TREK LOVER · THE WORLD ON FOOT
The best views are the ones you walk to.
Reviews of the best multi-day treks on earth, range by range. Everest Base Camp and the Annapurna Circuit, the rice-terrace ridges of Sa Pa, Mount Toubkal above Marrakech, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and the summit craters of Etna. We sort through the operators so you book the right walk.
Worth the airfare
Three trails that belong to one mountain.
Guided day hikes exist on every range now. But the walk up the Khumbu to Everest, the stone Inca road through the Sun Gate, and the climb out of Imlil to the roof of North Africa happen on these mountains and nowhere else on earth.
The Nepal Himalaya
The Walk to Everest Base Camp
There is no road in. You fly to Lukla, then walk for days up the Khumbu through Namche Bazaar and Tengboche, the air thinning with every ridge, until the world’s highest mountain fills the sky ahead. Nights in teahouses, mornings on prayer-flag passes, the Sherpa trail that has carried trekkers to the foot of Everest for half a century. Nowhere else puts you this close to the roof of the world on your own two feet.
See all 76 →The Peru Andes
The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Four days on the original stone road the Inca built, climbing over the Dead Woman’s Pass at 4,200m and dropping through cloud forest and ruins no bus can reach. You arrive the only way that feels earned: through the Sun Gate at dawn, with Machu Picchu laid out below before the trains bring the crowds. A permit-limited trail walked nowhere else on earth.
- 1 From Cusco: 7 Lakes Ausangate Trek with Breakfast and Lunch
- 2 Cusco: Full-Day Rainbow Mountain & Red Valley Trekking Tour
- 3 Salkantay Trek Challenge – 3 Days / 2 Nights
The High Atlas
Mount Toubkal Above Marrakech
Two hours from the souks of Marrakech the road ends at Imlil and the High Atlas begins. A mule carries the kit; you climb past Berber villages and walnut terraces to a mountain refuge, then summit North Africa’s highest peak at 4,167m for sunrise over the Sahara haze. Snow on the tops in spring, mint tea at every stop, a range most travellers never realise is there.
- 1 3 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Dunes & Camel Trek
- 2 3-Day Tour to Merzouga Erg Chebbi with Food & Camel Trek
- 3 Mt Toubkal Ascent Express Trek 2 Days 1 Nights
The one everyone walks
If you only do one trek.
More walkers book this one than any other on the site. A safe first trek on a range you are still getting to know.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Treks
Everest, Annapurna, Sa Pa, Toubkal, the Inca Trail. The routes walkers reach for first, on the ranges they most want underfoot.
Where to walk
Pick your range.
The Nepal Himalaya for the big teahouse trails. The Sa Pa ridges for rice terraces and homestays. The High Atlas for Toubkal, the Andes for the Inca Trail, the volcano trails of Indonesia, the slopes of Etna. Each range, with the treks it does best.
Which kind of trek
How big a walk do you want?
How long you are out matters as much as the range. Three kinds of trek, depending on the days you have and how far in you want to go.
The Nepal Himalaya
Where the great walks begin.
No range carries more famous trails. The Khumbu climbs through Namche and Tengboche to the foot of Everest; the Annapurna Circuit crosses the 5,400m Thorong La pass; Poon Hill hands you a sunrise over a wall of eight-thousanders before breakfast. Teahouse beds, Sherpa and Gurung guides, the prayer-flag passes that made high-altitude trekking what it is. This is the deep end, and the place most walkers dream of first.
See the best treks in Nepal →Northern Vietnam
The greenest trails in Asia.
Out of Sa Pa the Muong Hoa valley falls away in flooded rice terraces, and the trail drops between Hmong and Dao villages where you sleep in a family homestay. Walk to the Fansipan ridge for the roof of Indochina, or stay low and lace together hamlets, bamboo forest and water buffalo in the paddies. A softer, lusher kind of trekking, walked at the pace of the season.
See the best treks in Vietnam →The best part
It is never just the view.
A good trek is more than the summit photo. It is the guide who reads the weather and slows the pace so you make it, the teahouse stove after a cold pass, the strangers you started with who become the people you walked the whole ridge beside. You come down tired in the legs and clear in the head, knowing the mountain a little, and a few people on it.
Browse every trek →The Andes of Peru
Stone roads and 5,000-metre passes.
Out of Cusco the trails climb into the thin air of the high Andes: the original Inca road to Machu Picchu, the rainbow ridges of Ausangate, the Salkantay pass under a glacier, the condors over the Colca Canyon. You walk between Quechua villages and ruins no road reaches, acclimatise as you climb, and arrive at the kind of view that took the Inca to build a road to it.
- 1 From Arequipa: Sillar Route Trek
- 2 From Cusco: 7 Lakes Ausangate Trek with Breakfast and Lunch
- 3 From Arequipa: 2-Day Colca Canyon Trekking Tour
By days on the trail
How long do you want to be out?
Some trips you want one big summit day and your own bed that night. Some you want two or three days with a homestay on the way. And some you want to go high and stay out for a week or more. Pick the length, we will point you at the trek.
A single day
Up and back before dark.A guided day on a famous mountain: the summit craters of Etna, a gorge in Crete, a sunrise volcano in Bali. Big scenery, real legs, your own bed that night.
Two or three days
Sleep where the trail takes you.A short multi-day route with a homestay or a teahouse on the way: the rice-terrace ridges of Sa Pa, Poon Hill for sunrise, the Berber villages of the Atlas. Far enough in to feel it.
A week or more
Go high and stay out.The long one you plan a whole trip around: Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. Days of altitude, high passes, and the summit you came for.
Two hours from the souks
Morocco climbs from desert to 4,000 metres.
Leave Marrakech and the High Atlas rises fast. From Imlil a mule-supported trail climbs through Berber villages and walnut terraces to Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, with snow on top into spring. Further out, the dunes of Erg Chebbi roll off the edge of the Sahara from a camp at Merzouga. Day climbs, village treks and desert crossings, all within a few hours of the same red city.
See all 44 treks in Morocco →By trailhead
Pick a trailhead and start walking.
Kathmandu for Everest and the Annapurna teahouse trails. Sa Pa for the rice-terrace ridges. Marrakech for the High Atlas and the dunes. Cusco for the Inca Trail. Pokhara for the Poon Hill sunrise. Chiang Mai for the jungle and the hill villages.
By range
Every country worth lacing up for.
From the Nepal Himalaya to the Peruvian Andes, the High Atlas to the volcanoes of Indonesia, the Sa Pa ridges to the slopes of Etna. Browse by the country whose mountains you want underfoot.
Dawn to camp
How a day on the trail unfolds.
First multi-day trek and not sure of the rhythm? Here is how a day flows, from the cold dawn start to the village bed at the end of it.
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