grand Canyon rim to rim, and “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon.”

Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains

The Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends,” a roughly 108-mile/180-kilometer alpine footpath through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, Italy’s Dolomites, is famous for many attributes, including comfortable mountain huts with excellent food; a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie (plural for alta via), or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites; and scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world.

Read about my family’s weeklong, hut-to-hut trek on a 39-mile/62-kilometer section of the AV 2 in my story “’The World’s Most Beautiful Trail:’ Trekking the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomites.”

See which section of the Alta Via 2 made my “30 Most Scenic Days of Hiking Ever.”
Click here to learn how I can help you plan this incomparable trek.

Backpacking in Glacier National Park

Think of Glacier National Park and you think of mountain scenery that truly justifies a severely overused adjective: awesome. You think of wildlife sightings that are possible in few places in the Lower 48: bighorn sheep, moose, elk, so many mountain goats you may lose count, and black bears and grizzly bears.

There are two 90-mile hikes in Glacier that make my list of “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips:” The first is a tour of northern Glacier, broken up into two hikes, a 65-miler that’s my modified version of Glacier’s best backpacking trip, the Northern Loop, and a 25-miler on the beautiful Gunsight Pass Trail, simplified logistically by the park’s free shuttle buses. The second is a north-south traverse through Glacier mostly on the Continental Divide Trail, from Chief Mountain Trailhead at the Canadian border to Two Medicine.

Both trips deliver everything that makes Glacier a favorite of backpackers: sightings of bighorn sheep, mountain goats, black bears, moose, and maybe even grizzlies. Go in September and you may hear elk bugling most mornings and evenings.

See all stories about backpacking in Glacier at The Big Outside, including “Descending the Food Chain: Backpacking Glacier National Park’s Northern Loop,” “Wildness All Around You: Backpacking the CDT Through Glacier,” and “Déjà vu All Over Again: Backpacking in Glacier National Park,” about my most recent, weeklong hike in Glacier.

Get my expert e-books to backpacking Glacier’s Northern Loop
and the CDT through Glacier, which also describe shorter itinerary options.

Adventuring in Iceland

Do you believe in elves? Icelanders do, or at least enough to route highways around places considered the abodes of elves and trolls. This belief may draw inspiration from a landscape of raw beauty that has shaped the values of its people. Smaller than Kentucky, the country has about 150 volcanoes, the greatest concentration in the world. While exploring rugged trails through old lava flows, thermal features spewing steam into the sky, and mind-boggling waterfalls and glaciers, I began to think of Iceland as like a first crush, a mountain cabin, or Alaska: easy to fall in love with, hard to leave. You will feel the same way.

I returned in July 2022 to trek hut to hut on Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails and drive the Ring Road to see more of this fascinating island nation on dayhikes.

Read my story about my family’s hut trek, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.” See also “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

Take the world’s best trips.
See all stories about international adventures at The Big Outside.

Hiking Spain’s Picos de Europa

Just a few hours’ drive from a major airport in northern Spain lies a spectacular mountain range resembling the Dolomites, with huts and charming mountain towns—and it’s possible you’ve never heard of it. On a five-day, 52-mile hike through the Picos de Europa, my family walked below jagged limestone peaks rising to over 8,500 feet, over passes above 7,000 feet and across mind-boggling alpine terrain that conveys a sense of much bigger peaks. We spent nights either in huts or delightful B&Bs or inns with great food in quiet, beautiful little villages.

See my story, “The Best 5-Day Hike in Spain’s Picos de Europa Mountains.”

Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”

Trekking Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

Hike every day through a starkly beautiful, Arctic-like landscape of mountains plastered with snow and ice, and valleys bisected by rushing streams or filled with iceberg-choked lakes. Then spend every night in the most comfortable mountain huts you have ever encountered, eating meals fit for a four-star restaurant—that’s trekking Jotunheimen. From the multi-cultural experience to exciting stream fords and the opportunity for more challenging, optional side hikes—like the steep scramble up a peak named Kirkja and the all-day hike to Norway’s highest summit, Galdhøpiggen—this adventure was a home run for everyone in our group, age nine to 75.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park.”

See also my story describing my top 10 family adventures, and a menu of every story about outdoor adventures at my Trips page at The Big Outside.

Feeling inspired by this story?
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

Can travel “change your life?” How many experiences have such an enormous impact? I can name several that shifted my perspective on adventure or expanded how I view the world and other people. Exploring the surreal landscapes of Iceland and Patagonia. Walking among Earth’s highest mountains in Nepal, through remote villages where we experienced cultures far different from our own. Immersing myself in the mountain lifestyle on hut treks in the Alps like the Tour du Mont Blanc (photo above). And seeing unforgettable places like Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park, Italy’s Dolomites, and Alaska’s Glacier Bay through the unclouded eyes of my kids.

Our earliest and sometimes most inspirational experiences usually happen within our own national borders, and often close to where we grew up or live. (That was the case for me on a bicycle tour with two buddies in our home state when we were 19.) And without question, several U.S. national parks deserve a spot on any list of the world’s must-see destinations, among them Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Glacier, Zion, and the Everglades—not to mention several parks in Alaska, where you can see the breadth of wildlife that once existed all over the planet.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

But there’s something about traveling abroad that puts everything you see, hear, and touch under a magnifying glass. Everything is exotic. People talk and think differently. Culture is alien, history a refreshing and informative new collection of stories.

Blend those elements into a hike through mountains you’ve never seen before, or paddling through a pristine landscape, and you have the formula for an experience that does alter our perception of the world and our place in it. Take a child on a trip like that and you may reroute the trajectory of a young person’s life—very much for the better.

This article describes 15 adventures I’ve taken in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Asia, and New Zealand—all of them trips worth adding to your list. These short descriptions provide links to feature-length stories about each trip at The Big Outside that include many images and tips for planning those trips yourself. (Those stories are partially free for anyone to read but require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full, including my planning tips.)

Please share your thoughts on any of these trips, or suggest others that have changed your life, in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

Setting off on a life-changing experience demands self-motivation and the journey begins with the planning. Get started now.

Bon voyage.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter.

Hiking in Iceland

Steam from hot springs and fumaroles rises from scores of points stretching to a distant horizon. The landscape is a kaleidoscope of color—paint-can spills of ochre, pink, gold, plum, brown, rust, and honey against a backdrop of electric-lime moss and July snowfields smeared across the highlands. An old, hardened lava flow pours down one mountainside in a jumbled train wreck of black rhyolite. And that’s just day one on the Laugavegur Trail.

A typically four-day, hut-to-hut trek in Iceland’s remote Central Highlands, it belongs on any list of the world’s most beautiful paths—as does the Fimmvörðuháls Trail, a two-day addition to the Laugavegur that’s arguably even more stunning. Cap the adventure of a lifetime taking dayhikes along the Ring Road.

Read my blog story about my family’s hut trek on these two trails, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.” See also “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” and “Earth, Wind, and Fire: A Journey to the Planet’s Beginnings in Iceland.”

Ready to hike one of the world’s great treks? Click here now for my e-book
“The Complete Guide to Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails.”

Trekking the Tour du Mont Blanc

Look at any list of the world’s greatest hiking trails, and the Tour du Mont Blanc (photo at top of story) almost invariably occupies a spot at or near the top of it. The first reason is the sheer majesty of this roughly 105-mile (170k) walking path around the “Monarch of the Alps:” Crossing several mountain passes reaching nearly 9,000 feet, it delivers views of glaciers, pointy peaks and “aiguilles,” and the snowy dome of Mont Blanc.

But there’s also the rich cultural experience of passing through three nations—France, Italy, and Switzerland—as well as some of the best food I’ve eaten on any international trip. Plus, the abundance of scenic mountain towns and villages and availability of public transportation allows hikers to customize their trek, choosing which sections to hike depending on difficulty, weather, and how they feel.

See my story “Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace” at The Big Outside.

Get my expert e-book “The Perfect Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc.”

Or click here now to get more than 20% off on my e-books to three great world treks:
The Tour du Mont Blanc, New Zealand’s Milford Track, and Iceland’s Laugavegur Trail!

Hiking New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park

Tongariro National Park, in New Zealand’s central North Island, looks like a place devastated by a very big bomb—which is sort of what happened, but countless times. Its volcanoes remain active: One erupted 45 times in the 20th century and another ranks among the world’s most active. And on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a 12-mile/19.4-kilometer traverse of much of the park, you’ll soak up almost constant views of these rugged peaks, broad craters, and lakes that all but glow with color in this stark landscape.

Arguably the best dayhike in New Zealand and among the best in the world, it’s no casual stroll, with nearly 6,000 feet/1,700 meters of combined uphill and downhill, including steep, loose terrain in spots. But among the highlights, the panorama from the rim of Red Crater overlooks several volcanoes, and the Emerald Lakes and Blue Lake make their names seem inadequately descriptive.

See my story from my most recent trip, “Hiking New Zealand’s Classic Tongariro Alpine Crossing” and my story from a previous hike, “Super Volcanoes: Hiking the Steaming Peaks of New Zealand’s Tongariro National Park.”

Read any story linked here and ALL stories at The Big Outside.
Join now and get a free e-book!

Backpacking the Skyline Trail in the Canadian Rockies

The Skyline Trail makes a 27.3-mile/44-kilometer traverse of the Maligne Range in Jasper National Park—the much-less-visited but larger sister park of its joined-at-the-hip sibling, Banff, in the Canadian Rockies. Remaining above treeline for about 15.5 miles/25 kilometers of its distance and riding the airy (and often windblown) crest of a high ridge at its apex, the Skyline has long been considered a Canadian Rockies classic for its nearly constant panoramas of massive walls of rock and a sea of mountains stretching to distant horizons in every direction.

Every time I go there, I wonder whether there’s a mountain range in the 48 contiguous U.S. states that compares with the Canadian Rockies. Yes, I’m serious.

See my stories “Hiking and Backpacking the Canadian Rockies—A Photo Gallery,” “Backpacking the Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park,” and all stories about backpacking in the Canadian Rockies at The Big Outside.

Want my help planning any trip you read about at this blog?
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.

Trekking Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains

On a weeklong, hut-to-hut trek through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, Italy’s Dolomites, my family hiked a 39-mile (62k) section of the roughly 112-mile (180k) Alta Via 2, or “The Way of the Legends.”

An alpine footpath famous for scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world, the AV 2 is also known for comfortable mountain huts with excellent food—and a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie, or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites. On one of my family’s biggest adventures, we discovered that it was all of those things and more.

See my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 in Italy’s Dolomites.”

Make your kids want to go again. See “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

Hiking Spain’s Picos de Europa

What if I told you there’s a stunning mountain range in Europe that’s just a few hours’ drive from a major airport, has mountain huts and charming mountain towns, is surprisingly inexpensive to trek through—and you’ve probably never heard of it? Well, I’ve gotten around a fair bit, but I had never heard of northern Spain’s Picos de Europa until just months before my family’s five-day, 52-mile hike through them. Amid jagged limestone peaks rising to over 8,500 feet, we hiked over passes above 7,000 feet and across mind-boggling alpine terrain that conveys a sense of much bigger peaks.

My strong recommendation: Hire local guide Alberto Mediavilla Serrano, the best guide in the Picos; alberto.mediavilla@gmail.com. While following trails there isn’t terribly difficult in good weather, when we got a surprise snowstorm in June that reduced visibility and covered all trail markings, Alberto knew the mountains well enough to find the way in those conditions, advise us to change our plans to take a safer alternate route, and where we could find very reasonably priced rooms and good food in a village that night.

Read my feature story about my family’s trek, “The Best 5-Day Hike in Spain’s Picos de Europa Mountains.”

Get the right pack for you. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks.”

Trekking Patagonia’s Torres del Paine

Undoubtedly one of the most prized trekking destinations in the world, Torres del Paine National Park is Chile’s Yosemite. In the vast region known as Patagonia, it is a place of severely vertical stone monoliths thousands of feet tall: Imagine looking at Yosemite Valley stacked atop one of the deep valleys of Glacier National Park. Cracked glaciers stretch many miles long and wide, calving into emerald lakes, and the wind will occasionally knock you off your feet. Hiking hut-to-hut or camping on the roughly 31-mile (50k) “W” trek, on the south side of the mountains—where the weather is often better than the north side—takes in some of the park’s finest scenery.

See my story “Patagonian Classic: Trekking Torres del Paine.”

Click here now to plan your next great backpacking adventure using my expert e-books.

Trekking New Zealand’s Milford Track and Sea Kayaking in Milford Sound

The Milford Track in Fiordland National Park, one of New Zealand’s Great Walks, has earned a reputation as one of the best multi-day hikes on the planet. Measuring 33.2 miles/53.5 kilometers, the trail makes a one-way traverse from giant Lake Te Anau, embraced by vividly green mountains, to Milford Sound, where sheer-walled peaks soar more than 5,000 feet/1,500 meters straight up out of this narrow corridor to the sea.

Along the way, you’ll walk through lush rainforest, below scores of ribbon waterfalls plunging hundreds of feet, cross the mountains at 3,786-foot/1,154-meter Mackinnon Pass, and spend nights in basic but comfortable mountain huts.

The Milford Track is also one of the hardest treks in the world to book hut reservations on. Instead (or in addition to trekking the Milford Track), spend a day sea kayaking in Milford Sound, soaking up views of cliffs wearing a thick fur of rainforest; you might even spot bottlenose dolphins and Fiordland crested penguins.

See my stories “Learning to—Love?—the Rain on New Zealand’s Milford Track” and “Photo Gallery: Sea Kayaking New Zealand’s Milford Sound,” and my story about a multi-day sea kayaking trip in Doubtful Sound in Fiordland National Park.

Get my expert e-book “Trekking New Zealand’s World-Famous Milford Track.”
Or get 20% off on both of my e-books to New Zealand’s Milford Track and Routeburn Track.

Trekking Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park

Jotunheimen—which means “Home of the Giants”—contains the highest European mountains north of the Alps, starkly barren peaks rising to more than 8,000 feet. In this rugged, Arctic-looking landscape, vibrantly colorful with shrubs, mosses, and wildflowers, cliffs and mountains look like they were chopped from the earth with an axe, braided rivers meander down mostly treeless valleys, and reindeer roam wild. My family’s 60-mile (96.6k), hut-to-hut trek across Jotunheimen combined pristine wilderness with the most luxurious huts I’ve ever stayed in, a trail network that allows for flexibility in route options, and side hikes to summits with mind-blowing views of mountains buried in snow and ice, including the highest peak in Norway.

See my story “Walking Among Giants: A Three-Generation Hut Trek in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park.”

Find the right synthetic or down puffy for you. See “The 12 Best Down Jackets.”

Sea Kayaking Alaska’s Glacier Bay

On a five-day, guided sea kayaking trip in Southeast Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, my family probed deep into one of the most pristine and largest wildernesses left on Earth. Surrounded by snowy peaks smothered in more than 50 glaciers, some of which explosively calve icebergs into the sea, Glacier Bay is a 65-mile-long fjord that opens a window onto what North America looked like when the last Ice Age drew to a close 10,000 years ago. A short list of the many critters you may see includes humpback whales, orcas, brown bears, Steller sea lions, and birds like black-legged kittiwake, pigeon guillemot, bald eagles, two kinds of puffin. Few trips in America are this wild.

See my story “Back to the Ice Age: Sea Kayaking Glacier Bay.”

Click here now to join The Big Outside and get full access to ALL stories,
including every story linked here, plus a FREE e-book!

Backpacking Unknown Patagonia: The Dientes Circuit

Billed as the southernmost trek in the world, the 22.7-mile (36.5k) Dientes Circuit around the jagged, rocky peaks of the Dientes de Navarino, or “Teeth of Navarino,” certainly qualifies as one of the most remote: At 55 degrees south latitude, the Dientes, which reach almost 4,000 feet in elevation, lie just 60 miles from the tip of South America and a short flight from the Antarctic Peninsula.

While renowned treks in Patagonia, like those in Torres del Paine (see above), attract thousands of international trekkers every year, you may not see anyone else in four days on the Dientes Circuit—giving you a sense of what Patagonia was like before it became a darling of the international trekkers’ set. That’s not only because of its remoteness: This is a very strenuous hike that demands expert backcountry skills—all part of the challenge and reward of this unique backpacking trip.

See my story “Unknown Patagonia: Backpacking the Dientes Circuit.”

I’ve helped many readers plan unforgettable backpacking and hiking trips.
Want my help with yours? Click here now.

Trekking New Zealand’s Routeburn and Kepler Tracks

Two more of New Zealand’s Great Walks are neighbors of the Milford Track (above) in Fiordland National Park: the world-class, 33.1-kilometer/20.7-mile Routeburn Track, generally done in three days; and the three- to four-day, approximately 37-mile/60-kiloemeter Kepler Track.

Both deliver a grand tour of diverse landscapes, from moss-blanketed beech forest to the tussock-carpeted high country, placing them among the most scenic and varied hut treks in a country blessed with a crazy wealth of gorgeous trails. And the Kepler, in particular, presents a relatively mud-, flood-, and hassle-free, hut-to-hut hiking experience—most notably, it’s easier to get hut reservations for the Kepler than the hugely popular Milford and Routeburn. That’s nice in a region where everything from weather to logistics can mess with your adventure plans.

See my stories “Trekking New Zealand’s World-Class Routeburn Track” and “New Zealand’s Best, Uncomplicated Hut Trek: The Kepler Track.” See also my story “Hiking New Zealand’s Hardest Hut Trek, the Dusky Track.”

Get my expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Trekking New Zealand’s Routeburn Track.”
Or get 20% off on both of my e-books to New Zealand’s Milford Track and Routeburn Track.

Backpacking the Rockwall Trail in the Canadian Rockies

On the first day of a 34-mile/55-kilometer backpacking trip on the Rockwall Trail in Canada’s Kootenay National Park, my family walked below one of the tallest waterfalls in the Rocky Mountains, 1,154-foot/352-meter Helmet Falls—and that was merely the opening act of a nearly unbroken, 18-mile-long/30-kilometer row of peaks plastered with glaciers and towering as much as 3,000 feet/900 meters above the trail. Backpackers might think those peaks resemble numerous clones of Yosemite’s El Capitan standing shoulder to shoulder.

Well-known among Canadian backpackers but less so outside their country, the Rockwall Trail—and the Skyline Trail (above)—both deserve to be listed among the world’s greatest treks.

See my stories “Hiking and Backpacking the Canadian Rockies—A Photo Gallery,” “Best of the Canadian Rockies: Backpacking the Rockwall Trail,” and all stories about backpacking in the Canadian Rockies at The Big Outside.

Planning a backpacking trip? See “How to Know How Hard a Hike Will Be”
and this menu of all stories with expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

Trekking Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit

The tiny mountain kingdom of Nepal has long held an exalted status in the minds of international trekkers, and the Annapurna Circuit stands beside the trek to Everest base camp as Nepal’s most popular and accessible. Over roughly three weeks, you’ll walk about 150 miles from village to village, below some of the world’s tallest peaks, glaciated giants so unfathomably big that, at times, they can seem drift farther away even as you approach them. You eat and sleep in teahouses while following an ancient trade route over the Thorung La, a mountain pass at 17,769 feet. After three decades of adventures all over the world, this remains one of the most culturally fascinating and beautiful trips I’ve ever taken.

See my story “Himalayan Shangri-La: Trekking Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit.”

I’ve learned a lot traveling the world. See my “10 Tips For Doing Adventure Travel Right.”

Rafting Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River

Three times now, my family and about 20 good friends have taken one of the classic multi-day, wilderness river trips in America—and arguably, the greatest: a six-day, whitewater rafting and kayaking trip down the Middle Fork Salmon River with a team of top guides from Middle Fork Rapid Transit. Deep in the largest federal wilderness area in the Lower 48, central Idaho’s 2.4-million-acre Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, the Middle Fork has some 100 ratable rapids, many of them class III and IV, not to mention beautiful campsites and side hikes, hot springs, and world-class trout fishing. It’s also one of the prettiest rivers to ever carve a twisting canyon through mountains.

See my stories “Big Water, Big Wilderness: Rafting Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River” and “Reunions of the Heart on Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River” at The Big Outside.

See all stories about international adventures and family adventures at The Big Outside.

Let The Big Outside help you find the best adventures.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

In the Digital Era, the idea of families spending sustained time outdoors—actually taking trips built around some outdoor adventure enjoyed together—can feel like a wonderful aspiration that’s awfully hard to achieve. But that lifestyle is a reality for many families—and always has been for mine—and one that brings parents and children together for long periods of time (hours or even days!) in beautiful places in nature for an activity that’s genuinely fun and, most importantly, offline and unplugged.

How do you create that kind of lifestyle for your family? As the father of two young adults who are avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, paddlers, and intelligent, fine young people who make me proud (and most importantly, love spending time with and just talking to their parents!), I believe this goal remains not only entirely feasible today, but all that much more critical—especially for young kids.

And when it’s done right, you and your children will consider the time you spend together outdoors some of the best you share as a family.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

For this story, I’ve synthesized the biggest lessons I’ve gleaned from two decades of parenting outdoors as often as possible—and four decades building my life around outdoor recreation, including formerly as a field editor for Backpacker magazine for 10 years and even longer running this blog—into seven tips that will help set you on the path to wonderful times together as a family.

Click on any photo to read about that trip. Please share your questions or your own tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments. Click on any photo to read about that trip.

No. 1: Don’t ‘Wait Until They’re Older’

For starters, abandon any misguided notion that you should “wait until the kids are older”—that’s a formula for winding up with a ‘tweener or teen who’s not interested in any of your wild-eyed notions about spending family time outdoors.

My initial motivation was admittedly somewhat selfish. One lesson I learned soon after becoming a father was this: If I wanted to keep getting outside—and especially on big trips—as much as I had before parenthood, I would have to involve my family in the activities I love doing. (That’s why that tip ranks no. 2 in my “10 Tips For Getting Outside More.”) But I also understood that making that effort when they were small would pay dividends as they grew older and more capable.

As I urge in my “Survival Guide for the Outdoors Lover Who’s a New Parent,” take your kids outside often, beginning when they’re too young to remember it—then their oldest memories will include being outdoors with their family. They will learn that getting outdoors together as a family is almost as routine as dinner.

That’s not to say it’s ever too late to start, of course. It’s never too late to spend quality time together.

Want to take your family backpacking? See these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains”

No. 2: When You Need It, Get Expert Help

You want to get your kids outdoors more, exploring nature, and enjoying the myriad experiences available in local, state, and national parks; but you and your spouse lack the skills and knowledge to even know where to begin, never mind keep everyone safe. That’s not an obstacle—everyone begins as a novice. There are free programs, many of them family-oriented, available on public lands all over the country, and numerous paid guide services—an abundance of expertise available to help you acquire experience and skills.

As just one example, when planning a visit to a national park, search the park’s website for ranger-led activities, like hikes, that are usually free or low-cost and ideal for families and beginners; you’ll find them at virtually every national park and many other public lands. Those websites also list guide services and outfitters that are licensed to operate in that park.

For instance, you can find guided tours of all kinds in Yellowstone, guided hikes in Glacier National Park, river trips through the Grand Canyon, and climbing guides operating in Grand Teton National Park and on Mount Rainier, and ranger-led tours and interpretive programs in almost any park, including Yosemite, and an adventurous, ranger-guided tour of the Fiery Furnace in Arches.

See all of the stories about family trips listed at my Family Adventures page at The Big Outside, including stories about guided whitewater rafting Idaho’s Middle Fork Salmon River and Utah’s Gates of Lodore section of the Green River in Dinosaur National Monument and the Green River’s Desolation and Gray canyons, climbing Mount Whitney, guided hiking and slot canyoneering in Capitol Reef National Park, sea kayaking in Alaska’s Glacier Bay, and kayak touring in the Everglades.

See also my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your next family adventure..

Like what you’re reading? Sign up now for my FREE email newsletter!

No. 3: Talk and Listen to Them

From the longer perspective of a father of young adults, of all the advice that I offer in my popular “10 Tips For Raising Outdoors-Loving Kids,” I think the two best nuggets of hard-earned wisdom are simply “talk and listen” and “work your P.R.”

When planning a trip, make your children feel like they’re part of the decision-making process. Welcome their questions, address their concerns, and give them some say in what you’re doing. They will be more emotionally invested in making it a success.

Your children crave your attention; shower them with it, especially positive reinforcement. Compliment kids when they do well and encourage them when they’re challenged. Tell children they’re good hikers, skiers, climbers, paddlers, or cyclists, and they will take pride in that. You will help them self-identify as a kid who likes being outdoors.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
Click here now to learn more.

No. 4: Take One-on-One, Parent-Child Trips

When my son and daughter were both very young, I established a tradition of taking an annual father-son and father-daughter backcountry trip, getaways that have become known as our “Boy Trip” and “Girl Trip.” (At a young age, my daughter gave me a waiver for my gender.)

By launching this idea when they were young and eager for entire days of one-on-one time with me, I created a tradition that my kids would look forward to as much as I did.

While most of our trips have consisted of backpacking and rock climbing in our home state of Idaho, I’ve also backpacked in the Grand Canyon with my daughter and climbed Mount Whitney with my son (click on the photos above and at left to read about either trip).

But it matters less what you do or where than simply that you do it, give your child your entire attention, make it fun, and demonstrate your commitment to it—so that, as your child gets older, the shared commitment remains strong.

I can report now, from the far end of the parenting journey with two kids who are young adults and avid backpackers, skiers, climbers, mountain bikers, and paddlers, that our son and daughter—as busy as their lives have become—still strive to spend as much time with us, especially outdoors, as they can, and we’re continually planning adventures together, whether for a few hours or a few weeks.

The Big Outside helps your family get outdoors more.
Join now for full access to ALL stories and get a free e-book!

No. 5: Blow Their Minds

Taking outdoors trips with little kids can, at times, create that defeated feeling of herding cats; but in some ways, it’s easier than when they get older, because you’re still in charge while they’re young. As they get older, they not only want more say in decisions about family outings and vacations, but they tend to come down with a chronic case of cynicism—everything is potentially “boring.”

Solution: Overwhelm their cynicism with trips so irrefutably fun that your offer becomes one they can’t refuse. One of my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You” is: Do something really cool.

As our kids grew older and more physically capable, comfortable with bigger challenges, and self-confident, we took them exploring slot canyons, including two non-technical, family-friendly slots in southern Utah’s Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and a technical slot canyon that required four rappels in Capitol Reef National Park.

We rafted and kayaked whitewater rivers like Oregon’s Grand Ronde, Utah’s Green through Dinosaur National Monument, and Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon. We’ve backpacked and trekked hut to hut in amazing landscapes from the Tetons and Glacier National Park to the Tour du Mont Blanc and Italy’s Dolomite Mountains. I would regularly take them rock climbing and skiing.

No, it doesn’t have to be totally hard-core, involve international travel, or cost a small fortune. The point is simply to be willing to rise to the challenge of motivating your kids when they’ve grown a little tired of the same old. The fact that they want to step up to a higher level of outdoor adventure means you’ve been successful.

Make your kids want to go again. See “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

No. 6: Recruit Another Family

From the first river trip we ever took as a family—a beginner-friendly, five-day float down the Green River in Canyonlands National Park—to hiking in Yosemite, backpacking Paria Canyon and the Needles District of Canyonlands, and skiing to backcountry yurts, as well as other trips, we have frequently brought other kids, another family, or multiple families along for the adventure.

Not only do the kids get energized by more peers, but it’s more social and fun for everyone—and adds the benefit of spreading the work out among the adults (when children are too young to be much help). Bring another family regularly into your trips, and you create more voices motivating the movement toward always planning the next one.

Get the right backpack for you and your kid.
See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs” and the best ultralight backpacks.

No. 7: Pick a Shared Goal

When my son was 15, I proposed to him that he and I (for our annual Boy Trip) climb a mountaineering route up the highest peak in the contiguous United States, California’s 14,505-foot Mount Whitney, to raise money for an organization that introduces kids his age to the outdoors. He leapt at the suggestion.

Motivated by this goal, he joined me in spending the next several months training for it. After we successfully reached the summit, in our tent that night at our base camp at 12,000 feet, he told me it was “the best trip we’ve ever done, and it makes me excited to do bigger ones and climb more mountains like this.”

I told him I would love that.

Get my expert help planning your backpacking or hiking trip and 33% off a one-year subscription. Click here now to buy a premium subscription!

Bonus Tip: Don’t Worry, Just Take It Slow

If your family is entirely new to hiking or any outdoors endeavors, it’s okay. You have time. Take baby steps, learn as you go, and follow your gut instincts in choosing what’s right for your family. Seek a balance between encouraging everyone to try something new and not pushing so hard that anyone gets discouraged.

The only important goal is to keep making the effort to get out there. The rest will work out.

See more tips about walking that fine line in my “10 Tips for Keeping Kids Happy and Safe Outdoors” and “5 Tips For Hiking With Young Kids From an Outdoors Dad,” and my story “5 Questions to Ask Before Trying That New Outdoor Adventure.”

Feeling inspired by this story?
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!

What exactly is “adventure travel?” While we may all define it slightly differently, I think there are universal commonalities to it. Real adventure transports you into a physical and emotional place you have never gone before, or rarely go. It brings surprises and occasionally hardships. But the good surprises are a gift that often comes wrapped in wonder and awe, while the hardships teach us something about the world and, usually, about ourselves.

Our earliest adventures can help kindle a fire for more experiences that deliver that buzz again—that feeling of being entirely on your own and not knowing what’s going to happen next, but whatever lies ahead, you’re eager to leap into it.

I’ve been fortunate to build a career around outdoor writing and photography and explore the backcountry of many national parks and wilderness areas, as well as travel around the world to pursue adventures from Patagonia to Iceland, Norway to Nepal to New Zealand and other places.

My idea of adventure travel has evolved quite a bit over half a lifetime.

Today, I find that buzz more elusive. Experience makes you safer, more confident, and less susceptible to surprises—and all of that’s generally good. But I hope to never strip away all of the surprise and mystery from travel.

I still recapture that feeling now and then, as I did not long ago on New Zealand’s hardest hut trek, the Dusky Track. And these days, I often experience that surprise and wonder vicariously, through taking my kids on adventures that give them that buzz of discovering new surprises.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside, which has made several top outdoors blog lists. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

And those don’t have to be overseas: My kids have gotten that buzz many times domestically, including when we whitewater rafted and kayaked Idaho’s remote Middle Fork of the Salmon River, and backpacked the spectacular canyon of the Paria River in Utah and Arizona.

I’ve found there are universal aspects to any great adventure. So whether you’re planning your first national park visit or an international trek, I think you’ll draw some ideas and inspiration from these 10 tips for more rewarding adventure travel.

Click on any photo to read my story about that trip, and please share your own tips or thoughts on my tips in the comments section at the bottom of this story.

No. 1 Do Some Research

When I was planning a multi-day, hut-to-hut trek for my family in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains (lead photo at top of story), I realized we were heading to a very popular destination that would be packed with tourists in the high season, especially August. So besides planning our trip for mid-July, I wanted to find a trail that would be less crowded than the well-known and extremely popular Alta Via 1, which I’d read about many times in magazines and websites.

I found that the Alta Via 2 was considered the hardest of the high routes through the Dolomites. On it, we’d enjoy a similar experience as on the AV 1 in terms of scenery, huts, and culture, but we’d see far fewer people, have less difficulty booking huts, and as a bonus (in my view), we’d enjoy some rugged hiking that would deliver more excitement than the popular, well-manicured trails. I was right, as you can read about in my story “The World’s Most Beautiful Trail: Trekking the Alta Via 2 Through Italy’s Dolomite Mountains.”

Find out all you can about where you’re going before you get there—it will help you have a better experience. One of the smartest things I’ve ever done was to start a list of trip ideas, years ago, including planning details and information sources (like links to stories); it’s now well over 18,000 words long—and growing—with hundreds of trip ideas. (I need to live a long time.) Keeping a list of trip ideas will provide motivation to keep getting you out again and again.

Like this story? You may also like my “10 Tips For Getting Your Teenager Outdoors With You”
and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”

No. 2 Don’t Go Entirely By the Book

Several days into a 17-day trek around the Annapurna Circuit in the Himalayan Mountains of Nepal—on our honeymoon—my wife and I and four new friends we’d met the first day, who’d become our trekking companions, stopped for the night at a teahouse in a tiny village called Lower Pisang. The guidebooks recommended staying there, so we saw dozens of other trekkers, and the locals seemed accustomed to catering to foreign tourists. While Lower Pisang had mud and stone buildings and views of massive, icy peaks, it held no surprises for us. In a way, it was like many of the world’s most popular treks, where you’ll meet people from many countries—which is part of the magic of adventure travel, but also can make such trips seem too homogenized if you don’t break away from the beaten tourist path at times, too.

Although we were tired and feeling the effects of higher elevation, we decided to walk uphill from Lower Pisang to Upper Pisang, which, clearly, few other trekkers bothered to do. There, on dirt paths between ancient stone homes, children ran out to greet us, shouting and laughing and pulling on our clothes to lead us through their village. We found a tiny teahouse, accessed by climbing up a wooden ladder to the second-floor balcony, where the owners served us tea and showed us their kitchen, a dirt-floored room with a single, kerosene burner.

Visiting Upper Pisang was the kind of experience that makes a trip more special. Don’t always do what everyone else does. Treat the guidebook as just that—a set of rough guidelines and advice, not a step-by-step manual. Be curious and flexible, look around, and explore.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up for my FREE email newsletter now.

No. 3 Sometimes, Do What Everyone Else Does

On one of our last mornings on Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit, we rose long before sunrise and hiked by the light of headlamps in the frigid cold, following a quiet procession of trekkers up a well-beaten footpath leading out of the village of Deorali. Reaching the bare crown of Poon Hill, at over 9,000 feet, we watched and waited beneath the dome of a Himalayan night sky riddled with stars.

Soon, rich bands of red and yellow slowly ignited the eastern horizon and dawn seeped across the sky. A flash of golden light struck the snowy cap of Annapurna South, and then leapt like wildfire across the tops of the other, giant peaks crowding the skyline before us: Dhaulagiri, The Fang, Hiun Chuli, and Macchapucchare, floating above valleys still coal-black with night. An iconic experience for Annapurna trekkers, it always draws a parade of people, and was one of the most gorgeous sunrises I have ever witnessed.

While I firmly believe in tip no. 2, sometimes there’s a good reason why a certain place or experience is popular with travelers. A crowd isn’t always a bad sign.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life. Click here now to learn more.

No. 4 Ask Questions and Trust Your Gut

Never blindly place your fate in someone else’s hands. Professional guides, experienced friends, or an acquaintance who seems to know what he or she’s doing—they may possess more technical skills or local knowledge than you, but that doesn’t mean they possess infallible judgment, and it certainly doesn’t mean they understand your skill or comfort level as well as you do. And even experienced people can make mistakes—I know too many stories about professional guides making shockingly bad judgments.

Whomever you’re with, pay attention, ask questions, understand what you’re getting into, and make yourself heard when decisions are being made. And if it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it.

Plan your next great backpacking adventure using my downloadable, expert e-guides.
Click here now to learn more.

No. 5 Eat Something Weird

I’ve eaten dal bhat in Nepal (quite good), paella in Spain (delicious), haggis in Scotland (better than you think), blackbird (also better than you think) and raw shark (not better than you think) in Iceland, and alligator in New Orleans (almost vomited), among other unusual local delicacies. There are reasons beyond culinary curiosity that I like to try new dishes.

If I hadn’t been willing to risk tasting something that I didn’t like, I wouldn’t have found the many dishes that I did like. And the truth is, in many countries, locals are much better at cooking their own traditional foods than they are at preparing foreign dishes for tourists who will only eat what’s familiar to them. (I once saw ketchup substituted for tomato sauce on a pizza—which made me especially happy that I didn’t order that or the pasta.) Plus, trying a regional dish communicates to local people that you want to get to know their culture, which can open doors.

Read all of this story and ALL stories at The Big Outside. Join now!

But really, this suggestion is a metaphor for a broader piece of advice: Adventure travel is supposed to be about stepping a little further out on the limb emotionally than you’ve ever ventured before. Sure, be sensible about what you eat: Uncooked food in some countries can contain bacteria that your stomach may not be used to, causing gastrointestinal discomfort for a day or two—it’s happened to me. But don’t over-worry, especially about kids—they’ll adapt quickly, and learning to expand their tastes is good for them.

Dive in headfirst. Try something new. It just might expand your horizons and change your life.

Time for a better backpack? See my picks for “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and the best ultralight packs.

Tell me what you think.

I spent a lot of time writing this story, so if you enjoyed it, please consider giving it a share using one of the buttons at right, and leave a comment or question at the bottom of this story. I’d really appreciate it.

See all of my stories about international adventures and my stories about family adventures at The Big Outside.

Was this story helpful? If so, would you like to support my work by clicking here to leave a tip for The Big Outside?

Thank you.

We follow the zigzagging trail upward until it becomes lost beneath an unbroken snow cover. Then we follow the boot prints of the few trekkers who’ve ventured up here before us recently, a navigational strategy based on hope—the hope that unseen strangers knew where the path goes. A bit farther than I could hurl a stone to either side of us loom sheer walls of dark rock, rendered fuzzy by the fog, as if Vaseline coats our eyeballs. The cliffs rise hundreds of feet into the oblivion of a soupy, gray ceiling, the sky a dark bruise that looks almost close enough to touch. A drizzly rain seeps from the clouds, but the air is calm and there is no sound but our footsteps and breaths—and a faint rumbling of uncertainty in my gut.

Reaching the base of one cliff, we enter a narrow moat between the wall of rock and a five-foot wall of densely compacted snow, grasping a steel cable bolted into the rock while scrambling over loose, shifting stones. Where the cable ends and boot prints lead out of the moat and up a steepening mountainside buried beneath snow—in the second week of July—we stop. I look up at that snowfield pouring downhill like a luge run the size of a football field, sporadically littered with rocks—firm snow, only its surface softened and slick. Somewhere up in that thick, atmospheric chowder, a few hours ahead of us, sits the mountain hut where we have a reservation for tonight. Then I look at my wife, Penny, our 13-year-old son, Nate, and 11-year-old daughter, Alex, and I exhale loudly.

It’s the second afternoon of our weeklong, hut-to-hut trek through one of the world’s most spectacular and storied mountain ranges, Italy’s Dolomites. We are hiking a 39-mile/62-kilometer section of the Alta Via 2 (AV 2), or “The Way of the Legends,” a roughly 112-mile/180-kilometer alpine footpath famous for attributes that had even more allure for me than a steaming plate of gnocchi: scenery that puts it in legitimate contention for the title of the most beautiful trail in the world, comfortable mountain huts with excellent food—and a reputation for being the most remote and difficult of the several multi-day alte vie (plural for alta via), or “high paths,” that crisscross the Dolomites.

When I started planning this hut trek for my family, I realized I had set the bar high two years earlier, with my kids’ first European trek, in Norway’s Jotunheimen National Park. So I wondered: How do you find a vacation for a family whose interests include hiking, climbing, mountains, comfortable huts, and good pasta and vino?

Easy. You set off on the world’s most beautiful trail.

Find your next adventure in your Inbox. Sign up for my FREE email newsletter now.

The ‘Pale Mounts’

Located in the northeastern Italian Alps, with one national park, several regional parks, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation (as of 2009), the Dolomites thrust a dizzying array of spires and serrated peaks into the sky, 18 of them above 10,000 feet. The soaring dolomite or limestone cliffs—originally called the Monti Pallidi, or “Pale Mounts”—gleam like polished jewels in bright sunshine and virtually pulse with the salmon hue of evening alpenglow. They strike a sharp contrast with the deep, steep-sided, verdantly green valleys and meadows seen throughout the Alps.

I believed my kids had the physical stamina and mental fortitude to take on the AV 2. They’ve done a lot of wilderness backpacking since each was six years old, not to mention the rock climbing, ski touring, and various types of paddling adventures we’ve done as a family, which have taught them to remain calm and follow instructions when circumstances call for it. Plus, when I broached the idea, they eagerly jumped on board.

I planned the trek for the second week of July, hoping to arrive after much of the snow of winter and spring had melted away, but before the crush of trekkers and tourists in August, a national holiday in Italy and much of Western Europe. What I did not anticipate was that the Dolomites would see their largest snowfall in decades, and the white stuff would still thickly blanket the mountains in the middle of July.

Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.

Now, looking up at that snow slope disappearing into the fog, I’m contemplating the risks of trying to lead my family up it and through whatever awaits us en route to the hut—wherever it is up in that pea soup. I begin a mental process of elimination that I use in backcountry situations that pose some potential hazard: considering every possible option and crossing off each one that doesn’t seem feasible or safe:

1.    There’s no possibility of leading the kids one at a time across high-risk terrain to islands of safety because there are no islands, just a dangerous sea of sharply angled snow ascending into the clouds. Check.
2.    We can’t all hike up close together because I can’t really spot both kids simultaneously. Check.
3.    The snow is too firm for me to kick steps for them to follow that are deep enough to ensure they wouldn’t slip and fall. Check.

Every option is a bad one. It’s like I’m sitting in a poker game, deciding whether to bet or fold, looking at a hand with a ten high—not even a respectable pair to gamble on.

“I’m up for going for it,” Nate says—a comment that either reflects his comfort level on snow or his age and gender. Alex, more flexibly, offers, “I can go either way, but I’m kind of leaning toward turning back.” But when Penny says, “This is at the limits of my comfort,” she gives voice to what I’m feeling. Then she adds, “I really don’t like the idea of going up there. I’d rather go back down to the pass and get a hotel room.”

I’ve also long believed that if you must deliberate at length about whether to push on or turn around, that usually means it’s time to turn around.

But such is the glorious dichotomy of a hut trek in the Dolomites, as in much of the Alps, that from this scary situation in wet, gloomy weather, we only have to backtrack downhill for little more than an hour before we step through a metaphorical doorway from mountain wilderness to civilized luxury. We carefully descend the moat and the snow and hike the trail back to the road at Gardena Pass as the rain intensifies. At the Hotel Cir, we step in out of the rain, get a two-room suite, luxuriate in hot showers, then gorge on traditional, regional dinners of pork ribs and ham and brie—all of which quickly erase any regrets my family feels about turning back.

Still, in the back of my mind I wrestle with the question: What now? After traveling all the way from our home in Idaho to the Dolomites, will our trek get derailed on day two?

Puez-Odle Nature Park

Two days earlier, at the start of our adventure, when our shuttle driver pulled up in front of the hotel Utia de Borz at Passo delle Erbe, or Erbe Pass, at 6,581 feet (2,006m) above sea level, we stepped out of the van to the sight of the castle-like walls and spires of 9,429-foot (2,874m) Sass Putia towering almost 3,000 feet above us. After an overnight flight from Boston to Venice via Zurich that left us wrecked, the view hit each of us like a double espresso: We all snapped out of our torpor, rejuvenated just to be in the mountains.

At dinner that evening in the restaurant at Utia de Borz, a waitress who spoke English asked us about our plans. (Most of the hotel staff are native German speakers, common in the South Tyrol, which was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I.) She said the seven-day hike ahead of us “is very, very beautiful. You will definitely see some snow, but also very few people this early in the season.”

Her words would prove prophetic on all three counts.

We set out the next morning—our first day on the trek—hiking from the Utia de Borz around the base of Sass Putia’s skyscraping walls, reaching the Forcella di Putia pass at 7,733 feet (2,357m), a trail junction marked by a sign and a crucifix. There, we began a traverse on the AV 2 of a green tableland of grass and wildflower meadows in Puez-Odle Nature Park—“Odle” translating as “needle” in the Ladin dialect still spoken by some residents of the valleys of the Dolomites. The air rang with the clanging neck bells of grazing cattle. In every direction, clouds swirled around the jagged crowns of stone monoliths, their ancient faces veined with snow.

I can help you plan the best backpacking, hiking, or family adventure of your life.
Find out more here.

Not far beyond the Rifugio Genova-Schluterhutte, we reached a saddle overlooking a deep valley. Across the valley rose what appeared to be an impassable wall of vertical rock hundreds of feet tall, capped by bayonets pointed at the sky. I scanned the map, looked up again, and said—not masking my disbelief: “We’re going over that ridge.”

“We can’t be going over that,” Penny said. “No,” I insisted, “we are.” Then I saw the thin line of the AV 2 crossing the head of the valley and zigzagging up a mountainside of scree and snow to the lowest notch in the ridge—a gunsight pass called the Forcella della Roa. I pointed to it: “That’s where we’re going.”

Read all of this story, including my tips on planning this trip, and ALL stories at The Big Outside, plus a FREE e-book. Join now!

We dipped down to cross the head of the valley, then made a long climb through an amphitheater of cliffs. On a scree slope, a chamois, a wild cousin of goats and antelopes, peered at us curiously. We hiked over some snow to the Forcella della Roa at 8,586 feet (2,617m), stepping into a biting wind.

There, facing steep, firm snow burying the AV 2, we chose to detour off-trail below the snow line, over shifting talus. I left Penny and the kids to rest while I scouted around for a route through cliff bands above us. It took us well over an hour to finally get back to the dry, good path of the AV 2—but the kids were invigorated by the excitement of scrambling off-trail through the cliffs. Nate told me, “I loved that little adventure. I’m going to rename that valley we just left Adventure Valley. I’ll always remember that.”

See my Gear Reviews page at The Big Outside and these reviews for my top recommendations:

“The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
“The 10 Best Hiking Daypacks”
“The Best Ultralight, Thru-Hiking Packs”
“Essential Backpacking Gear Accessories”
“The 12 Best Down Jackets”
All reviews of backpacking boots and hiking shoes at The Big Outside.

See all of my stories about international adventures and all of my stories about family adventures at The Big Outside.

You live for the outdoors. The Big Outside helps you get out there.
Join now to read ALL stories and get a free e-book!