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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.
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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?
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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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We followed the trail upward through innumerable, short switchbacks to the summit of a battleship-gray, treeless, steep-sided peak called Bláhnúkur in the remote Fjallabak Nature Reserve of Iceland’s Central Highlands, one of the most active geothermal areas on Earth. At the summit, we turned a slow 360, gaping at a mind-boggling, kaleidoscopic landscape painted in more colors than there likely were species of plant life—none of it more than knee-high—on the volcanic slopes surrounding us. An old, hardened lava flow poured down one mountainside in a jumbled train wreck of razor-sharp black rhyolite. Barren peaks and ridges wearing the white splotches of July snowfields reached to every horizon.

My family spent six days trekking hut to hut on the roughly 54-kilometer/33-mile Laugavegur Trail followed immediately by the 25-kilometer/15.5-mile Fimmvörðuháls Trail—a trip I’d wanted to take with my family since I first set foot in that place on another raw, windy, and wet July day 16 years earlier.

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It has been my considerable good fortune to have hiked many of America’s and the world’s great trails over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog.

But very few, if any, compare with the world-famous Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails—where every day presents new and different, jaw-dropping vistas. We walked across highlands littered with steaming hot springs and fumaroles and down river valleys between small, starkly barren peaks, some of them vividly green despite their lack of vegetation more than calf-high. We traversed a high plateau carpeted with snow and nearly barren valleys choked with twisted boulders of black lava rock. We hiked, stunned at every turn, downstream along a river with more thunderous waterfalls than I have ever seen in one day in my life.

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But I will let the photos in this story speak to the scenery on these two trails.

The photo gallery below includes some favorite images from the Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails. Click on the gallery to open it and use right and left arrow keys to scroll through it.

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Read my blog story about my family’s hut trek on these two trails, “A Family Hikes Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails,” which has dozens of photos and is partially free for anyone to read but requires a paid subscription to read in full. Scroll past the gallery for links to more stories about international adventures.

My expert e-book “The Complete Guide to Trekking Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails” will tell you all you need to know to plan this trip yourself.

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See also “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road,” my story about my first trip to Iceland, “15 Adventures on Earth That Will Change Your Life,” “My Top 10 Adventure Trips,” “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips,” and all stories about international adventures at The Big Outside.

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Driving Iceland’s Highway 1, or Ring Road, in the country’s southeast on the kind of sunny day that’s almost as rare here as the sensation of boredom, we reached the seacoast—and the landscape and seascape suddenly seemed to exceed the capacity of our vision and minds to take it all in. The two-lane highway snaked along this island nation’s ragged edge, weaving in and out of one fjord after another, each as impossible to comprehend in its magnificence as it was to pronounce. The ocean crashed up against starkly barren yet wildly colorful mountains as we crossed bridges over intricately braided rivers, gazing up valleys where multiple, cracked glaciers tumbled nearly to sea level.

As stupefying as the scenery was the near absence of traffic in early August, owing to the remoteness and unpopulated character of this part of Iceland: We saw an empty highway more often than we saw another vehicle.

Yes, all of the hikes of widely varying distances and the short walks we took along the Ring Road were exceptional; but even the scenery through the car windows—like the random images in the above gallery—often left us breathless and wanting to simply stop at the roadside and spend a few minutes appreciating it all (which was never hard to do, given how few other vehicles we encountered).

Although I’m usually constitutionally opposed to labeling one travel experience as “the best,” I cannot think of another scenic drive I have taken that rivals the splendor of Iceland’s Ring Road—and I have taken many over the past three-plus decades, from the American West, Alaska, and Hawaii to many of the world’s most cherished landscapes, including the years I spent as a field editor for Backpacker magazine and for many years running this blog.

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Capping off a nearly three-week family trip to Iceland that included trekking hut-to-hut on the Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails, we spent a week driving the Ring Road and taking many of the best dayhikes and walks along it. This story describes the hikes and short walks we took, listed in the order we hiked them when driving the Ring Road clockwise from Reykjavik.

This article includes Iceland’s second- and third-tallest waterfalls, the highest-volume waterfall in Europe, and a trail that passes more than two dozen eye-popping waterfalls; both the deepest and the longest fjords in Iceland and the longest river canyon; probably Iceland’s most famous glacial lagoon; a great dayhike to waterfalls and overlooks high above glaciers in Iceland’s largest national park; and in a more casual vein, a walk along a black-sand beach. (Like many stories at The Big Outside, reading this entire story and other stories linked below requires a paid subscription to this blog.)

With each hike, we mapped the driving route on a smartphone, which worked fine even on remote dirt roads off the Ring Road. Although some interior roads require high-clearance, 4WD vehicles, all of the roads mentioned below are fine for standard cars.

Please share your own experiences on any hikes along Iceland’s Ring Road or questions about them in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.

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Glymur Waterfall

3.8 miles/6.1km, 1,180 feet/360 meters up and down.

At 650 feet/198 meters tall, Iceland’s second-highest waterfall, Glymur, thunders into a deep and narrow chasm located at the head of the deepest fjord in Iceland, Hvalfjörður. The first view of the falls one gets when hiking the trail up that canyon will stop you in your tracks and the overlooks only keep getting better as you climb higher.

Sometimes hyperbolically described as a “well-kept secret,” the three- to four-hour out-and-back or loop hike (the latter requires fording the wide, shallow, and frigid river well above the waterfall) rarely offers any real solitude: Arrive at the trailhead early to beat the crowds because the large parking lot often fills by mid-morning. But the steep and rugged trail, a bit of exposure, and a river crossing on a log (or fording it) not far into the hike—in addition to the optional ford to make it a loop hike—makes it long and hard enough to dissuade the masses of tourists that frequent Iceland’s most famous and accessible waterfalls.

Reach the trailhead on a 90-minute drive north from Reykjavik and follow the well-signed trail up the canyon, with stunning views from below and above Glymur itself, which does not come into view until you get close to it. The drive along the shore of Hvalfjörður is beautiful and feels quite remote, despite its proximity to Reykjavik.

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Mount Sulur

6.2 miles/10km, 2,887 feet/880 meters up and down.

Mount Sulur sits near the head of Iceland’s longest fjord, Eyjafjordur, and above the town of Akureyri, Iceland’s second-biggest city with fewer than 20,000 residents, centrally located on the northern coast. I hiked it alone on a rainy day with limited visibility; the weather seems very often wet in the north, which is on the Arctic Ocean.

But the hike was enjoyable, pretty, and certainly very quiet nonetheless—and on a clear day the panorama takes in the long fjord and mountains embracing it. The trailhead can be a little hard to find (we did use a phone mapping app to get there) and the trail meanders gradually uphill across slopes often wet and muddy; wear good, waterproof boots and I recommend using trekking poles.

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Dettifoss Waterfall

10-minute walk from the parking lot or a 1.6-mile/2.5km, easy hike to two or three waterfalls.

Not far off the Ring Road in northeast Iceland, Jökulsárgljúfur National Park’s 144-foot/44-meter-tall and 328-foot/100-meter-wide Dettifoss ranks as the highest-volume waterfall in Europe. The drenching mist from it creates double rainbows over the canyon in the right light. Jökulsárgljúfur—which means “glacial river canyon”—is Iceland’s longest river canyon at 16 miles/25km, one of the country’s deepest canyons, and known for its series of waterfalls: Selfoss, Dettifoss, Hafragilsfoss and Réttarfoss.

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From the Ring Road, there’s a paved road to a large parking lot on the west side of Dettifoss (we used a mapping app to find it easily); that road is often closed in winter. From the parking lot, it’s a 10-minute walk to see Dettifoss and several minutes farther to a viewpoint near the waterfall’s brink, where you can literally feel the power of it shaking the ground. The trail is rocky and often wet and slick.

On the day we visited, heavy rain driven by strong winds made a longer hike unappealing, but the waterfall is nonetheless impressive, and we walked the trail several minutes farther downriver to another overlook of Dettifoss. The west side of the river gets much of the heavy spray created by the waterfall, so wear a rain jacket even on a sunny day. Returning to the parking lot, look for signs directing you toward Selfoss, a smaller but pretty waterfall a half-mile/1km upriver. If you hit all the viewpoints, it’s a 1.6-mile/2.5km hike with very little up and down.

If we’d had a better day, I would have preferred to visit these waterfalls from the east side, which has a dirt road to a small parking lot that apparently fills most mornings (arrive early, before the parking lot fills and traffic backs up on the dirt road with motorists waiting for parking spaces to open up); the road is passable for cars but watch for potholes. There’s also a 1.6-mile/2.5km hike on the east side with up-close, better views of Dettifoss, Selfoss, and Hafragilsfoss—and the east side doesn’t get the heavy mist.

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Fjardara River Valley

4.4 miles/7.1km and 1,150 feet/351 meters, with shorter and longer options.

One of the most beautiful little towns we visited and spent a night in was Seyðisfjörður, which sits at the head of a deep fjord in Iceland’s remote east, with peaks rising abruptly for thousands of feet on both sides of town, Mount Bjolfur to the north and Mount Strandartindur on the south side. The drive to Seyðisfjörður follows one of Iceland’s most spectacular roads, Stafirnir Road (Route 93, off the Ring Road), over a high ridge and down the north side of the Fjardara River Valley.

Trail no. 51 follows the Fjardara River for 4.4 miles/7.1km and 1,150 feet/351 meters one-way, passing numerous waterfalls and cascades. Waterfalls are also visible on the mountainsides above from the trail, which is muddy in places and marked by wooden stakes with tips painted yellow.

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See “15 Adventures on Earth That Will Change Your Life” and all stories about international trips at The Big Outside, the Lonely Planet guidebook “Iceland’s Ring Road—Road Trips,” and more information at visiticeland.com.

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Walking across the campground at Landmannalaugar, in Iceland’s remote Central Highlands, we can see the entire uphill portion of today’s hike ahead of us. A trail zigzags through dozens of short switchbacks more than a thousand vertical feet (well over 300 meters) up the crest of a ridge on a virtually barren, steep-sided, blue-black little mountain called Bláhnúkur, which means “blue peak.” Scudding clouds flash over the peak like tracer fire revealing the wind scraping the peak’s summit.

Minutes after starting up the path, a strange sight appears on the ground at our feet: our own shadows, which we have become estranged from these first days in Iceland—and indeed, will reunite with rarely over the next couple of weeks in this tiny, North Atlantic island nation that sits just south of the Arctic Circle. We receive this anomalous burst of sunshine as a positive omen—at least for the less than three hours my family will spend hiking up and descending the other side of this pile of volcanic rocks and fine, sand-like tephra in the Fjallabak (“Behind the mountains”) Nature Reserve.

We’re climbing Bláhnúkur (also spelled Bláhnjúkur) as a warmup of sorts for the longer adventure we’ll begin tomorrow. I’ve come with my wife, Penny, and our college-age son, Nate, and daughter, Alex, to spend six days hiking hut to hut on one of the world’s great treks, the Laugavegur Trail and its sister footpath, the Fimmvörðuháls Trail—and there could hardly be a better introduction to the adventure awaiting us than this little peak.

At Bláhnúkur’s 3,005-foot/916-meter summit, we all silently take in the panorama, eyes and brains struggling to comprehend a landscape quite unlike anywhere else on the planet.

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In an environment where trees and any form of vegetation are nearly as rare as a shadow, wildly colored hills roll away in every direction. Except for the scattered patches of snow and electrically lime-green moss dappling the hillsides, most of the rich hues in view result from geologic and volcanic activity—it’s all rocks painting this land. Steam clouds rise from scores of thermal features dotting the ground almost as far as we can see in this corner of Iceland’s Central Highlands, one of the most active geothermal areas on Earth. The black scar of a hardened lava flow fills much of the valley we’ll descend into today and hike up when we begin the Laugavegur tomorrow.

The only signs of human civilization are the tiny village of tents, a few small buildings, including the hut where we’re staying, a couple of ancient buses converted to a store and luncheonette, and a short row of parked vehicles at Landmannalaugar, at 1,936 feet/590 meters above sea level, the northern terminus of the Laugavegur. It looks exactly like what it is: a stubborn, remote, and seasonal outpost of civilization in a harsh wilderness.

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Far below us, the thin strip of rough, gravel and dirt road to Landmannalaugar weaves like a drunken sailor across a vast and barren moonscape of volcanic rocks and black soil, disappearing over a far horizon. We traveled it yesterday on the last leg of our four-hour ride from Iceland’s capitol, Reykjavik, in a bus with high clearance and oversized tires for the wide, fast-flowing streams it crossed on that road, each time churning up a rooster tail of stones and gray, glaciated water.

A memory rushes back of standing on this very summit on another raw, windy, and damp July visit 16 years ago, the first time I set foot in Landmannalaugar. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to return with my family and walk the entire Laugavegur. After waiting years for our kids to reach an age where they could handle it physically and fully appreciate it—then outlasting a pandemic, healing from an injury, and navigating myriad other routine scheduling challenges—we are finally here.

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The Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls Trails

Widely considered one of the world’s most beautiful treks—praise I concur with, and I’ve walked some of the greatest trails from the Dolomites, Patagonia and New Zealand to Nepal, the Tour du Mont Blanc, and others—the roughly 34-mile/55k Laugavegur Trail traces a course across a landscape that continually boggles the mind.

Beginning amid the lava fields of Landmannalaugar, we’ll climb through hills where steam issues from scores of thermal features below surreal peaks painted in a chaotic rainbow of electric colors. We’ll cross snowfields, river valleys, and stark, flat plains of volcanic rock flanked by solitary mountains vividly green even though hardly anything grows taller than an adult’s knee. At various points along the trail, we’ll look out over the boundless white seas of vast glaciers, before descending to the trail’s southern terminus in a glaciated river valley in the Thorsmork Nature Reserve (Þórsmörk in Icelandic).

From Thorsmork, where many trekkers take a bus back to Reykjavik, we’ll hike another two days south on the 15.5-mile/25k Fimmvörðuháls Trail. It makes a long ascent up a strikingly green, steep-walled canyon to cross two craters formed by a volcanic eruption in 2010 that halted air travel in Europe for more than a week. After a night in a tiny hut situated on another volcanic moonscape between two more giant glaciers, we’ll finish with a long downhill walk past at least two dozen big, powerful waterfalls along the Skógá River, finishing at the foot of one of Iceland’s best-known curtains of water, Skógafoss.

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Missing your shadow represents the least of Iceland’s meteorological challenges—and even the word “challenging” seems an understated description of the typical weather on the Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls and throughout Iceland: Over nearly three weeks in July, from these trails to Reykjavik and elsewhere around the country, we’ll see temperatures ranging from around freezing to a high of 59 F/15 C. Wind and some level of rain occur much of the time on most days, usually anything from a heavy mist to on-and-off steady rain but occasionally day-long, wind-driven, biblical downpours. Even in the rare periods of sunshine lasting a few hours or more, we’ll often hike in rain jackets to fend off the chilling wind.

Still, several thousand people trek the Laugevegur Trail every summer and perhaps a smaller but nonetheless significant number also walk the Fimmvörðuháls Trail. Challenging weather be damned: These trails are that amazing.

Check out these “9 Great Hikes and Walks Along Iceland’s Ring Road.”

Landmannalaugar to Hrafntinnusker on the Laugavegur

Under a solid cloud cover on our first morning on the Laugavegur, we cross the lava fields, a sprawling plain of black, sharp-edged rocks from pebbles to the size of baseballs and boulders that resemble large machinery partly melted down and hardened in a form unrecognizable from its original. This jumbled ground of solidified lava would be all but uncrossable if not for the constructed trail winding gently through it.

We climb steadily uphill. The wind grows stronger and colder. The spitting rain escalates to a heavy, wind-borne mist.

About two-thirds of the way to our first hut, we reach a spot called Stórihver, an area of hot springs and fumaroles where steam and hot water erupt noisily from countless ground vents. We wander a minute off-trail to a spot I recall from my first hike here 16 years ago. Cresting a small rise, we overlook a steaming pool about 20 feet across, pressed up against a hillside. A hot spring pours into the pool’s milky waters, which overflow the opposite bank, sending a bright blue stream meandering down a gentle valley of impossibly green moss and black dirt. It looks prehistoric.

By early afternoon, we reach the Höskuldsskáli hut at Hrafntinnusker, at 3,609 feet/1,100m the highest hut we’ll stay in on the Laugavegur and the Fimmvörðuháls, perched on a mostly snow-covered, nearly barren plateau surrounded by mountains largely eclipsed by clouds and fog.

After lunch, Alex, Nate, and I take a 3.1-mile/5k round-trip side hike to the site of ice caves that I visited 16 years ago; once impressive, they have collapsed catastrophically since. Still, the ice “ruins” hint at their former glory and the streams draining off the snowfield trickle down a valley where whistling fumaroles spit steam into the wet air. A near-whiteout descends on us as we start up the blank snowfield to backtrack to the hut: We can see about 100 feet or less, only dirty snow and equally blank fog, but we calmly find the cairns marking our route back.

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As on other hut treks I’ve taken, these huts feel very international. In Landmannalaugar, we had met two women from South Africa, Sharon and Barbara, who advised us on the best hikes and parks in their homeland; we’ll bump into them repeatedly over the next few days. A couple from the eastern Czech Republic are backpacking the Laugavegur, staying in huts when they find space available and their tent otherwise. In the Höskuldsskáli hut, we share a long, narrow loft room with a group of families hiking together, Polish, Swiss, and American, with several kids aged from grade school to young teens; we’ll share a small, crowded hut room with the Polish family two nights later—and more than a week later, randomly run into them in the parking lot at the trailhead just off the Ring Road for Iceland’s third-tallest waterfall, Hengifoss. We also meet other Americans, from San Diego. L.A., and elsewhere.

In July in Iceland, night does not bring on the night. The daylight dims to dusk for a few hours between midnight and the wee hours of morning, when the sun merely dips below the horizon, poised to come roaring back to full brightness well before even the earliest risers have opened their eyes.

Alex, Nate, Penny and I joke that we’re dayhiking the entire, nearly 49 miles of the Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails: We’ll finish it all before dark.

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Hrafntinnusker to Álftavatn

In the morning, after I return from the bathroom outside the Höskuldsskáli hut, Penny asks, “How’s the weather?” I respond: “About three degrees Celsius, cloudy, and very foggy.” She laughs because it’s identical to yesterday and previous days here—and comes as no surprise.

The fog lifts a bit as we resume hiking the Laugavegur south from Hrafntinnusker, slogging over wet snow. The fog rolls back in as we climb steeply but briefly to a high point, where we see a towering wall of ice belonging to the relatively diminutive—by Iceland standards—Kaldaklofsjökull Glacier faintly through the fog.

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At a final high point for the day, we look out over a vast plain unfurling below and ahead of us and see the lake Álftavatn and the hut beside it; although it doesn’t look far off, that’s just a trick of perception induced by the stark landscape’s lack of objects, like trees, that provide scale: It turns out we have more than three more miles of walking to the Álftavatn hut.

As we descend to Álftavatn, the temperature rises into the 50s Fahrenheit—and it feels like a heat wave. We strip down to one or two top layers and pants. But before we reach the hut, the taunting mist rolls back in, chasing us into rain jackets again.

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Álftavatn to Emstrur

On our third morning on the Laugavegur, I step outside the Álftavatn hut around 6 a.m. to a glorious dawn—or “dawn” as it occurs in Iceland, where this time of day does not span mere minutes, as we’re accustomed to at lower latitudes, but stretches into a few hours of low-angle sunlight. Like a lens twisting to bring our vista into focus, the first direct sunlight scrapes over the ragged landscape, throwing it all into sharp relief: the river, lake, and solitary peaks standing like sentinels gathered in a semi-circle around the lake. Some hut guests and backpackers camped in the small tent village between the hut and the lake emerge and, like me, simply stand and pan their eyes over our surroundings.

After breakfast, I start hiking ahead of my family to climb one of the peaks above the lake. I follow the Laugavegur over two footbridges across the lake’s small outlet river and up a short slope, then turn off the trail and walk easily up the northeast ridge of the peak Brattháls, which looms above the lake’s south shore.

Standing on a high point on the narrow ridge less than an hour after leaving the hut, I get a 360-degree panorama of the Álftavatn area and, spinning around to face south, the peaks we’ll hike past today. It’s a stunning preview of what lies ahead of us: Mountains brilliantly green, as if illuminated by a light within them, rise steeply to rocky, knifeblade crests carving into the—for now—partly sunny sky. Then I backtrack down to the trail to meet Penny, Nate, and Alex coming from the hut.

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Later that morning, we reach the wide but shallow crossing of the Bratthalskvisi River, and change from boots to sandals and make the icy ford with a few dozen other people on a day when we’ll periodically share the trail with what looks at times like a pilgrimage of hikers. Perhaps an hour beyond, we come to a double waterfall in a gorge crossed by a footbridge. And not much farther, we make a knee-deep and wide ford of the Kaldaklofskvísl River that’s bone-chilling.

From there, the Laugavegur crosses an expansive lava plain, flat as a tabletop, with the edge of the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier visible ahead of us. We pass between mountains unlike any I’ve seen: sheer-walled and impossibly green with moss growing up their flanks, they stand as disconnected, solitary peaks arrayed along either side of the trail, as if sculptures in a museum rather than random geologic giants. Scores of trekkers file past them under warm sunshine and the trip’s warmest temps, in the upper 50s, allowing us to hike in shorts and T-shirts for a couple of hours, before the clouds thicken and a cool breeze returns.

In mid-afternoon, we round a bend overlooking our next hut in Botnar on Emstrur, perched above another green valley flanked by cliffs, with a lobe of the Mýrdalsjökull Glacier looming ghostlike above it. Alex says to me, “Wow. Just when you think it can’t get any better, boom.”

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Our small dormitory room in one of the huts at Emstrur has a tiny kitchen square with a sink, a countertop, and a two-burner stove, one picnic table with bench seating for perhaps 14 people, and bunks for sleeping 20 on two levels—a tight space but we make the best of it, sharing it with a group of families from Ottawa that we met briefly at Álftavatn this morning plus one of the Polish families with younger kids, including a brand-new Laugavegur celebrity: the girl who earned a rousing applause and cheers after she crossed the last river.

Before dinner, I pull my rain jacket hood up and head out alone—none of my family accepts my invitation for an hour-long walk in the heavy, misting rain—following a rocky, winding path that diverges off the Laugavegur just north of Emstrur, Thirty minutes from the hut, I step up to the brink of the ragged, vertigo-inducing rim of the Markarfljótsgljúfur Canyon, where the earth falls abruptly away for 656 feet/200meters to the white Markarfljót River, snaking along the bottom of this sheer gorge.

Alone in this weather, at this time of day, I can almost imagine being the first human to see this canyon. It makes the walk back through the intensifying rain feel warmer.

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Emstrur to Thorsmork

Leaving Emstrur under gray skies, we follow the Laugavegur’s switchbacks down a steep, loose gully and cross a wooden footbridge over a raging, foaming, black-water tributary of the Markarfljót River in a narrow gorge. Clouds obscure most of our views, but we catch fleeting glimpses of a few distinctive peaks all day, including one with a horn-like tower growing like a digit beside its summit, and the distant and massive Mýrdalsjökull Glacier.

Notably, today is the only day, so far, that we see not a drop of rain.

The Laugavegur delivers one more flash of excitement before we exit it. Not long before Thorsmork, we encounter the trail’s final river crossing. We easily step or rock-hop over most of its braids, then reach the last and largest channel, requiring us to ford a knee-deep, strong current, silted black with volcanic sand and rocks, and loud as if giving voice to gods angry over our invasion. Boots and socks off, sandals on our feet, leaning on our trekking poles for balance against the pushy creek, we join a small parade of trekkers braving the numbingly icy water.

Then we climb over a small hill and descend to Thorsmork, at about 650 feet/200 meters above sea level, named for the god Thor in Nordic mythology. It seems like an apropos name for the place where we finish the Laugavegur Trail.

And we’re not done yet.

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The Fimmvörðuháls Trail

The morning after finishing the Laugavegur, we eagerly devour a hot breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, rice pudding, homemade bread, croissants, coffee, tea, juice, and fresh bananas and apples at the restaurant run by Volcano Huts in the Húsadalur Valley in Thorsmork, a 30-minute trail walk from the Langidalur hut, where we spent last night. We also had a hot dinner there last night—it’s well worth the hour’s walk.

The Gear I Used See my reviews of the outstanding backpack, rain jacket, boots, soft-shell pants, trekking poles, and backpacking quilt I used on Iceland’s Laugavegur and Fimmvörðuháls trails. And see my Gear Reviews page for best-in-category reviews and expert buying tips.

See also “How to Prevent Hypothermia While Hiking and Backpacking,” “5 Tips For Staying Warm and Dry While Hiking,” “7 Pro Tips For Keeping Your Backpacking Gear Dry,” and this menu of all stories offering expert backpacking tips at The Big Outside.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The land is on fire.

Actually, the land appears to be smoldering, stoked by some persistent furnace just beneath the surface. Which is essentially true.

Steam from hot springs and other geothermal features issues from scores of points from here to the horizon. Mud pots bubble and burp, and the color of volcanic activity is everywhere—paint-can spills of ochre, pink, gold, plum, brown, rust, and honey against a backdrop of purple pumice and electric-lime moss. An old, hardened lava flow pours down one mountainside in a jumbled train wreck of razor-sharp black rhyolite. Barren peaks extend ridges like the arms of starfish. Chattering streams carry the runoff from July snowfields smeared across the highlands. Scudding clouds stampede overhead, constantly rearranging the dappled sunlight splashing over the landscape.

It’s a mind-boggling kaleidoscope, and with nothing taller than a clump of moss growing anywhere, I can see for miles in every direction. It looks like Yellowstone’s Upper Geyser Basin, but multiplied exponentially, and with color-enhancing done by a designer of Grateful Dead album covers.

I’m in Landmannalaugar, a park of sorts with a ragtag end-of-the-road campground in the remote Fjallabak (“Behind the mountains”) Nature Reserve of Iceland’s Central Highlands, one of the most active geothermal areas on Earth. Landmannalaugar is famous here both for the hot springs—the name means “bath of the countrymen”—and for the trail I’m hiking. Called the Laugarvegurinn (“Hot Spring Road”), or Laugavegur, it’s a three- to four-day, 33.5-mile, hut-to-hut trek from Landmannalaugar south to Thorsmork. Iceland’s most popular hike, it has earned a place beside the Inca Trail, Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit, and New Zealand’s Milford Track as one of the world’s most beautiful paths.

Laugavegur Trail

In my first hours on the trail, I pass other hikers, mainly Icelanders and other northern Europeans, but mostly I’m alone with the Arctic wind and occasional whistling steam vent or gurgling hot spring. I think that this is how the Earth must have sounded right after its birth, when the ground still constantly trembled and belched and disgorged its surplus of heat and water, and there were no plants rustling in the wind or animal noises to amplify and add complexity to the nascent planet’s soundtrack.

At a spot along the path called Storihver, where numerous vents emit steam and hot water, I wander off-trail over a small rise and come upon a steaming pool about 20 feet across. It sits against a hillside with a hole like a gaping maw. A spring spills from the hole into the pool’s milky aqua waters, which overflow the opposite bank, sending a stream of bright blue water meandering down a gentle valley of impossibly green moss and dark dirt. The startling contrast gives the scene a prehistoric look. I start down toward the pool for a better photo angle, but the waterlogged pumice collapses underfoot like slushy snow, and I frantically scrabble back up the steep slope, afraid I’ll slide into the water and get boiled alive.

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. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip. Please follow my adventures on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.

As a kid, before I knew that hot springs could stew meat from bone, I might have taken that plunge. I was enthralled by Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, in which a teenage boy, his uncle, and a guide descend into an Iceland volcano. They explore a vast cavern illuminated by electrically charged gas, discover a subterranean ocean, dodge prehistoric creatures, and generally have the sort of exotic adventure that enchants 12-year-olds from geothermally benign factory towns like Leominster, Massachusetts.

But Verne’s vision of the Earth’s restless plumbing never left me. Now, 30 years later, I’m finally making my own journey to this land of fire and ice. Besides the Laugevegur trail, I’ll squeeze in a whirlwind 4WD tour of the island’s remote interior, plus dayhikes of a snowy peak and more obscure places pointed out by our guides and Reykjavik photographer Thorsten Henn.

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At every turn, I’m transfixed by the primeval terrain, and reminded that elemental forces are ever at work shaping it. It’s so raw that I imagine a mighty hand peeling back the planet’s crust to show what’s going on underneath. Verne’s tale may be wild science fiction, but he was right on in choosing this island as its setting; it would scarcely surprise me to see a pterodactyl swoop out of the sky. More than anyplace I’ve been—from Yellowstone’s geysers to the rim of Mt. St. Helen’s smoking crater—this land is defined by upheaval.

That upheaval is a sign of tempestuous youth. Iceland formed only three million years ago—a geologic eye blink—from volcanic eruptions that built its mountains while the island remained buried beneath the Arctic ice cap. It emerged only 12,000 years ago, after the ice cap receded. Smaller than Kentucky, the country has about 150 volcanoes, the greatest concentration in the world. They’re so violently active it’s a wonder humans can live here (never mind the challenges of existence on a tiny, isolated island in the far North Atlantic).

The volcanoes add four-tenths of an inch to the island’s width every year; to a geologist, that’s a serious growth spurt that keeps spurting. Eighteen have erupted since Norse people settled here in the early 9th century. Over the past 500 years, Iceland’s volcanoes have produced one-third of the total global lava output. Some volcanoes, like the country’s most famous smokestack, Mt. Hekla, have blown repeatedly.

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The Center of the Earth

The Laki eruption of 934 spawned the largest lava flow ever recorded worldwide: 4.7 cubic miles of flood basalt that covered more than 300 square miles; the eruption’s release of 219 million tons of sulfur dioxide was also the largest in history. When Laki blew again in 1783, it threw out 3.4 cubic miles of basalt lava in fountains estimated to reach nearly a mile into the air. Legend has it that a pastor named Jon Steingrimsson, in the tiny southeastern village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur, gathered his congregation in the church for a fire-and-brimstone sermon as a lava flow bore down on them. When finally he finished, the people exited the church to find the lava had stopped just beyond the town’s outskirts, at a spot now called “Eldmessutangi,” or “Fire Sermon Point.” They credited their pastor with saving the village.

The 1783 eruption also coughed up 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide that killed more than half the country’s livestock and a quarter of Icelanders. The gas spread a poisonous haze across Western Europe so thick that ships couldn’t leave ports, and killed roughly 23,000 people in Britain and thousands more across the continent. In fact, Laki’s environmental impacts on Europe lasted several years, causing famine and poverty believed to have helped instigate the French Revolution in 1789. Chalk one up for environmental determinism.

For a place like Iceland, you want one of my picks for “The 5 Best Rain Jackets For Hiking and Backpacking.”

Iceland sits astride the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a chain of peaks taller than the Alps and more than six times the length of the Rockies, mostly submerged beneath the ocean. That ridge acts like a wedge forcing apart four plates of the Earth’s crust—the Eurasian, African, and North and South American plates—constantly widening the Atlantic basin.

That phenomenal volcanic and tectonic activity has as its locus a “plume,” or hot vent, at the northern end of the Vatnajokull ice cap, Europe’s largest glacier. Boring 1,000 miles into Earth’s mantle, the plume continually spews liquid rock, a process that gradually alters the shape and position of continents. Author Katharine Scherman, in her fascinating natural and human history, Daughter of Fire—A Portrait of Iceland, describes this area as “a collection of ice-shrouded peaks and craters deformed by glacial action, surrounded by a freakish complex of hot springs, seething mud pots and simmering lakes, with steam shooting through holes in old ice and cauldrons of boiling water under a frozen cover.”

On Iceland, the clock of geologic time has been speeded up; its metaphorical arms spin wildly. Processes that drag out over millennia elsewhere seem to accelerate here, unwinding as if shot with a time-lapsed camera. It doesn’t require much imagination to picture it as the center of the Earth.

Long before Jules Verne’s day, explorers considered Hekla the gateway to hell. Hiking the Laugavegur, I’m thinking the exact opposite.

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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.