Destinations
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New zealand may be smaller than Colorado, but it sure crams a lot of outdoor superlatives into a tiny space—mountains rivaling Europe’s Alps, fjords to match Norway’s, and beaches, forests, and hiking trails as beautiful as any in the world. If you have limited time to see it all, head…
Summer thaw: melting ice carves a canyon in Iceland Q: We are trying to plan a ten-day hiking trip to Iceland for the last two weeks in August. Would like to either camp or stay in huts (my partner would love the tent, whereas I would welcome…
Accompanying Outside's behind-the-lines special report on Nepal's Maoist insurgents ("The Last Days of the Mountain Kingdom," by Patrick Symmes, September) is this haunting photograph by longtime Kathmandu photojournalist Thomas Laird. Here, in an exclusive account, Laird offers an equally haunting first-person look at the most extraordinary 24 hours in
Island appeal: sun-bathed St. Lucia Q: I’d like to hike and camp out in the Cayman Islands. Any suggestions of which islands and trails are best? An alternative to the Napali Coast of Kauai is what I am searching for. — John, Palo Alto,…
SB&WM, 25, sharp dresser, virgin, seeks companionship for long ocean swims, romantic herring dinners, and partnership for those difficult middle years. Must be loaded, have access to sonar and private fishing armada. Knowledge of marine biology a real plus!
Greetings from the quaint Welsh village of Llanwrtyd Wells, renowned for its fine ales, warm hospitality, and one of the oddest athletic endeavors on Planet Earth: floundering through noxious rural ooze! TIM BROOKES reports on the illustrious—if slightly smelly—history and modern-day mayhem of a certifiably insane sport called bog snorkeling.
A comic tale, right? Not in Patagonia, where legends die hard.
The ever-soggy West Coast Trail isn't for everyone. You know who to thank for small favors.
Roman candle: Italy’s (active) Mount Vesuvius Q: I will be in Rome for ten days and would like to know if it’s possible to hike up Mount Vesuvius? — Marcelo Cardona, Irving, Texas Adventure Advisor: A:…
Got shocks?: a bird’s eye view over Canyonlands, and the Colorado River Q: We are planning a mountain biking trip to Moab and would like some advice on great places to camp. The private campgrounds I’ve looked into have all the amenities, but look like parking lots…
A half-mad dash to Hkakabo Razi seemed like a good idea at the time. And hey, how tough can it be to sneak past the Chinese Army?
Q: My husband and I would like to take a cycling trip in Northern Spain. We would prefer to do it self-guided and do not want to pay the $2500 to $3500 per person that the major luxury operators charge. Basically, we just need route maps, reservations for camping…
Beyond L.A.'s tangle of freeways, you can pedal, snorkel, and kayak your way to a truly great outdoor weekend.
Q: My family and I will be moving to Hanoi, Vietnam for a period of two years. We are rabid mountain bikers (and hikers) and will be taking our bikes. We want to do some quick day- or weekend-rides, and plan some longer trips (guided or unguided). Any…
An adventurer's guide to animal migrations—the greatest shows on earth
Q: I’m traveling to Ireland with a friend next week who wants to spend some time on the Aran Islands. Is there anything to do there besides stare at the ocean (hiking? biking?)? Trail trimmings: a winding stonewall in the Aran Islands — Alex Cohen, San…
It's a long line from the old salt to the swarms at Waikiki. So real Hawaiians head for the far sides of paradise.
The supernatural tour of Hawaii, where spirits live and enemies become fishhooks.
In any state, there are attractions that everyone’s heard of, that every guidebook touts, that every visitor has to see. Then there are the places the locals haunt, where the crowds are sparse and the mentions in Let’s Go are glancing. In Alaska, these places are the state parks, 3.2…
A tale of big money, prison, Disney World, and the world's foremost dinosaur-hunting twins.
Q: Where can I find inexpensive, tourist-free backpacking in Alaska? — Rosanne Clemente, Bay Shore, New York Adventure Advisor: A: The general rule with Alaskan wilderness is that you can have it cheap OR tourist-free, but rarely both. There’s a simple reason for…
A recklessly picaresque, highly philosophical, gloriously unmapped road trip in search of secret places you'll have to find yourself
She was making her way across Laos, when a jury-rigged bus slammed into her. A survivor's tale—and some hard-won advice.
Q: I am planning a trip to Scotland in the fall and need info about mountain biking the Highlands. Any suggestions or resources? Knobbies required: a rugged invite from the Scottish Highlands -Â Therese Ingram, Colorado Springs, Colorado Adventure Advisor: A: You can start by hopping a train to Aviemore, the…
Scoring big with your kids; unforgettable days in America's premier national playgrounds.
Dive (or cannonball, or belly-flop) into summer at these seven backcountry water holes and hot springs.
Eight great resorts on four islands with activities for all. Be there. Aloha.
Escape the monkey house and take your brood to where the wild things really are. Our kid-endorsed guide to sneezing lizards, daffy otters, and bellowing moose. (Sorry, no dinosaurs.) Koalas in Kangaroo Island Though the koala is right up there in the race for…
Q: I'm going to be in Teguicigalpa, Honduras for just a few days. What points of interest or adventure can I partake in with only two days there? A trailside view through the rich foliage of La Tigra National Park – David, San Antonio, Texas Adventure Advisor: A: Lucky…
On the rough road in Uganda, where visions past and future clash, and all things flow from the mighty river.
Q: I am looking for adventure in Canada — camping, hiking, wildlife — any suggestions? Canada, on the rocks: a sunlit berg off the Newfoundland coast – Rosanne Clemente, Bay Shore, New York Adventure Advisor: A: News flash: It’s a big country up there, with more adventure possibilities than human inhabitants.
Q: We’re headed to St. Lucia and we love to hike and snorkel. What weight clothing would you suggest? Would you recommend a guide or can you do the hikes yourself? We want to do all 29 miles of the hiking trails, and the more rugged and adventurous the better.
Discover the wild side of Greece and western Turkey with 12 getaways—from Spartan to Olympian.
For three hours, a team of scientists collected samples from deep inside the crater of a seemingly peaceful volcano. Suddenly, an apocalyptic eruption shot white-hot rocks into the darkening sky. Nine people were killed high on the Colombian mountain that day, and volcanologist Stanley Williams barely escaped with his life. In an exclusive preview from the cont
Time was, you could crisscross America with nothing but a rucksack and a thumb. You still can, if you know how.
There's nobody more qualified to drag you to the top of the world than Babu Chiri Sherpa. And he'll gladly do it. But when he's through, he's got some business of his own to attend to. Namely, obliterating every last climbing record on Everest, shattering the myth of his people as high-altitude baggage handlers, and taking the Sherpa brand global.
It was a whisper, barely enough to flutter the sails of Agamemnon, that originally set me careening down the mountainous coast of Turkey in my puny Renault, searching for a colony of backpackers living in the trees. A 21-year-old wanderer from Iceland, whom I'd met in Egypt, had murmured of…
Q: Where can I find good beach camping in Georgia other than Cumberland Island? — Chris Greenawalt, Bethlehem, PA Adventure Advisor: A: There’s no other place on the Georgia coastline with Cumberland’s perfect mix of eco-protection and…
Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.
Last May, the elite climbing community told Erik Weihenmayer he didn't belong on Everest. In this exclusive preview of the new afterword to Weihenmayer's book, TOUCH THE TOP OF THE WORLD, the blind mountaineer fires back.
He was packing for a trek through roughest Afghanistan when the world shook. Sometimes adventure has to wait.
Where do you want to go? Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or a full-blown vacation, Outside Online's Adventure Advisor is here to show you the way.
If you're ready to get away from it all and willing to forgo room service, marooning yourself on an uninhabited island can have its rewards. The trick is to ensure you get de-marooned before developing an emotional attachment to a volleyball. Here, some Castaway-style options. Buccaneer Archipelago, Australia…
With a little help from the Web, the urban exploration phenomenon gains momentum
Who hasn't dreamed of clean country living, of owning your own green acres? Bill Vaughn bought his piece of rural heaven a decade ago, and began a new life of peace and quiet, of starry nights and days on horseback. And of gunfire, angry words, barbed-wire diplomacy, trespassing, rotting carcasses, and proliferating grudges. An insider's journal of the Feud Yea
Outside's guide to the coolest trips and the world's top new adventure travel spots.
Outside's guide to the 95 coolest trips, the world's top new adventure travel spots, and the ten accessories you can't go without.
Damned with us and damned without us, the Galápagos continue to attract hordes of nature-loving visitors. But whether you're drawn by the majesty of Darwin's discoveries or mesmerized by the brutal spectacle of survival, remember this: Evolution happens.
“Tinku is perfect, like the lightning. When it kills you, it kills you; when you have to die, you die. He who falls, let the earth be the one to complain.”
Deep in the seething, fecund Amazon jungle, a seeker finds wisdom, beauty, exciting new recipes, and inexhaustible armadas of biting insects. O Sting, where is they death?
Sleep on ground. Fight angry pigs. Eat very special sausage. Tramp across land without vowels. Go east, American friend, and discover why hordes of weekend hobos, lawmen, cowboys, and Indians are searching for the Wild and Crazy West in the woods of the Czech Republic.
Pancho Villa lives! Viva high adventure down in Mexico's Copper Canyon.
The skinny on rough-hewn adventure in the long, tall land that has it all: from deserts and salt beds to glaciers and geysers.
The Bighorn Mountains are still one of Wyoming's great wild redoubts
North of Havana is a fantasy world of mangrove-lined cays and green water flashing with tropical fish—perfect sea-kayaking country. But the line between what's permissible and what's not in Castro's kingdom falls in a gray area, and comings and goings by water always mean trouble.
The Bighorn Mountains are still one of Wyoming's great wild redoubts
New-school nomads pedal the singletrack of the ancients on the first mountain-biking trip to northern Mongolia
They fly into lands of hunger and madness, dispensing food while warlords dispense terror from the barrel of a gun. They trade safety and comfort for the sharp edge of altruism, predictable careers for the daily bread of death and disease. They're relief workers on the front lines—and once they're hooked, they can never go home again.
Rejected–twice!–by the people behind the phony "reality-based" TV adventure show, our vengeful writer pays a surprise visit to Survivor's Island shoot to wreak some authentic havoc.
Take three travelers, a nation of Buddhists, and one unfortunate rodent. Add a forbidden journey and a dark childhood secret, and you could have the time of your lives.
Australia's full of things waiting to sting, prong, chomp, drown, or lay you out with a toxic nip. People go missing there all the time. But the beer is cold. The sun mostly shines. And the author figures if he can remember to never leave the asphalt, he just might make it back alive.
In the gentrifying mountain village of Telluride, a band of local adventure addicts is preaching the gospel of neo-hippie purity in an upstart 'zine called Mountainfreak. Can these goddess-worshipping ski bums stay true to their vert' and manage to run a business at the same time?
According to legend, New Zealand's South Island was formed when the dawn froze 150 shipwrecked gods into mountains. There are worse places to spend eternity.
According to legend, New Zealand's South Island was formed when the dawn froze 150 shipwrecked gods into mountains. There are worse places to spend eternity.
Pristine beaches, bioluminescent bays, angelfish-mobbed coral, and incoming artillery fire
Exploring the oldest protected rainforest, the soft coral reefs, and the all-night fêtes of the Caribbean's farthest reaches
You’re poised to launch off a cornice at 9,000 feet in British Columbia’s coast range. Beckoning below is a stadium-sized bowl of fresh powder atop an impressive base. You push off and cut a series of perfect turns, hearing nothing but the swish of your own skis—until the mountain announces…
Exploring the oldest protected rainforest, the soft coral reefs, and the all-night fêtes of the Caribbean's farthest reaches
THE STARTING POINT: What follows are six elemental landscapes—forest, desert, inland waterfront, prairie, mountain, and coast—featuring 18 blissfully unsullied locales, from Alaska to Florida, Arizona to Maine. Clear into the next state: The view from North Carolina, near the town of Tyron, into South Carolina. THE COST: Our survey…