I was volunteering with a wildlife conservation organisation in Malaysia and had just been turned away - from a meeting room where a PowerPoint I had made was about to be shown. By this point, it was hardly a novel experience. Of the thirty-something countries I have been to so far, I’ve been politely declined access to spaces, gatherings, conversations, meals and events in about half of them. The prohibiting factor is simply that I am, in fact, a woman.

Initially, this frustrated me. Travel, I thought, should be about exploration. About curiosity and embracing the unfamiliar with gusto and bravery. Being stopped at the foyer of certain spaces, from meeting rooms to outdoor cafés, felt like a barrier to all those glossy dreams.

It taught me that travel isn’t just about where you go so much as it is about who lets you in.

What I did not expect to learn was that by being turned away, I would be able to find a wholly new and unexpected adventure. Right next to those closed doors, I often found another world that opened to me precisely because I was a woman.

Just as certain canteens in Turkey or cultural events in Indonesia remained socially inaccessible, women warmly invited me into their spaces. In the Philippines and Morocco I was welcomed onto porches and into courtyards, into living rooms and gardens, to family meals and into community spaces.

What had initially felt like exclusion soon revealed a beneficial flip side: I had a different kind of exclusive access. To be frank, this access was deeper and more profound than anything I could have hoped for in the former. It taught me that travel isn’t just about where you go so much as it is about who lets you in.

In many parts of the world, gender roles shape the rhythm of everyday life in visible ways. It isn’t always direct so much as it is implied. In countries around the world, I have walked by spaces filled exclusively with men - from cafés or religious gatherings to social clubs - where women simply aren’t expected to sit.

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For travellers coming from places where these boundaries are less rigid, encountering them can feel jarring or, at the least, unexpected.

Respecting each culture’s own internal geography and social spaces is key to unobstructive travel. But finding the places where you can foster deep connection and be included in everyday life can lead to truly fulfilling travel.

Beyond the Guidebooks

I was slouched along the fringe of a road in Sumatra next to some brightly-coloured tropical plants, splashed with vibrant orange and red hues. The smell of woodsmoke and unfamiliar foliage hung heavy in the humid air.

My travel companion had been invited to share a hot drink with a group of men working in orangutan conservation, who we had been spending much of our time with. I wasn’t invited, and it was understood that women would not be welcome in the establishment they would be visiting. I was determined to make something of my day - and headed out into the heat with reproachful enthusiasm.

Walking down a dirt path, I was soon distracted by the high, standardised rows of palm trees on either side of me. Swatting at some abnormally persistent mosquitoes, I fell into step with a young girl who could not have been older than five years old. She began asking me questions and never really stopped. Eventually, we reached her destination: a small white house sandwiched between two others that looked quite similar. Her mother waited on the stoop of their porch, reasonably unwilling to yield her spot in the shade of a foliage awning. I introduced myself and she kindly asked me over for a cup of coffee.

In those moments, travel stops being purely observational and morphs into something closer to exchange.

Hours passed, coffee was poured and conversation flowed. We laughed and talked until the high noon heat had faded to a balmy evening. I was invited to join them the next day and, upon returning, found several other women sitting on the kitchen floor waiting to engage in light conversation with a foreign stranger. We ate a delicious meal of hot rice and rendang, and sipped a dark roast from small cups. I was passed babies to hold, learned which specific kids were trouble and of secret love affairs. I felt wholly absorbed into the life of the village.

The conversation moved from grievances to grief, from heartbreak to hilarity. I had clumsily stumbled past the postcard façade - one of endangered species moving through tropical rainforests, and pristine beaches - and into something that most travellers never see: what people’s lives were actually like.

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This revelation has impacted every subsequent trip I have taken. Since, I have been privileged enough to be invited to cafés and community events and religious festivals by women around the world. Being a woman has actually increased my ability to blend, to gain insight and to contribute to communities.

In Morocco, I ate couscous tfaya in the living room of a friendly family, while the female head of household spoke about her favourite places to visit in the Atlas Mountains - the jammy onions and cinnamon are still fragrant in my memory. In Vanuatu, I was welcomed by a kind island mother to bear witness to a village discussing its next rightful chief. In Vienna, I drank sweet wine with other women in a secluded artist’s studio.

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Travel guides tend to focus on the visible highlights of a destination: the major landmarks and historical monuments, the brightest lights and most sweeping landscapes. They tell you where to hike, what to eat and which markets to visit. The porch or the kitchen floor rarely make it onto the page.

For women travelling the world, those hidden spaces can become the most memorable part of a journey. Inside new friends’ homes and courtyards, stories emerge that might never surface in public settings. You might talk about holiday or birthday traditions, about children and work, about marriage and independence, about the small details of life that rarely appear in travel brochures. Most likely, you will be asked questions about where you are from, if you have children and what your experience has been travelling so far.

In those moments, travel stops being purely observational and morphs into something closer to exchange. True relationships form easier on that kitchen floor than they ever could on the cold tile of a museum.

What We Gain By Looking Sideways

Anthropologists often describe culture as layered: a network of public and private worlds that overlap but don’t always intersect. Public spaces offer one version of a place. Private spaces reveal another. As a woman, you might find yourself able to move between those layers in unexpected ways.

The very restrictions that seem limiting can also act as quiet guides, redirecting you toward parts of life that many visitors never experience.

Every person moves through the world with their own lens shaped by identity, background and circumstance.

Instead of sitting in a crowded café watching the world go by, you might find yourself helping prepare dinner for a family you met an hour earlier. Instead of observing a ceremony from the front row, you might sit in the back beside a woman who explains its meaning as it unfolds. These moments are rarely planned. And of course, they cannot be guaranteed or expected. They happen through trust, curiosity and acts of generosity that connect across cultures.

There’s also another reason these encounters happen. Around the world, women often recognise something familiar in each other’s lives.

Even when language barriers exist, conversations quickly drift toward common themes of family expectations, independence, work, relationships and the changing roles of women in different societies.

None of this means gender restrictions are easy, or that they should simply be accepted without question. Towing the line as a guest in another country means respecting the sociocultural boundaries of a place while finding ways to shift perspective. But what might initially feels like a barrier can sometimes redirect you toward experiences you might never have sought out yourself.

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For me personally, being turned away from spaces no longer feels like the end of the road. Instead, it often signals the beginning of another path. One that leads into conversations that unfold slowly over shared meals. And when this doesn’t happen, I no longer slouch down paths, bemoaning my exclusion. I am able to feel grateful for the depth of life that I am privileged enough to witness and am happy busying myself on a solo adventure or enjoying some time taking photographs or writing. Exclusion is no longer an irritant in the way it once was.

Travel is often framed as a search for freedom; that ability to somehow visit a place and experience everything without ever seeing the full picture. Every person moves through the world with their own lens shaped by identity, background and circumstance. For women travelling into new communities, that magical lens sometimes reveals hidden corners of everyday life invisible to others. Strangers become hosts. Observers become participants. Travel becomes something more intimate than sightseeing: it becomes connection.

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The characters of 青城山 paint a picture of the place they represent - Qīngchéng Shān, meaning ‘Green City Mountain’, is a sacred and serene place, tucked away in the expansive flora of the Sichuan Province in southwestern China, an hour’s drive from the megacity of Chengdu.

Mount Qingcheng is made up of 36 peaks in total, many of which rise over 1,200 metres (3,900ft) above sea level. The verdant mountain walls here have the shape and curve of a city wall - and the thick flora beneath them gives the outline of a city hidden in the mist, giving this area of ravines and waterfalls its name.

The mountain is one of the birthplaces of Taoism.

“This is the backyard of the people in Chengdu,” says Helena Pan, an expert on travel to China. “It’s where people go to relax. There are hot springs and ancient towns. It’s just a wonderful place to visit - walk, eat good food and drink tea.”

Most people know this region for the pandas or fiery food, but Qingcheng offers another side to Sichuan - where pristine nature meets an ancient culture.

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Mount Qingcheng is a place of forested peaks and cliff walls, where ancient evergreen pines mix and muddle with ginkgo trees, redwoods, bamboo and scenic waterways. But it is not for the landscape that this lush place is best known. Rather, it’s for the temples hidden amongst it.

“Qingcheng is one of the mountains which is famous for Taoism,” says Pan.

Indeed, this UNESCO World Heritage site is one of the birthplaces of Taoism and one of the most important Taoist sites in China. And the history here goes beyond written records and recent past - into the realms of myth and folklore.

The Cradle of Taoism

In Taoist folklore, it’s here at Mount Qingcheng that Huangdi, the 'Yellow Emperor', known in legend as the founder of Chinese Civilisation, came to study under the hermit sage Ning Fengzi. It’s said that Fengzi taught the Yellow Emperor the ways of dragon riding, and the two walked the ridgelines together - so long ago that by the time Zhang Daoling (an early Chinese Taoist leader) arrived in 142 AD, he already considered the area to be ancient.

While contemplating in a secluded cave, Master Daoling received a revelation from Laojun (the deified form of Laozi, the philosopher who founded Taoism).

The temple complex, guarded by natural mountain walls with three mounds at its top and a river flowing by its side, is considered highly auspicious according to the principles of feng shui.

The instructions he received - to rid the world of decadence - led Master Daoling to gather followers, and form what would become one of the first forms of organised Taoism, The Way of the Celestial Masters. This Taoist sect - the first of its kind - believed that Qi (a vital life force) was present in everything humans did, everywhere we went, and that in order to achieve immortality, we must balance Qi. Those with poor levels of Qi would get ill, and could die. Those who balanced their Qi successfully - when they did pass away - could be reborn.

In their 2007 book China’s Sacred Sites, Shun-xun Nan and Beverly Foit-Albert wrote about Qingcheng, noting that “the temple complex, guarded by natural mountain walls with three mounds at its top and a river flowing by its side, is considered highly auspicious according to the principles of feng shui.”

In short, Master Daoling considered it the ideal setting for optimising Qi.

By the 17th century, Qingcheng had grown into one of the most important centres of Taoism in China. Visit today and you can still see 11 Taoist temples.

The Two Sides of Mount Qingcheng

Front Mountain is the cultural heart of Qingcheng. Popular with domestic tourists, it can get busy on weekends, and the entry gate can feel more like a festival site than a site of serenity - despite the connection to spiritualism.

That energy is part of the experience of visiting Qingcheng, but equally, once you’re out on the trail, you’ll find there are plenty of scenic pavilions and quiet spots for contemplation located along the walking route in the dense forest. Many of those at the gate will actually be taking the cable car up.

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This side of the mountain is easily-accessible and is where you’ll find the Taoist temples - meaning it’s this side that most people want to visit in Qingcheng.

Before you head off, we'd recommend taking the time to visit Jianfu Palace near the entrance to the mountain. It was founded in 730 AD during the Tang dynasty, and rebuilt in the late 19th century during the reign of the Guangxu Emperor. It’s a colourful building with architecture typical of the time and region, with curved roofs topping the buildings, which look like the wings of a bird mid-flight.

Inside the Jianfu temple complex, the halls and courtyards are shrines to figures of Taoism. Indeed, the peak above the palace is named Zhangren Peak in honour of Ning Fengzi, who was given the title of Elder of the Five Sacred Mountains.

Back Mountains (后山, Houshan) is the less commercial of Mount Qingcheng. It’s the wilder side, known for rugged trails, waterfalls and untouched forest. It’s tougher hiking, and doesn’t have those Taoist temples, so it attracts less visitors.

It’s for that reason we’re going to focus on hiking up Front Mountain below.

The Temple Trails of Front Mountain

The route up Front Mountain stretches out for around four to five miles (6-8km).

You’ll walk on stone stairways and through shaded forest paths on this hike, frequently encountering Taoist temples, and ancient bridges as you go. Walk slowly, taking in the details, and it’s a casual three hour walk to Laojun Pavillion at the top. From there, you can continue on to Ciyun Pavillion and Lingyun Resort for fantastic views, and take a cable car ride back down the mountain.

This isn’t a tricky hike, but it is uphill. You’ll start at 800m (2,624ft) in altitude, meaning there’s 400m (1,312ft) of ascent to go. The gradients are gentle, but the steps are old, worn down by pilgrims, scholars and visitors, so stay sure-footed.

As you set off on the walk, Sichuan’s signature broadleaves will close around you. In spring and early summer, rhododendrons brighten the walk at the lower elevations, while higher up, mosses and ferns claimed every damp crevasse.

After crossing Ningcui Bridge, walkers will soon arrive at Tianshi Cave, where Taoism was first taught by Master Daoling 2,000 years ago.

Misty mornings are frequent in this part of the country, and they only add to the sense of serenity and wonder that the history here already brings to every step.

After passing the Mountain Shadow Pavillion and crossing Ningcui Bridge, walkers will arrive at Tianshi Cave, where Taoism was first taught by Master Daoling 2,000 years ago. Also known as the Celestial Master’s Cave, this is the spiritual centre of Mount Qingcheng. It was here that Zhang Daoling built his hermitage, sometime in the 2nd century. The temple that grew here grew around it, built in the Sui dynasty in the sixth century. It remains the centre of spiritualism, intellect and religious life in Qingcheng.

Visit this cave, cool regardless of the temperatures outside, take it in and know that you're standing where deep thinkers have meditated for millennia.

Outside the cave entrance is a ginkgo tree over 1,800 years old. The trunk is over two metres wide; roots gnarled and strong. Legend has it the tree was planted by Master Daoling himself. A Qing dynasty poet described the trunk as soaring into the clouds like a dancing phoenix, in an autumnal blaze of orange and amber.

There are various routes to the summit from here, but sticking to the official paths furthest to the left will often bear fruit. You can see Zushi Temple, another outstanding example of Sichuan architecture as you walk, and pass the Horizontal Cloud Pavillion before a staircase takes you up past some cliffs with stone carvings, and on to the famous Shangqing Palace.

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Also known as the Upper Qing Palace, Shangqing dates back to the Jin dynasty but it was rebuilt in the 1860s (during the Tongzhi period of the Qing dynasty).

Nan and Foit-Albert write of the temple: “Shangqing Hall contains 28 columns symbolising the constellations and 12 stone animals of the early branches symbolising years of birth in the Chinese zodiac. Sculptures of children on the balustrades embody the Taoist saying, ‘With virtue one returns to infancy.’”

Zhang Daqian, a master of traditional Chinese painting, stayed in this temple in the 1930s and 40s - creating an abundance of work and leaving behind stone carvings and portraits of Taoist figures. The three characters above the gate, meanwhile, were inscribed by Chiang Kai-shek in 1940, the man who would later become the President of the Republic of China.

There is a woodblock carving of the entire five-thousand-character Tao Te Ching (Laozi’s foundational work of Taoism) on nanmu wood here. And an inscription in Shangqing Hall reads: “One gives birth to two, two to three, and three to all things. Earth is modelled on Heaven, Heaven on Tao, and Tao on nature.”

These are forests and mountains that, in their silence and beauty, have inspired pensive thought for generations - and still invite it now.

Behind the palace, the Sun Viewing Pavillion looks out on forested ridgelines.

Different routes will visit these sites in different order, but if you’ve not already done so, you can then head on to Lingyun Resort and Laojun Pavillion - at the summit of the mountain, 1,260m (4,133ft). The structure rises out of the forest like it was part of the mountain itself, soaring into the sky.

The original pavilion here was actually destroyed in 2008 in the Sichuan earthquake, but the reconstruction is still 33 metres high with nine floors - and is open and accessible to visitors. The panoramas of forests are sublime.

From here, walk to Ciyun Pavillion and take the cable car back down the mountain to Yuecheng Lake, close to the Entrance Gate where you started.

What to Do After?

After descending the mountain, there are hot springs in the area to recharge. Or for those keen to explore the area further, head into the nearby Jiezi Ancient Town - a place with riverfront teahouses and Qing-era wooden streetscapes.

A short distance from the mountain, you’ll also find Dujiangyan Giant Panda Centre, which is part of China's national conservation network for giant pandas. Visit to see a project working to preserve the long history of pandas in this region. It's a reminder this landscape is not only spiritual but ecologically alive.

Hiking the Wild Side of the Great Wall of China

The Jinshanling section of the Great Wall runs through undulating mountains, and is dotted with fruit trees, away from the crowds…

Much Better Adventures MagazineStuart Kenny

Oh, and a fun fact: Mount Qingcheng both has its own brand of kung fu (Qingcheng Kung Fu, one of the most widely practised forms in all of China) and, appropriately, the mountain inspired Panda Village in Kung Fu Panda 3.

This is a place where folklore and ancient history meet culturally-distinctive architecture dating back millenia. These are forests that, in their silence and beauty, have inspired pensive thought for generations - and still invite it now.

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The Great Wall of China is one of the wonders of the world. Built by a string of dynasties dating back 2,000 years, the wall stretches over 13,000 miles (21,100km). There is no other structure on Earth which occupies more ground, more history and more of the imagination than the Great Wall of China - and it's only up close that you can touch the fire-baked bricks and quarried stone, smell the wild peach trees and the deciduous ash and oak forests, and run your hand along the battlements of this feat of human engineering, which snakes across mountain ridges - with watchtowers rising from the mist.

The most visited stretch of the wall - Badaling, close to Beijing - attracts enormous crowds. Areas like Mutianyu and Juyongguan, near the city, can also get very busy. But head two hours northeast of the capital into Hebei Province and the mountainous area of Chengde, and a different experience awaits.

People want to see the part of the wall with real history, beautiful views, relaxed people, away from the city. That’s what you get here.

Jinshanling translates to "Gold Mountain Ridge", and on this section of the Great Wall, the stones rise and fall along a ridgeline surrounded by flora which changes colour with the seasons. Sharp mountain peaks backdrop the scene.

Well-restored but unpolished, some believe that this is the best section of the Great Wall of China to walk - offering visitors a little bit of everything.

Helena Pan is a destination expert specialising in adventure travel to China.

"People don't want to walk on the parts of the Great Wall where it’s full of tourists," says Pan. "That goes for both domestic Chinese visitors and those coming from abroad. They want to see the parts of the wall with real history, beautiful views, relaxed people, away from the city. That’s what you get here.

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“In Hebei, they built along the mountains because it would have been difficult for the invaders to attack. So the wall goes through the mountains and the hills.”

Building the Wall

The history of the Great Wall is the history of China, going back millennia. The Qin dynasty, under Emperor Qin Shi Huang, was the first to unify the construction of the Great Wall, as far back as 220 B.C. It was to serve as a defence system for the newly-united Chinese people against the nomadic Xiongnu.

The wall as we know it today is largely the product of the Ming Dynasty, who ruled China from 1368 to 1644. China had expelled their Mongol rulers - and they didn’t want them to return. An interesting little sidenote on the construction is that the mortar used to bind the bricks of the Great Wall under the Ming Dynasty reportedly contained sticky rice - giving it that durability that's lasted centuries.

“Before the Ming Dynasty was Genghis Khan,” says Pan. “When the Ming Dynasty [took control], their biggest concern was attack by Mongol invaders.”

The Jinshanling section of the Great Wall was built and reinforced during this time, established in the mid-1300s and extended in 1567. The Great Wall of China is generally spoken about as multiple, connecting walls, and this section links the Simatai Great Wall to the east with the Gubeikou Great Wall to the west.

There are 67 watchtowers along just 6.5 miles (10.5km) of wall here - roughly one every 100 metres.

It wasn’t until the 1980s that the Jinshanling section was reconstructed, but the restoration was a huge success, tastefully done to match the historic style.

The Jinshanling wall was originally designed under the supervision of General Qi Jiguang - a military innovator who designed the watchtowers which are so densely packed into this section of wall. There are 67 watchtowers along just 6.5 miles (10.5km) of wall here. That's roughly one every 100 metres.

These watchtowers weren't decorative, either. The lower stories used to house soldiers and supplies, while the upper levels served as combat platforms, complete with arrow slits, holes to allow the dropping of rocks onto approaching enemies and functioning drainage systems. It's easy to imagine the battlements in use; troops fending off invading soldiers, while you stroll along the structure.

Amongst the 67 watchtowers, General Tower is a particularly prominent and interesting design. It was one of the towers commissioned by General Qi Jiguang. The tower has barrier walls, battlements and horse-blocking walls, and is one of the finest pieces of individual architecture on the entire structure.

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This stretch of the wall is also home to three beacon towers - defensive structures positioned at a higher elevation than watchtowers, so they could pass early warning signals and alerts to frontier and interior teams around them.

The Jinshanling Wall ranges from five to eight metres high and it was designed to be wide enough, at the top, for five horses to ride abreast. These days, of course, you’re more likely to see hikers than horses making their way along it.

Walking in Wild Jinshanling

A hike on Jinshanling Great Wall traditionally begins at the East Gate and follows the wall westward, rising and falling as the land undulates below.

“It is a place you have got to go, even if you live here,” says Helena. “It’s not just for tourists.”

The distance is modest. The Jinshanling wall measures 6.8 miles (or 11km) - and many walks take in a shorter section of this, around 4 miles (6.5km) to Tao Chunkou. But modest doesn't mean underwhelming, and you’ll find yourself making your way along the wall slower than you would along a normal hiking trail. The stone steps are large, uneven and steep. There is history all around you - and you will have an ever-present, startling view of not just the landscape, but of the wall itself, as it finds its way through the hills.

Walking the four-mile route here takes a relaxed four hours.

“There are wild plants and flowers; white fruit trees of all different types,” says Pan, of the area. This includes apricot and peach blossoms, dotted around, and summer wildflowers. “And they are not mainly planted, it's all wild. In the autumn there are beautiful red leaves, and it's very, very beautiful.”

Afterwards, spend the evening in one of the frontier villages whose lives have been shaped by the proximity in which they live to this spectacular wall.

“People here feel very much proud of this part of the Great Wall,” says Helena.

Their parents and grandparents have lived here for generations and generations, and because of the Great Wall, they now have new business opportunities.

These are communities whose ancestors lived alongside the wall, guarded it, farmed looking up at it - and who now guide tourists along it.

“Our groups stay at guesthouses which used to be farms,” says Pan. “Their parents and grandparents have lived here for generations, and because of the Great Wall, they now have new business opportunities. We stay with someone who just renovated his guesthouses, and he is honest and hard-working.

“He cares a lot about providing a good service. He has a very clean house and does really good cooking together with his wife. When we get there, his wife can teach you how to make dumplings if you're interested, then you try them.”

Pan paints a romantic picture of life along the wall. “I have a friend who runs a guesthouse,” she says, “and he is able to go up to the Great Wall anytime he wishes. So he goes after the rain, before the rain, for sunrise or sunset."

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The Great Wall of China was first built to keep out the enemies of this storied country. But today, what it brings in is perhaps even more interesting. This wall, in this wild stretch of backcountry, offers visitors from near and far the chance to travel back in time - and offers remote communities a path to the future.

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It’s usually dark when the call comes in. A phone buzzes on the bedside table. A message flashes up from the team: a missing walker, an injured climber, someone who hasn’t returned from the hills. Within minutes, volunteers across the region are pulling on waterproofs, grabbing headtorches and heading out into the night.

Mountain Rescue teams across the United Kingdom operate entirely through volunteers like myself. We leave family dinners, dog walks and warm beds to answer a call when someone is lost, injured or in trouble in the hills.

For a long time I assumed mountain rescue was something reserved for elite climbers and ultra-endurance athletes.

The first time you stand on a mountainside wearing a Mountain Rescue jacket, you feel two things at once: pride, and a quiet awareness of the responsibility it carries. Sometimes, standing among the team in the wind and rain, you'll also notice something else: you’re the only woman there.

Across England and Wales, women make up roughly 15% of mountain rescue team members, so it isn’t unusual to arrive at a training night and realise you’re one of only a handful in the room.

I remember that feeling well. There were three women in my intake of 11, but it was when we joined the wider team that it really struck me - standing in a room and taking in a sea of male faces, wondering where I belonged within it.

For a long time I assumed mountain rescue was something reserved for elite climbers and ultra-endurance athletes. The reality is very different.

The outdoors has long carried an unspoken stereotype: that the mountains belong to the toughest, strongest people in the room. The ones who move fastest, climb highest or carry the heaviest pack. It’s a narrative that often builds confidence in men, while many women, myself included, are more likely to question whether we’re experienced enough, strong enough, or even meant to be there. Despite growing participation, these spaces are still often seen as male-dominated, and that perception shapes how people show up in them.

But mountain rescue teaches you quickly that strength isn’t just about muscle.

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Before joining my team in South Wales, I imagined Mountain Rescue would be full of hardened mountain veterans who had spent their lives in the hills. In reality, teams are made up of people from every walk of life. Teachers, engineers, farmers, paramedics, office workers.

Some are experienced climbers. Others simply enjoy spending time outdoors and have built their skills over time.

What connects everyone isn’t physical dominance. It’s teamwork.

Learning the Hills Together

On a rescue, everyone has a role. I’ve been on call-outs where I’ve been navigating across featureless ground in thick fog, double-checking bearings while the beam of my headtorch reflects right back at me. On others, I’ve been part of a stretcher team, carefully stepping in sync across uneven terrain, every foot placement deliberate as we carried someone down off the mountain.

Some volunteers navigate. Some coordinate communications. Some provide medical care. Others carry equipment or manage vehicles and logistics. When someone is injured on a steep hillside, it can take an entire team working together to move them safely down.

Very quickly you realise that rescue work isn’t about proving yourself as the strongest individual. It’s about being part of something bigger.

And that’s where diversity within teams really matters.

One of the most important lessons in mountain rescue is that no one ever stops learning. I still remember a training exercise where I was convinced I’d nailed a navigation leg, only to be gently told I’d drifted just enough off bearing to miss a key feature entirely. It was a small mistake, but in poor visibility, small mistakes matter. None of us are perfect, and mistakes are part of being human. That’s why we work as a team, quietly checking each other, supporting each other, and making sure small errors don’t become bigger ones.

Teams train constantly. Navigation in poor visibility. Rope systems. Casualty care. Search techniques. Moving safely across steep or difficult terrain. Operating at night, often in challenging weather.

You learn how to read the land properly. How to trust your compass when visibility disappears.

At first, it can feel intimidating. You’re surrounded by people who seem completely at home in the mountains.

But those same people are also the ones teaching you.

You learn how to read the land properly. How to trust your compass when visibility disappears. How to move carefully across wet rock and rough ground. How to stay calm when the weather closes in and the situation becomes serious.

Over time, confidence builds.

In many ways, mountain rescue strips away the myth that adventure belongs to a select few. Skills are learned. Experience grows. Everyone improves together.

The mountains reward preparation, awareness and respect far more than brute strength. I’ve seen that play out time and again, particularly on call-outs where experienced walkers have been caught out by a sudden weather change or fading light. It’s rarely about fitness failing, it’s about small decisions stacking up.

Why Representation Matters

For many women, the biggest barrier to adventure isn’t ability. It’s visibility.

If you’ve never seen someone like you doing something, it’s easy to assume you don’t belong there.

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Mountain rescue reflects that wider imbalance. Across England and Wales, women make up around 15% of mountain rescue volunteers. That number is slowly rising, but it still means that on many call-outs or training evenings, you may find yourself one of only a few women in the room. As I mentioned earlier, that sense of being in the minority was clear from the start. I remember, in those early training nights, quietly noting where the other women in the team were, almost like finding anchor points. Over time, they became teammates, mentors and friends, and that feeling of standing slightly on the edge began to fade.

Part of that comes down to confidence. In my experience, women often hold themselves to far higher standards before stepping forward. Many feel they need to be exceptionally capable before even considering joining something like Mountain Rescue, while their male counterparts are often far more comfortable learning along the way.

Some of the people we rescue are experienced hikers who simply had a moment of bad luck.

But mountain rescue doesn’t expect perfection. Teams are looking for people who are willing to learn, turn up and support one another when it matters most, and when women do step forward, they bring enormous value.

Different perspectives, problem-solving approaches and life experiences all strengthen how a team works together in challenging situations. The outdoors becomes richer and more welcoming when more people see themselves in it.

Adventure Doesn’t Start at the Summit

One of the biggest misconceptions about adventure is that it has to be extreme.

It doesn’t.

Adventure can begin with something as simple as a walk along a ridge, a sunrise hike before work, or exploring a trail you’ve never taken before. Some of the people we rescue are experienced hikers who simply had a moment of bad luck. Others are beginners who underestimated the terrain or the weather.

The common thread isn’t whether someone “deserved” to be there. It’s that they chose to step outside - and that’s always a good place to begin.

Across Wales, the landscapes invite exploration. The dramatic peaks of Eryri, the wide open escarpments of Bannau Brycheiniog, and the coastal paths that wind along ancient cliffs all offer their own kind of adventure.

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But none of them require you to be the strongest person on the hill.

They simply ask that you show up prepared and curious.

If mountain rescue highlights one thing again and again, it’s the strength of community in the outdoors.

No one truly moves through the hills alone. Walkers share route advice. Strangers pause to check on someone sitting beside the path. Teams of volunteers come together to help people they’ve never met.

That spirit is part of what makes adventure so powerful.

For many women, finding community can be the key that unlocks confidence in the outdoors. Walking groups, social hikes and adventure collectives are creating spaces where people can build experience together.

The hills have never belonged to just one type of person.

Suddenly the mountains feel less intimidating. And once you’ve climbed one hill, it’s amazing how quickly you start planning the next.

The most important lesson mountain rescue has taught me is this: you don’t need permission to belong in the outdoors.

You don’t have to look a certain way, move at a certain speed or carry the biggest pack. You don’t have to be the strongest person on the hill. You just have to take the first step onto the path.

Because somewhere beyond the car park, beyond the first climb and the bend in the trail, the mountains are waiting, and the hills have never belonged to just one type of person - they belong to anyone willing to step into them.

Inspired? Check out our full range of adventure holidays now!

On the surface of it, there is no obvious connection between elite netball, education on the island of Zanzibar and a dream safari getaway involving tented camps and lion-spotting on the coast of East Africa.

But when it is at its most impactful, the ripple effects of positive-impact tourism can reach far beyond the vacation itself.

Enter David Guthrie, co-founder of safari-specialists A Tent With a View. Guthrie set up the company with his business partner Masoud Kilanga over 30 years ago - and they recently launched a new trip in partnership with Much Better Adventures. It's set in Africa's largest national park, Nyerere, and Saadani on the Tanzanian coast, which Guthrie, Kilanaga and their team developed for tourism.

The key point is that we want people to feel that they can aspire to big things.

“It's a phenomenal place”, David says. Here, the African bush meets the Indian Ocean and turtles lay their eggs a stone’s throw from areas where lions roam and elephants gather in their hundreds. “It all evolved from there,” says Guthrie.

Today, his team has expanded to include around 90 people in total. All of the organisation’s young managers are Tanzanian, joining the company via their graduate recruitment program - which allows graduates to experience every aspect of the business before landing on a managerial position. “The key point is that we want people to feel that they can aspire to big things," says David.

Guthrie, Kilanga and their team are serious about that. So much so that they also started an elite netball academy for girls in Tanzania - with the aim of producing professionally contracted, world class athletes. And they are funding the education of some of Zanzibar’s most promising students, with the hope that in the years to come, some of those children could speak on UN Youth stages.

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This isn’t a marketing exercise. There are no branded cars and the children on courts aren’t there to be photographed. The ‘why’ of it all is simple, but human.

“We’re tired of people in Tanzania having nobody to look up to,” David says.

On the Court

“There's never been a female professional athlete from Tanzania in its history,” Guthrie tells me. “65 years, and not one professional athlete in any sport."

Tanzania recently sat 46th out of 47 nations in the world netball rankings, while their neighbours Uganda sat in 6th. The Tanzanian national team has since fallen off the ranking ladder altogether. But the aim at the new Tanzania Girls' Sports Academy in Simiyu - on the shores of Lake Victoria - is to see Tanzania not only enter the rankings again, but to get into that top 10 in the next eight years.

David continues: “We're talking about taking the best netballers in Tanzania, bringing in the best coaches from the UK - having the best facilities, and throwing the kitchen sink into making them into superstars. So that Tanzania could be in the World Cup one day, challenging the best teams in the world.”

The task is not an easy one - and first, boundaries will have to be broken down.

What we focus on is creating elite sportswomen. Girls who can go and get professional contracts; believe in themselves; be superstars.

George Zakaria, Head of Sport at Mwagindi Primary School in Tanzania, sums up the cultural issues which need addressed. "Many communities here do not believe there is advantage in sport," he says. "Even in our school, we are struggling a lot with advising parents to leave their children to play. But girls who are put at home for domestic activities - they don't have time to play or practise sport, so giving this chance to them will change our community."

The Academy itself is a purpose-built facility including a four-floor clubhouse and proper netball hard courts. Maggie Birkinshaw - an ex England international player and former coach of Superleague team Leeds Rhinos - is also involved in the project, scouting and developing players and coaches in the community.

An online documentary tracked Birkinshaw's talent-search across Tanzania. She took a 12-day road trip around the country, including to remote Maasai communities in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. "It's no secret that the Maasai are strong, they are tall and they can jump very high - quite a few of the qualities that I as a coach would look for in players," Birkinshaw says in the film.

"It's really clear that [sporting] opportunities in Tanzania, particularly for the girls, are next to none," the coach also notes. "[For] most girls, once they get to a certain stage where school ends, sport ends. There is nothing to transition onto. This Academy will give that opportunity for that transition from school."

It will also offer educational opportunities for players.

Birkinshaw goes on to add: "What we're trying to create is the opportunity for these girls to learn netball from the strategic side as well as the technical side. They will also be given a full education, which a lot of these girls may not be able to have. Some of these girls, when they get to 13, cannot afford to pay for education, so their learning then comes to an end. The Academy is looking to offer a holistic approach to every single athlete. So it's not just about the netball."

For Guthrie, the project is one with a clear aim. “What we focus on is creating elite sportswomen," he says. "Girls who can go and get professional contracts; believe in themselves; be superstars. And then other girls and mums will watch them on TV because suddenly there will be a Tanzanian girl playing netball.

“You can see how you could start a snowball effect. We’ve gone into these small areas with real energy to see if we can create superstars, and make more girls believe that they could do the same as well. We see the disappointment for people here, the lack of self-belief, and so we’ve identified this project on the sporting front and another on the academic front - to provide opportunities.”

In the Classroom

The academic project Guthrie mentions is the Zanzibar Sustainability Champions programme, which strives for similar success in the classroom.

In the coastal town of Nungwi, where A Tent With a View operates its Zanzibari hotel, government school classrooms routinely hold hundreds of students. Attaining a grade E - the lowest available - is considered a good outcome for local students. Receiving a grade C is exceptional, while anything better is unheard of.

“Because classrooms are generally 100 to 200 students, there's no space and no way to learn,” says David. “So if you get anything other than a fail in any exam, you're probably a real superstar.”

A Tent With a View identified a handful of children from north Zanzibar who had managed, against these odds, to register good grades in their year four exams.

“Then we gave them private tuition once a week, and they learned about sustainability as well as maths, science and English,” says David.

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The students took the entrance exam of the best private school in the area. 11 passed, and A Tent With a View is now paying for their education through school, all the way to A-Levels. All the students have now finished their first year, and each came in the top half of their class. 7 of the 11 came in the top 15% . “They're all turning into environmental and sustainability superstars,” says Guthrie.

The children are writing essays on sustainable tourism in Zanzibar - what works and what doesn’t, Guthrie says. “I’m anticipating that in a few years, one or two will be on a stage at the UN Youth Sustainability Conferences. They're that good."

Impact Beyond Tourism

Travel operators have spent much of the past decade focused on reducing their footprint. Energy use, waste, carbon emissions, supply chains - and all of that is crucially important. But it’s also important tourism maintains an ongoing conversation with the communities where it takes place - and an open-minded approach to the ways it can, or cannot, help benefit those communities.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals cover 17 areas, including education, gender equality and economic opportunity - representing the myriad ways tourism can invest in communities, from the likes of schooling to netball. “When you feel passionate about a project, you go so much deeper with it,” Guthrie says.

The Saadani Lion and Turtle Project is another expression of this - a research programme run by A Tent With a View in partnership with Macalester College and Yale University, studying the behaviour of Saadani's coastal lion population.

It is the kind of finding that, once published, has the potential to [...] help protect the park and its wildlife from looming development.

The park’s lion den sits within a few hundred metres of nesting sea turtles, in a habitat under pressure from charcoal burning, industrial agriculture, coastal erosion and salt works.

The first phase of the research identified 12 individual lions and documented a remarkable pattern: Saadani lions appear to hunt giraffes far more frequently than is typical for the species. It is the kind of finding that, once published, has the potential to draw scientific attention to a park that has long been ignored - thus helping protect the park and its wildlife from looming development.

The site’s recognition as a tourist hotspot has the potential to do the same.

All of it - from the unique coastal lion population to the thriving school students and the netball academy - connect back to the same underlying conviction that the places we visit on adventures are not backdrops. They are living, breathing communities. If tourism is to benefit from those communities, and the landscape that they live in, it should come with tangible benefits for the people and place.

Check out our Safari to Shore Journey in Hidden Tanzania adventure now!

As an adventure-seeking couple, e-biking across Costa Rica from coast to coast was a ride that offered it all to myself and my girlfriend Iulia – cycling on every terrain possible, seeing a lot of wildlife and discovering the country on two wheels. This was not our first Much Better Adventure – in 2025 we had hiked across the island of Madeira – but it was our first e-biking holiday. Before this trip, we hadn't done more than two days of cycling in a row.

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This was our biggest concern: how to handle a full week of pedalling with high temperatures and humidity (not to mention the fact that we might encounter wild animals blocking our path along the way). I have to admit that a few days before the trip started, I was a bit unsure of how to feel. But as soon we saw the full group and got the bicycles we would be riding, the joy of the trip kicked in.

The whole adventure felt very complete, because it had it all: amazing campsites, refreshing rivers and waterfalls, exciting river and bridge crossings, lots of different wildlife...

While we love hiking, the reason we wanted to travel by bike this time around was that we wanted to see more of a country in our precious vacation time.

When we saw trips with e-bikes we thought that fitted us even better, because you are also are not so exhausted after each day. It is the perfect way to see a country. You can stop for photos or videos easily, but you are still fast enough to cover a lot of the diverse landscape.

The start of the adventure was on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, and it was an amazing place. I could not imagine a better start for e-biking than cruising along the coast line. The real challenge was to look at the ocean and the bike track at the same time and not cause an accident!

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Our guide Fez told us that the hardest part of the journey was right on the first day, within the first hour. So, after we kissed the ocean and relaxed, the toughest part came immediately. If you've never cycled on train tracks, this is your chance... but you soon find out why no one is doing it regularly.

It is very frustrating. And just when we thought it wouldn't get worse, Fez told us that there could be a real train coming along behind us – but there was no need no panic, he said. It would honk to alert us it was there. While pushing forward on the train tracks, we heard a howling noise from all around us that was nearly as intimidating as a train. It wasn't a locomotive but the local howler monkeys.

The most enjoyable part of this section of route was the last part of the track – a train track bridge. It is basically a piece of wood, and then some thin air, and then another piece of wood. And probably crocodiles waiting in the river below?

Starting at the Caribbean and finishing at the Pacific Ocean is an amazing feeling.

Now we understood why this is called an adventure.

Thankfully, we managed to get across safely (without getting wet), and we were very glad that the hardest part of the trip was already behind us.

I was looking forward to the river crossings on this trip, as I thought we could cycle through them, but in the end it was a more of a manual job than expected. Anyway, it was a refreshing experience. And after the train tracks we were proud to master also the river crossing challenge. It was like collecting medals for bravery. We owe a big thanks to our guide Fez, who did most of the heavy lifting – carrying the e-bikes, and sometimes even lifting two e-bikes at once.

We heard that we had to cross some bridges on the second day, but admittedly, we had no idea what state those bridges would be in.

Back home in Austria, these bridges would not be in existence. And if there were to be such a bridge, there would be a whole lot of safety signs before it. In Costa Rica we had Fez to tell us how to cross safely, and as we had trust in our guide, we crossed them with faith. He was even nice enough to assist Iulia the whole path of the bridge.

Living in Austria, we are aware of road signs that show if there is an animal danger. Fortunately, the only danger in Austria is a cow. Costa Rica is a different level. Instead of one animal they put three wild animals on their signs. And these three animals change depending on where you were in the country. Some of them we didn't spot for real, but other, we were lucky enough to see – sloths, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, coatis, toucans, iguanas, dart frogs, armadillos and lots of different birds. It's an amazing country to visit if you love wildlife.

Out of all of these experiences, the best encounter for sure was the sloth. It was the cutest animal that we have ever seen. We were crossing a river and got out of the boat when we saw the sloth climbed up onto a nearby fence in slow motion. We took thousands of photos and videos. This sloth quickly became the best documented sloth in all of Costa Rica – explored from every angle possible.

In general we had a very good mix of terrain to ride on throughout the trip.

I liked especially the diversity of the country, as we started in a more humid and green landscape and finished on a drier and desert-like one.

The gravel-like terrain was the most fun; especially the downhills where it felt really like racing sometimes. In our group were four mountain bike enthusiasts from California and it was a pleasure to race with them up and down the hills.

But what really stood out was the friendly Costa Ricans that we passed by. Most of them greeted us with joy, waved or even gave us a high five. We experienced that throughout our journey across Costa Rica. The people are so nice and friendly and most of the time very happy fellows. It felt quite different to Europe!

As the climate is hot and humid here, it is even more important to eat and drink whenever you can. Fez was very helpful in that challenge, as we stopped very often for fresh fruit juices, coconut drinks or short supermarket visits. Breakfast, lunch and dinner were always amazing. We loved the Costa Rican food. The mostly humongous portions were really needed to fuel up our body batteries.

Still, at the end of each day our bike – and our own – batteries were sometimes very low. There was one day, with a lot of ups and downs and a big up at the end of the day, where my e-bike battery was basically empty mid-mountain.

The second half of the mountain was tough and at the top there was not much left: no battery, no water and no energy in my body. But on all other days there was sufficient battery to finish quite comfortably.

On the last day we were challenged by a very hot and dry climate, and lots of street traffic. So, we were really happy to see the ocean again, this time the Pacific.

Starting at the Caribbean and finishing at the Pacific Ocean is an amazing feeling.

The whole adventure felt very complete, because it had it all: amazing campsites, refreshing rivers and waterfalls, exciting river and bridge crossings, lots of different wildlife each day and a fantastic bike team including our guide Fez and our driver, Darwin.

Feeling inspired? Grab a spot on this e-biking adventure, or check out all of our adventures in Costa Rica.

Comuna 13 was one of tourism’s great success stories. On the western hills of Medellín, a neighbourhood long marked by violence became a canvas for murals and music, its story of resilience carried through community-led tours. The Comuna became a global sensation - and then the world arrived.

“Noise levels increased dramatically,” says Ana Cristina Vélez Bunzl, a guide from the neighbourhood. “Trash increased. The traffic is impossible. Elderly people are desperate now. They cannot watch their telenovelas. It’s difficult to leave neighbourhoods, even to seek medical help. We now see homeless people and sex workers - things that were not common before. There is no control.”

Outside opportunists began to bring in crowds by the busload, extracting profit without any gain for the community , dilluting the benefits for locals, while grocery prices rose to tourist rates. The outdoor escalators built specifically to prevent locals having to walk the equivalent of a 30-storey building to reach the centre of Medellín were overwhelmed, and mobility was lost for many residents.

“When I go there now,” Ana Cristina says, “I feel like an outsider in the place where I grew up.”

Comuna 13 is an example of how tourism can revive, but also how it can consume - and it raises a question. Is equitable tourism actually possible?

The answer is yes, but not passively. It requires intentional steps to be taken.

Creating equitable destinations

Tourism is often described in absolutes. It either transforms communities or destroys them. It either spreads wealth or concentrates it. The reality is, of course, much more nuanced - even in an overtouristed spot like Comuna 13.

“There are people who genuinely want to do things well and create something meaningful,” Ana Cristina says. “Financial capacity has clearly improved for many people, but everything has also become much more expensive. Some areas have not been deeply affected, but the tourist zone around the electric escalators and surrounding neighbourhoods have undergone massive transformations.”

Rebecca Armstrong is the Head of Impact at Travel Forward (formerly The Travel Foundation), an organisation which aims to move conversations in tourism beyond the binaries and implement measurable, meaningful change.

Where is the money going? Who’s benefitting from it? How is that value from tourism not just created but distributed among destination communities?

Travel Forward - along with partners - released an 196-page report on Creating Equitable Destinations in 2024. The reason for their focus on equity is simple.

“It’s really about fairness,” says Armstrong. “The value that tourism generates doesn’t always reach as far as we might expect - or as far as we know is possible.

"What we did with the report was to look at how fair the system is at the moment and how it could be made fairer. So economically, where is the money going? Who’s benefitting from it? How is that value from tourism not just created but distributed among destination communities? Is it just in the hands of a few key players and destinations, or does it really find its way to those communities?”

At the heart of the issue is distribution. Beyond tourism money, who controls the land and infrastructure? What longer-term opportunities do tourism jobs actually provide? Who absorbs the pressures that comes with the crowds?

Tourism leakage remains one of the sector’s most persistent blind spots. Globally, a significant share of tourism income leaves the destination through global supply chains. In some developing economies, only a fraction of visitor spending remains in-country. The postcard image stays, but the profit does not.

“Links over leaks,” Armstrong says, a sentiment at the heart of tourism equity. “It's about what money is coming in? How much stays? And who does it go to?”

Five types of tourism equity

Travel Forward's report identifies five interconnected types of tourism equity: economic, environmental, spatial, cultural and experience equity.

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Economic inequity is the most obvious. In destinations dominated by foreign-owned, often all-inclusive, resorts, local businesses struggle to access markets.

In the Maldives, where tourism accounts for a huge share of GDP, the legacy of internationally-owned resorts has meant that much of the income generated “comes into their businesses and leaves the Maldives again,” as responsible tourism advocate Ruth Franklin once put it to me. Guests sleep, eat, dive and shop within a closed system. The surrounding communities remain peripheral.

Less than 1% of Jamaica's coastline is accessible to residents.

But money is only part of the story.

Spatial inequity occurs when public spaces are transformed for visitors. Rebecca Armstrong cites a recent BBC travel feature that states that less than 1% of Jamaica's coastline is accessible to residents. Tourism may generate tax revenue, but if the land itself is privatised, what has been gained and lost for locals?

Cultural inequity surfaces when destinations are reduced to a performance of themselves. Back in Comuna 13, Ana Cristina Vélez Bunzl describes seeing people dress as Pablo Escobar for photographs - a caricature replacing a lived history - despite Escobar having no direct ties to the area. “One of the most painful aspects is that we are losing the true memory of the armed conflict here and of what happened to us as a territory,” she says.

In environmental terms, tourists often consume far more water and resources than residents, particularly in arid regions.

“Destinations have to be able to work out where that limit lies,” says Armstrong. “You might have 100 hotels in a destination that are highly certified to every sustainability certification. They're all using water efficiently and doing everything they can to minimise their water use. But if 100 hotels using water is too much for the local water supply, then that's not sustainable.”

Equity, Armstrong argues, must begin with place. “It’s starting with the place before you even get to tourism," she says. "Communities themselves are not homogeneous. So it's about understanding the priorities of that place - culturally, socially, environmentally - and then asking what tourism should deliver. How does tourism fit into that in a positive regenerative way?”

This approach is often referred to as destination or place stewardship.

When tourism works

Tourism is not inherently extractive. It can and does create positive, life-changing opportunities - when it is deliberately designed to do so.

In Madagascar, Hanitriniando Rabehajaina, Chief Sustainability Officer at Malagasy-owned operator Tamàna Adventure, describes a model built explicitly around community linkage. “Community engagement is at the heart of our excursions,” she says. All Tamàna guides, porters and cooks are from the regions the group adventures visit, so income flows directly into local families. Training is prioritised and women are employed in leadership roles within the office - something particularly crucial given the World Bank statistic that women in tourism are still paid less than men, by a whopping 14.7%.

A new study from the University of Toronto found that for every 1000 tourists that visit a protected area (PA) in Madagascar, deforestation decreased by 3.2%.

Travellers buy bread from bakeries and go to small grocery shops in remote areas that usually don’t get their share.

“Our mission is clear,” Rabehajaina says. “Protect the environment - and uplift local communities.”

The difference is intentionality, targeted at anchoring the benefits of tourism locally.

In Uganda, entry and gorilla trekking fees from Bwindi Impenetrable National Park provide 60 percent of the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s revenue.

In Jordan, the long-distance Jordan Trail spreads the wealth of tourism beyond Petra’s well-trodden paths. “Travellers buy bread from bakeries and go to small grocery shops in remote areas that usually don’t get their share,” says co-founder Ayman Abd Alkareem. In the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta jungle of Colombia, you can’t visit Ciudad Perdida (The Lost City) without a local guide, and the trek is closed for September for spiritual reasons tied to the indigenous people. Similarly in Nepal, trekkers now require a local guide for most remote hikes.

Bhutan is the most famous example of a high-impact tourist tax - charging USD 100 per person per night, which goes towards sustainability and free education and healthcare for its citizens. But similarly in Edinburgh, a new, smaller visitor levy is set to contribute £5m in funding to tackle the housing crisis, allowing the city to build nearly 500 affordable homes - a tangible benefit for local people.

Tourism employment is often seasonal and poorly-paid, but it doesn't have to be. In Sri Lanka, Action Lanka employ guides year round. "We pay them well and they're permanent employees, so as well as tips, they have government-managed pensions," says owner Peter Bluck. "Freelance guides don't have that security."

In Tanzania, safari specialist A View from a Tent's work stretches far beyond tourism - to producing elite netball players and paying for the schooling of star students, with the aim of producing role models in the community. "We're tired of people in Tanzania having nobody to look up to," one guide told me.

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On an industry level, Travel Forward is working with the Canary Islands on a regenerative, collaborative initiative where tour operators directly invest in restoring degraded ecosystems and promoting social projects linked to tourism.

And Armstrong also highlights Makers Landing - a business incubator on the V&A Waterfront which provides kitchen space, mentoring and retail opportunities to small food entrepreneurs from disadvantaged communities. Tourists eat at the waterfront, where they'd naturally congregate, but the economic chain stretches outward. “It’s a model that can be replicated elsewhere,” Armstrong says.

These are not grand reinventions of tourism, but deliberate choices that make it work for more people. Mechanisms like local hiring, supply chain transparency, revenue sharing and visitor taxes exist. The problem is not that equitable tourism models do not exist - it’s that they’re currently not the default for the industry.

How we measure success

One reason equity remains a marginal topic is that tourism still largely measures success in visitor numbers, bed nights, GDP - the higher, the better.

“There’s still a disconnect between business models set up to reward volume and constant further growth, rather than measuring success by tourism’s contribution to equity,” Armstrong says. “I think we’re still a long way from that.”

In adventure travel, the most notable attempt to measure impact in recent years was the Ripple Score from G Adventures and Planeterra. A pioneering initiative, it measures the percentage of supplier spend that goes directly to locally-owned businesses. It was launched in 2018, but nobody has gone deeper since.

That is changing now - as an industry dependent on remote communities and the health of the environments they live in focuses in on the issue of equity.

It’s respecting the limits of natural resources, of land use, the impact on local housing and working hand in hand with the destination.

At the Adventure Travel Networking conference in February 2026, Much Better Adventures announced a tool to be launched later this year which, CEO Alex Narracott says, will "measure the economic impact of trips across our entire portfolio, without burying us or our partners in spreadsheets, done in a way that could work for anyone else in the industry who wants to do the same thing."

A big-picture tool like this would be used to identify key areas where impact could be improved - pairing with on-the-ground work to improve local benefits.

On the same panel, Thomas Armitt of Planeterra spoke about making the right kind of impact. "Not everything local is good. That's the reality," he said. "So it's being able to understand [...] ripple effects on those communities; increased education, women empowerment, youth empowerment, uplifting underserved, underrepresented members of the community." Kasia Morgan of Exodus also talked about their plans, working with local partners to deep dive into selected trips to see who benefits, how and what barriers remained to empowering locals.

Alex Narracott concluded: "You can be sure if we all start measuring economic impact, the improvement across the industry would be rapid and significant."

Back at Travel Forward, they advocate for tourism to introduce equity KPI targets (key performance indicators) to prioritise the delivery of local benefits, demonstrate community consent and protect tourism's social licence to operate.

“If the destination starts measuring the success of tourism by how much it contributes to local benefits and communities, and the industry on the supply side do the same, there's going to be much more alignment,” Armstrong says.

This is one of Travel Forward's four big solutions to change tourism.

“We’re never going to have 100% linkage or 0% leakage,” says Armstrong. “I think that’s necessary and there’s a healthy balance to be found in most destinations. It’s respecting the limits of natural resources, of land use, the impact on local housing and working hand in hand with the destination. And the destination itself should be confidently setting limits on that as well. It’s about the collective.”

Changing the model

Tourism can preserve culture, protect wild places, strengthen entrepreneurship and foster exchange. It can also overwhelm, displace and commodify. The difference lies in structure and intent. Individual travellers matter. Supporting locally-owned operators and those who connect them to the world, seeking out community enterprises, avoiding exploitative experiences - these decisions have weight. But Armstrong is clear that equity cannot rely solely on consumer virtue.

“This is about the model,” she says.

Destinations must decide what they want tourism to deliver, and at what cost. There must be limits. Operators must examine supply chains, and governments must embed equity targets into how success is measured.

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The gains of tourism should be as broad as possible, and the harms contained.

Comuna 13 reminds us that tourism can have a startling impact - positive and negative. It can create new opportunities that lift people out of danger and poverty. But even a successful model can tip into negatives with startling speed.

Ana Cristina now advocates for visiting the nearby Comuna 3 in Medellín. “Tourism is still small-scale there," she says, "so there is a real opportunity to set rules and frameworks early, before things spiral out of control."

Sustainable tourism should not be defined only by carbon footprint or waste reduction, as important as those things may be. It must also take into account who tourism is set up to benefit - and whether the places visited still truly belong to those who live there. If they don't, tourism there is surely not sustainable.

Equity is possible in tourism. It's tougher to know if it can become the norm.

Check out our full range of adventure holidays, in partnership with local hosts around the world, or read more about equity via Travel Forward!

Pakistan’s Karakoram Mountains are one of the world’s superlative trekking destinations, where sky-piercing peaks are surrounded by wild rivers and snaking glaciers. The range is dominated by the iconic K2 (8,611m/28,251ft), the world’s second-highest mountain, and other standout peaks exceeding 7,000m (22,965ft), including Chogolisa and Masherbrum. Nowhere else on Earth offers such a dense concentration of high mountains—and while K2 is the big draw, other lesser-known hikes here can actually provide a deeper insight into the culture of this storied area, and offer more benefits to local life.

Despite the raw beauty of this region, it is rarely visited by western trekkers. Only around 25,000 foreign tourists visited the Gilgit-Baltistan region (the primary location of the Karakoram Mountains) in 2024, while 244,045 foreign tourists headed to Nepal's Annapurna region.

Trekking in Pakistan is very authentic. It’s expedition-style, so you go with local guides and porters and you have a true cultural exchange.

“Trekking in Pakistan is very authentic,” says Umer Latif. “It’s expedition-style, so you go with local guides and porters and you have a true cultural exchange. You understand the geographical impact of the landscape on people's lives, and the historical significance of adventures and expeditions of the past.

"In short, Karakoram gives you a sense of discovery, authentic adventure, physical challenge and tourism for good, if done right. So it's very unique.”

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The Might of the Karakoram Mountains

Many of the trails in the mountains are rarely trodden by western trekkers—they follow traditional herder’s tracks, rather than being dedicated paths created for hikers. There are, however, several exceptions. These include the trekking routes to the base camps of K2 and Nanga Parbat (the world's world's ninth-highest mountain, reaching 8,126m/26,660ft), and Fairy Meadows, a high altitude grassland with views of Nanga Parbat.

“There is concern about overtourism in destinations like K2 and Nanga Parbat Base Camp,” Umer says. “It's not that the numbers are too large. It's just the campsites don't have much capacity. They can accommodate a few hundred people; even 3,000 to 4,000 people annually seems large.”

There is concern about overtourism in destinations like K2 and Nanga Parbat Base Camp. It's not that the numbers are too large. It's just the campsites don't have much capacity

K2 is one of the world’s most dangerous mountains to climb due to its extreme technicality and the notoriously unpredictable weather, which make it prone to icefall, rockfall and avalanches. Although it was first climbed in 1954, the mountain wasn't climbed in winter until January 2021. But being one of the world's iconic peaks, it remains a point of fascination with both mountaineers eyeing up the summit and hikers, who want to reach base camp (located at 5,150m/16,896 ft) beneath it to get a sense of the immensity and power here.

But increasing commercialisation has led to an increasing amount of rubbish being left at K2 base camp by both climbers and trekkers - as well as at the higher altitude camps. While some companies are responsible, removing waste belonging to themselves and other people as they climb, other teams discard tents, old ropes and leave human waste behind them.

“I did the K2 Base Camp trek recently," says Umer. "I spoke with ambassadors and environmentalists who did it, and were unhappy. Yes, the mountain scenery is mind-blowing. You don't see that anywhere on Earth. But then you see those campsites overpopulated and you see mules and porters being abused. Three porters died this year due to altitude sickness. It happens all the time."

These routes are still being managed properly and create crucial income streams, whereas the K2 route is now showing serious signs of strain.

So, where to go instead?

There are other routes here, including a trek to K1 (Masherbrum) Base Camp and K6/K7 Base Camp in the Charakusa Valley, which still serves local communities, allowing people to benefit fairly from tourism, and providing an authentic, positive visitor experience in amongst the beauty of these enormous mountains. These routes are still being managed properly and create crucial income streams, whereas the K2 route is now showing serious signs of strain.

Umer continues: “It’s not only irresponsible to travel to K2, bluntly speaking, but there is also not much we can do to improve it. Pakistan had something called the 18th amendment about a decade ago. They decentralised tourism, so each province has responsibility and control, but actually what happened is that nobody is taking responsibility anymore. I think at least for a few years there should not be more people going to K2—it's already too much.”

Alongside the environmental and labour exploitation occurring at K2, Umer says there are also safety concerns when it comes to the base camp trek.

“Pakistan has more than 5,000 active glaciers, the most outside the polar regions,” he says. “That's why we have well-irrigated land down in the Punjab and other parts of Pakistan. But it also means as global warming is serious now, those glaciers are also melting fast and we are seeing floods.

“This season, rainfall is also expected to be 26% more, which is especially challenging on the K2 base camp trek. Last year, a river flood took away one of the bridges, so people had to make makeshift bridges. The same happened with the Nanga Parbat Base Camp. The drive to it is on a very unstable road. A flood hit, a landslide happened; it got cut off for the whole month. It’s difficult to plan a trek months ahead of time because of this unpredictability.”

A Better Way to See the Beauty

This is where the alternatives come in. There are many less-crowded—and less environmentally volatile—trekking routes within the Karakoram Mountains. One of Umer’s favourite routes, measuring around 50 miles (80km), takes you through the Hushe Valley to K1 Base Camp (also known as Masherbrum Base Camp) and then to K6/K7 Base Camp in the nearby Charakusa Valley.

The journey begins in Skardu, the gateway town to the Gilgit-Baltistan region where the Karakoram Mountains are located.

It’s situated in a broad glacial valley, surrounded by high peaks. A short walk takes you to Nansoq, Pakistan’s first organic village, a handful of stone houses nestled amid terraced fields and apricot trees. Here, locals farm with minimal machinery, growing fruit and vegetables according to organic principles. Skardu is also a good place to try Balti cuisine before you leave civilisation behind. Tuck into a bowl of hearty noodle soup known as balay, or sample prappu, pieces of soft-boiled dough coated in a sauce of ground nuts and apricot oil.

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To start the trek, you’ll drive east to the village of Hushe, passing small Balti farming villages, including the geographically significant settlement of Khaplu.

“Khaplu is the place where the three rivers, Masherbrum, Shyok and Siachen, collide and join the Indus River,” Umer says. “The Indus River is the third longest river in Asia, and it’s what gave India its name—it’s instrumental in forming and sustaining one of the world’s oldest civilisations.”

Hushe is the last village before you head up into the Karakoram Mountains. The prominent K1 mountain, also known as Masherbrum, looms over it.

Khaplu is the place where the three rivers, Masherbrum, Shyok and Siachen, collide and join the Indus River.

“When British surveyors did the survey of Karakoram, they labelled the mountains in size order, beginning with K1,” Umer says. “Actually, they were incorrect because K2 is higher—but K1 is one of the most prominent mountains in the world. It’s considered one of the world’s most difficult Alpine challenges, as the top 1,000 metres is pure rock climbing.”

Hushe is connected to the iconic K2 via the Gondogoro La pass (5,585m/18,323ft). But instead of following that route, you’ll head through the lesser-known Hushe Valley, passing terraced farmland flanked by high mountains. The first campsite is located at Dumsum, a lush green clearing surrounded by juniper trees.

From here you’ll pass through a forest of tamarisk (or salt cedar trees) until you reach the glacial moraine demarcating the beginning of Masherbrum Glacier. You’ll trek alongside the glacier, surrounded by rocky spires and steep cliffs, ascending slowly upwards. After crossing a small glacier, you'll camp in the shadow of K1 at an elevation of 4,200m (13,780ft) among breathtaking mountain scenery. After retracing your steps to Dumsum, you’ll head northwest through the Charakusa Valley to Saitcho.

“Saitcho is like a very famous junction, because the people who do K2 and return via Gondogoro La stay here,” says Umer. “We stay in Saitcho as well, but we head in a different direction, eastwards.”

From Saitcho, the trail enters the remote Charakusa Valley, where the Tsarak Tsa and Chogolisa glaciers meet. Chogolisa itself carries a poignant legacy.

“It’s the resting place of Hermann Buhl, the first Austrian climber who climbed Nanga Parbat without oxygen,” Umer explains.

As the valley narrows, the trek becomes more demanding, gaining altitude as it weaves across glacial terrain. You’ll trace the western edge of the Chogolisa Glacier, crossing it to reach the verdant wildflower meadow of Spangser, which is encircled by granite cliffs. From here, you’ll head uphill to the campsite of Ancom, set amid vast summer grazing pastures.

There is one vertical rock wall where you have to use your hands. I would call it level three scrambling, so it might challenge people.

“The day you spend trying to reach Ancom is the most difficult in the entire trek,” Umer says. “There is one vertical rock wall where you have to use your hands. I would call it level three scrambling, so it might challenge people. But it's only one part of the trek where you would have to do that.”

Beyond Ancom, the route follows the central path of the ice flow, alternating between patches of snow, ice, and rocky moraine until you reach your final destination: the broad, high basin beneath K6 (Baltistan Peak) and K7, encircled by soaring rock walls. You’ll set up camp here, and spend a day immersed in this breathtaking landscape before embarking on the return journey.

'Tourism is a Lifeline for Locals'

There are no teahouses in these remote valleys. Aside from a stay at a refugio in Hushe, the trek is entirely self-sustaining.

“At each campsite we establish our camp. We have kitchen tents, toilet tents, mess tents and everything,” Umer says. “It's very unlikely that you would see another commercial expedition out there. You will see local herders, taking their goats to the summer pastures, but nobody aside from that.

It's very unlikely that you would see another commercial expedition out there.

“The guides, cooks and porters really look after you, serving you a three course meal in the evenings. They are all from the Balti region, and we strongly believe they are the most hospitable people on earth. It’s down to their Buddhist traditions and cultural history—there were small valleys and they had to stick together to survive.”

For the porters and guides who work on the K6 and K7 trek, tourism is a lifeline. Most come from villages in the remote Hushe Valley, a region bypassed by Pakistan’s small but growing tourism industry. Unlike areas around K2 and Nanga Parbat, where visitors pass through in increasing numbers, Hushe sees few trekkers each season, and opportunities to earn a steady income are limited.

You feel that if you go with the right operator and the right destination, to places like the Hushe Valley, that every dollar is impacting lives.

Because these expeditions are small, self-sufficient and locally run, the benefits of tourism are felt immediately and personally. When people trek here, the money goes directly into families’ homes, paying for education, healthcare, and for people to stay in the valley rather than leaving to find work elsewhere.

“You can really make a difference in Pakistan. You feel that if you go with the right operator and the right destination, to places like the Hushe Valley, that every dollar is impacting lives,” Umer says.

Choosing K6 and K7 over K2, then, isn’t about settling for second best. It’s about seeking out solitude instead of crowds, connection instead of consumption. In a region where tourism can still be a force for good, sometimes the most meaningful choice is to turn away from the more well-worn path—and immerse yourself in the stillness of high peaks and glacially sculpted valleys instead.

Inspired? Come on our Trek to K1 Base Camp in Pakistan adventure.

When I ask David Guthrie about the state-of-the-art thermal scopes he's been using, he doesn't immediately get into the minutiae of the technology. Instead, he talks about the elephants - and the rare behaviours that tech has allowed him to see while everybody else was asleep.

"In 35 years in Tanzania I'd only ever seen elephants lie down three times," says Guthrie, who along with his Tanzanian partner Masoud Kilanga co-founded a positive-impact safari specialist in the 1990s. "Then I saw it twice in one night."

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Guthrie watched as elephants lay down to sleep beneath the tower at Bab’s Camp - a five-storey timber lookout that rises above the treetops of Saadani National Park. They had emerged out of the coastal scrub, plodded slowly over and felt safe enough there to stretch out, beneath the tower where David sat watching.

He goes on to describe what it's like to follow the roars of male lions in the darkness, and time spent sitting amongst huge herds of wild buffalo at night.

I don't think there's anywhere else in the world where turtles are laying eggs on the beach, then a few hundred metres behind are places where elephants gather - as many as 250 at a time.

Moments like these showcase the wonder of thermal safari, which guests can experience for themselves on Much Better Adventure's brand new adventure in Tanzania, in partnership with Guthrie and Kilanga's A Tent With a View.

While daytime safari remains the star attraction of such itineraries out in wild Tanzania, this state-of-the-art thermal imaging technology now allows guests to peer into the hours still off limits to most operators - and to explore the night.

Where oceans meets bush

Saadani is a place truly unlike anywhere else on the continent. “You park and walk down through some coastal forest, past some 300-year-old Shirazi ruins, and then you can hear the sound of the waves,” Guthrie explains.

It is the only national park in East Africa where bush meets beach. From the top of Bab's tower, you can see out to Zanzibar on a clear day, while in the green mess below roams the masses of charismatic fauna that people come to see.

“It is unique,” David says. “I don't think there's anywhere else in the world where you have turtles laying their eggs on the beach, and then right behind, within a few hundred metres, places where elephants gather - as many as 250 at a time. And you have a pride of lions. This is the centre of their territory, and they have their cubs on little islands with baobab trees that punctuate the salt flats.

The elephants under the moonlight, buffalo all over the place, giraffe herds you can see from miles away with the scope...

“You can walk and see a mosaic of prints, and you can tell a really strong story because the prints are so clear in the sand. And then high tide cleans them away.”

David and his business partner Masoud helped to build the infrastructure of Saadani National Park up over the last three decades. When Guthrie first arrived in the early 1990s, the park's head ranger was, by his own rueful account, the main poacher. “He was ferrying meat to Dar es Salaam each weekend and so, we basically used to run the anti-poaching and everything,” Guthrie recalls.

As well as those turtles, lions and elephants, the park today is also home to giraffes, leopards and buffalo. You can see hippopotamus, crocodiles and rare kingfishers. But Saadani keeps its most extraordinary secrets in the dark.

Night vision activated

As dusk settles and the temperature drops, Saadani transforms. From the top of the tower at Bab’s Camp, the effect is something quite remarkable.

“We have elephants under the moonlight, buffalo all over the place, giraffe herds you can see from miles away with the scope," he says. "And of course, the lion prides are calling every night, and you can then set out to go and find them, and watch the big male moving around. You see some magical behaviour.

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“The wildlife tends to hide during the day and come out in prolific numbers at night. And this is where night safaris come in. These thermal scopes are brilliant. You can see very clearly what you’re watching - and how much comes to life.”

Most night safaris rely on intrusive spotlights, sweeping across the bush and sending animals scattering. What Guthrie has instead is a fleet of handheld thermal scopes. The same technology that has quietly revolutionised wildlife-documentary filmmaking, these devices read the heat signatures of animals and render them in luminous detail against the cool dark of the African night.

The use of thermal scopes doesn't come at the expense of sleep, either.

“We know most people are [tired] by midnight,” David laughs, “and if you wake them up at 3am they get uppity. But apart from the cats, most of it happens between dusk and 8.30pm, and then you get more movement in the morning.

“We used to monitor elephants and around 50% of their movement happens in that last light and early darkness. So we’ll relax, have a sundowner, watch the sun go down and then maybe see some movements before it gets dark. As soon as it’s dark, then bingo - we’ll almost definitely start to see things. It’s great in the tower but we can also jump  into the car and move to where we see animals coming. Switch off the engine and they’ll come right to you. It’s unbelievable.”

These thermal scopes are brilliant. You can see very clearly what you’re watching - and just how much comes to life.

If the lion pride appears in the small hours, you’ll have the option to go looking.

“We’ll say to people 'go to sleep', but ask: do you want to be awoken if there is some good elephant viewing, buffalo, giraffe?” says Guthrie. “We’ll wake you for predators. So you get to bed at a normal time, but if we hear lions, we’ll wake and go in that direction, and scan around and sit. Often they’ll call again and usually within two calls we’ll find them. If there's no activity with predators at night, we'll wake everybody before dawn, maybe 5am, and get the scopes out again."

Scoping it out

Each thermal imaging safari scope connects to an app (downloadable by any modern phone) via Wi-Fi - and one scope is then shared between two people.

“So, the guide has a scope connected to a screen everyone can see,” David says. “And then one person watches through the thermal device, while the other can watch and record on the phone - and no doubt, people will swap over."

The app allows you to take live photographs and videos, so you can easily capture that moment an elephant family or herd of buffalo waltz into view.

Thermal safari is still a new idea. "Very few people have cottoned onto this," David says. "A lot of people are still going out at night with spotlights, but that’s intrusive. We don’t disturb lions or get right in their face.” Under cover of darkness, elephants walk, sleep and dream. Lions prowl and buffalo herds move unseen (by most) in one of the most remarkable landscapes in the world.

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“I think this is going to become a big way that people safari,” David says. “But you need to have all the elements. You need plenty of wildlife in your area and to be free to move around. This is our own area, so we're allowed to move, whereas in a national park, you're not allowed to drive at night. You also need elevation. The tower is magic for that, because without it, we wouldn't see half of these things. So it's a combination of all that, plus the fact that as an ecosystem it's so unique. I think that it's a really magical part of the trip.”

This is a place where Indian Ocean meets African bush, and where safari doesn’t end at sunset. Rather, it continues, through the thermal glow of a camera scope.

Inspired? Read the full itinerary for our Safari to Shore Journey in Hidden Tanzania with David, Masoud and the thermal scopes, out in Tanzania!

Arkansas is known as 'The Natural State' for good reason. This is a place home to sprawling lakes, lapping pine and oak trees, leafy national forests like the Ouachita and Ozark-St. Francis - and to Hot Springs National Park, an urban park bubbling with natural geothermal waters.

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There’s a whole lot of cycling to be found in all that beauty, regardless of your choice of bike. And the 250 mile (402km) Crowley's Ridge Gravel Trail is perhaps the pick of the routes, running from Helena to Piggott through the Arkansas Delta. It caught our attention as part of the latest film from cyclist Markus Stitz.

Crowley’s Ridge is a geological curiosity.

Picture the Arkansas Delta: flat farmland, with horizon-to-horizon views. Now imagine a narrow, forested ridge jutting out of that like a wrinkle on a tablecloth, rising up to 170m. That's Crowley's Ridge. It's a feature shaped by ancient rivers and coated over millennia by dust blown in from retreating glaciers; a long, stretching hill that refused to be swallowed by the surrounding delta.

Crowley's Ridge has really the only elevation in the Arkansas Delta.

The result is a dreamscape for cyclists: a spine of rolling, canopy-covered hills cutting through an otherwise flat landscape of cotton and soybean fields. Well-packed gravel roads, hardwood forest and utter tranquility.

The route is 60% gravel, and the rest is paved. It takes in seven state parks, goes through St. Francis national forest and 18 Delta towns - meaning plenty of stops for delicious food, a local brew or to hear some Delta blues. Broken down into four days, the route is a manageable ride, with one suggested itinerary being:

• Day 1: Helena to Marianna (30 miles/48km)
• Day 2: Marianna to Birdeye  (80 miles/128km)
• Day 3: Birdeye to Jonesboro  (50 miles/80km)
• Day 4: Jonesboro to Piggott  (80 miles/128km)

So, what would each of those days actually look like?

Before you take off from Helena, pop by the Delta Cultural Centre. Exhibits range from those on the 1863 Battle of Helena, part of the Civil War, to those on blues musicians like Sonny Boy Williamson II. The Blues are a big deal here (Memphis is just 90 minute northeast) - and the longest running Blues radio broadcast in the world ('King Biscuit Time') is broadcast from this centre live on weekdays.

A quick note: while the GPX above show the route as north to south, the route overview below describes travelling on the same cycle trail from south to north.

Get riding and you'll find yourself heading north, from Helena, towards the St. Francis National Forest. The canopy closes in and you’ll pass Bear Creek Lake and the Mississippi River State Park before arriving in Marianna. Eat at the Jones Bar-B-Q Diner, believed to be America's oldest black-owned restaurant.

It's canopy covered, shaded, and you just have this sense of being on these historic travel ways.

Day two takes you through Tuni Canyon and out to Village Creek State Park. This is an idyllic park with lakes for boating, but it was also part of the Trail of Tears route - the paths used during the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of around 60,000 Native Americans between 1830 and 1850 by the US government.

After sleeping in Birdeye, day three will take you by Lake Poinsett State Park and Craighead Forest Park to Jonesboro, home to the Bradbury Art Museum and the A-State Museum, which boasts the skeleton of a (once) wooly mammoth.

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Eat at Native Brew Works, where craft beer meets good food, then the next day ride out to Lake Fierson and Crowley's Ridge State Park. The finish in Piggott, where Ernest Hemingway wrote A Farewell to Arms, lies beyond.

Crowley's Ridge Gravel Trail was launched by studioDRIFT, a non-profit co-founded by Martin Smith, who has been working to revitalise the Arkansas Delta area for over four decades. Smith, who lives in Birdeye, is quoted speaking about the route in Markus Stitz’s short film, which is embedded in the text above

“Crowley's Ridge has really the only elevation in the Arkansas Delta,” Smith says.

“It's canopy covered, shaded, and you just have this sense of being on these historic travel ways. Building a future starts with connecting to the past. Those historic and cultural assets, combined with the natural resources in our communities, tell the story of who we are.”

For me, Arkansas is one of the most intriguing places to ride a bike.

The route was created to provide world-class riding for touring cyclists, and also to bring new income streams to small towns in one of America’s poorest areas, traversing, as the studioDRIFT website describes it, "some of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in America." It highlights that the average tourist spend was $198 per day in Arkansas in 2023, bringing in millions, and the hope is that this trail will bring in new economic opportunities for people here.

In the film, Markus Stitz rides a 44.7-mile loop at the south of Crowley’s Ridge, near Helena, and a 24.3-mile loop. He found himself impressed by Arkansas.

“Exploring the state with local people gave me a real insight into its diversity," Stitz said. "I’m grateful to share their stories and connection to the places they call home. For me, Arkansas is one of the most intriguing places to ride a bike.”

Inspired? Read more about Crowley's Ridge Gravel Trail and studioDRIFT, or check out our full range of adventure holidays in America now!

At 2am, I awake suddenly. Despite it being almost the height of summer, I’m shivering from the cold. Swaying in a hammock between two trees on the 1066 Country Walk, bundled up in my sleeping bag (and every layer of clothing I have with me), I remember something quite important. I’m a father now. I am literally someone’s dad.

The thought of dying from hypothermia briefly appears in my mind’s eye, and I’m struck by what a ludicrous and undignified way this would be for my life to end. Pictures of my son, years from now, learning about how his old man perished in the wilderness come forth like water from a spring.

‘Mum, what happened to Dad?’ says future-son.

‘Your father was found frozen solid, mere metres from an idyllic footpath in East Sussex,’ says future-widow, understandably annoyed at me for dying in this manner.

‘Was he alone at the end, mum?’ says future-son.

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‘No. His friends were wrapped up warm in a tent right beside him but, your father being your father, he’d insisted that hammocks were much more fun,’ replies future-widow.

‘Right. I mean… that seems… yeah… that seems…’

The sound of wild animals close by brings me back to my bag-in-a-hammock reality. Fox? Badger? Some sort of monstrous hybrid that’s yet to be discovered? What on Earth am I doing here? My body craves the warm embrace of the morning sun that’s still, painfully, many hours away. Or, a bed. Yes, a bed would be nice. I own a bed and that bed is in a flat, and that flat has walls, and amenities, and is – I now realise, while close to death – actually quite nice. It’s not The Ritz by any stretch, but, however you choose to spin it, it’s also not a glorified fabric burrito gently swinging above the dirt.

After getting the all clear from our wonderful partners - and of course, promising to return the favour the next time they wanted a night off - we'd made our plans for this small group adventure. I'd be walking with two childhood friends of mine. One of these friends was, like me, a new dad trying to navigate the highs and lows of being a parent for the first time. The other was a best man at my wedding (and vice versa), but someone who’d yet to experience the frontline of fatherhood in all its messy glory. We’d all agreed that a little adventure would do us some good, especially those of us up to our necks in nappies and toddler tantrums. Getting outside and touching some grass, as the kids might say, was long overdue.

Parental isolation is nothing new, but it’s also a problem that doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Recent research from the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) has revealed that two-thirds of new parents feel isolated or lonely at least some of the time. This study also showed that almost 90% of new parents feel overwhelmed at least some of the time, and that nearly 25% of them believe they don’t have a strong support network around them. In a bid to tackle this mental health epidemic for rookie mums and dads, English Heritage have even introduced “bonding benches” at some of its most famous sites to encourage parents looking for a sense of community and camaraderie to talk to one another.

The mind also has more room to spiral into repetitive thinking; the brain defaults to threat-scanning and self-criticism when it lacks outside signals of safety and connection.

Dr Benjamin Perry is an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham, specialising in major mental illnesses like schizophrenia and depression.

“Isolation and staying indoors remove a lot of the inputs that keep mood-regulation systems stable: daylight, movement, social reward, and a sense of perspective beyond four walls. And it does it in stealth too, like a frog in hot water with the temperature gradually creeping up,” he tells me. “Without those mood regulation signals, the stress system – cortisol – stays switched on longer, and in turn this makes sleep and body clock cues drift, which are already off in new fatherhood anyway, and the brain’s “reward” circuits get less stimulation.

“This can culminate in a feeling like flatness, low motivation, and as though everything takes more effort. The mind also has more room to spiral into repetitive thinking; the brain defaults to threat-scanning and self-criticism when it lacks outside signals of safety and connection.”

With the power of hindsight, and looked at now from a position where more of the picture is clear to me, I realise I’ve been that frog in hot water before; lost in a daze and numb to a creeping sense of despondency. Days bleeding into one another, putting on a brave face, telling myself ‘Well, I must be happy because this is supposed to be a happy time’, and forgetting to actually check in with how I’m really feeling. In my case, this wasn’t a permanent state of affairs. Like a cruel cosmic joke, I found it coming in waves – subtly sliding me off my lilo when the waters were calm and I was at my most content.

Research carried out in Sweden, and published on the website of the UK’s largest pregnancy and baby loss charity Tommy’s, has revealed that postnatal depression affects as many as one in 10 men. Alarmingly, almost a third of the men who took part in this study had symptoms that scored above mild levels of depression. And, perhaps most worryingly of all, fewer than one in five fathers who were depressed sought help.

Generally we see that men are less open to sharing their feelings and talking about mental health than women...

Mind Over Mountains, the award-winning mental health charity built around getting into nature with wellbeing coaches and counsellors, has been helping men and women struggling with anxiety and depression since it was founded in 2020. Its 31-year-old founder Alex Staniforth, who’s had two attempts to climb the world’s highest mountain derailed by natural disasters, has seen first-hand the positive impact that connecting with others outdoors can have on parents.

“I'm not a father personally, but generally we see that men are less open to sharing their feelings and talking about mental health than women, and the process of walking and talking side-by-side helps to enable that,” says Alex. “Often parents are so busy looking after others that they forget or don't find the time to look after themselves too.”

Ash Routen is an adventure journalist specialising in polar travel, a prominent outdoor voice on social media, and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He’s also, as of the end of 2025, a father to an infant daughter. When I speak to him in early 2026, he tells me that he’s taking a hiatus from his Arctic forays for the year but that plans for a short expedition in 2027 are already afoot. In the meantime, he’ll be making do with family excursions closer to home and seeing if he can arrange a summertime escape to the Peak District for an overnight wild camp.

“Adventure is a big part of my life and identity,” says Ash. “If I gave that up totally, I wouldn’t be the best version of me which would no doubt impact my ability to parent.”

For cynics, it’s easy to baulk at such things and label ‘dadventures’ (a term popularised by British gold medal rower Alex Gregory MBE and father-of-three in his 2018 book of the same name) as the indulgences of men refusing to grow up. But ideas around the benefits that exploring green spaces can bring, either alone or with your children, have been well documented and are now backed up by science.

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For new parents, putting the blinkers on might seem like a sensible course of action when you’ve got nap schedules to map out and tummy times to oversee. This narrowing down of your attention to a single point can, though, cause things to spiral. Shutting yourself off from everything else might, in the heat of the moment when your head is spinning with fatigue and your nostrils can’t shake the smell of baby sick, have a twisted sense of logic to it but it’s ultimately doing more harm than good. This is something Dr. Perry is keen to point out to me during our conversation. “Over time, withdrawal becomes self-reinforcing like a vicious cycle,” he says. “You feel worse so you retreat more, and you retreat more so the brain gets even fewer of the ingredients that help it recover.”

Adventure isn't a bed of roses and neither is parenthood.

And so, here I am in the great outdoors. Not far from the Battle of Hastings site (where Harold Godwinson famously did not recover from getting an arrow to the eye), I’ve finally drifted off to sleep in my hammock. As the sun rises, I feel once again the moreish thrill of waking up in nature. The soul-soothing tranquility of it all is mixing with the coursing adrenaline from surviving the night. Everything feels right with the world. I am tired, yes, but I am also restored. The fact I’ve slept less than I do at home, where my son starts the day at 4:30am like a grindset LinkedIn bro, doesn’t matter. My body and mind feels regenerated, zapped back into equilibrium by being outdoors - and having the air space to think. I am, in the most plainly simple terms imaginable, ready to get home and be a dad again.

Being a father is beautiful and magical, but it has also tested me in ways I never imagined. When a small human being you’re responsible for is screaming at you in the middle of the night, depriving you of sleep and making you feel like you’re being interrogated by the CIA for information you don’t have, it can feel like a lot. Heading outdoors and getting outside of my comfort zone again reacquainted me with the idea that challenges are there to be overcome. Where there is darkness, there is also light. The world turns on its axis, clouds come and go, and the good times are never far away. Adventure isn't a bed of roses and neither is parenthood. And that's fine. That's one of the things that makes both worth doing.

It’s too simplistic, of course, to say that going for big walks on a regular basis can stop young men and new fathers from experiencing depression. But experiences like my overnight  on the 31-mile trail between Pevensey and Rye were, for me, a much-needed reminder of the important role it can play in coping with the challenge. Next time, though, I might pack a hot water bottle.

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Adventure is often goal-oriented. People set aspirational challenges to push their physical and mental limits - setting out to climb the highest mountains in the world, swimming the Channel or taking on ultra-marathons not because they are easy feats, but because they are hard.

Goal-setting can provide a powerful motivation and focus for adventurers, helping to shape training plans and track progress. Achieving these goals can help build self-confidence, widen your comfort zone and boost resilience.

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There is, however, a downside—the impact that failing to achieve your goals can have on a person. If ‘success’ means reaching the summit, then surely not being able to get to that point constitutes a ‘failure’? In theory, that could risk undermining all of those benefits above. But seasoned explorers know that, in truth, that's simply not the case. It is too simple to say success is just about reaching the top. In fact, it's about something more meaningful - growth.

Failures should not upset or embarrass us. They're an essential part of adventure.

For climber Uta Ibrahimi, redefining success didn’t happen overnight—it was shaped by years of confronting what she once saw as failure. As the first woman from the Balkans to have climbed all 14 of the world’s 8,000m+ high mountains in 2025, she is rightfully celebrated for this achievement. However, she says that her personal definition of success and failure has evolved throughout her career.

“In the beginning, when I started climbing, it was always about reaching the summit,” she says. “If I didn't summit, it was a failure. I would try to find who was responsible, who did something wrong.

“I’m talking about the 8,000ers here. In the Balkans if you can’t climb, you can go back the next day and try again. But on 8,000ers it’s a little bit more difficult because there are many more people involved; you have responsibility towards the sponsors and the people supporting you as well.”

Each failure is a learning experience

However, her mindset began to change when she started to reflect on these perceived failures more deeply.

“Each failure is a learning experience,” she says. “Personally, each time I don't summit, when I come back home, I try to write down or draw what happened. I ask, ‘what did I do wrong?’ so the next time I do better. I question how I can improve myself.”

This shift, from assigning blame to seeking understanding, marked a turning point in how she approached climbing.

This mindset was soon tested in the most extreme way possible when she began embarking on more dangerous, high-altitude climbs, where failure carries far greater consequences. An ascent of Shishapangma in 2024 revealed the importance of making the right decisions.

“We were going for the summit push and we were not more than 200 or 300 metres from the summit, but there was a big avalanche and we lost two people,” she explains. “When the first avalanche hit, some people continued. But personally, I just wanted to go down. It happened right next to me. For a few metres on the climb I wasn’t at the front, and that’s why I survived.

“I left. I wanted to run back, I didn’t even want to stay at base camp because I was so anxious. I felt very sad because they were both my friends. Two people continued climbing, but then a second avalanche fell and took those people. It was shocking. But at the same time, it was a lesson that we all learned on that expedition. The mountain wasn't ready, the mountain didn't let us go, and I totally respect that.”

Success for me is no longer the summit—it’s being alive and being complete

In situations like this, Uta realised, reaching the summit is not important. Striving too hard for a goal led to disastrous consequences. ‘Success’ here was synonymous with survival, with trusting your instincts and respecting nature.

“Success for me is no longer the summit—it’s being alive and being complete,” she says. “Even if it matters for sponsorship, it doesn't matter for me, because I want to live. I enjoy the life I have. Why lose your life just to be there, and make other people suffer?”

While Uta’s perspective was reshaped by life-and-death decisions in the mountains, Denisa Krásná’s understanding of failure has evolved in a different arena. A climber and highliner, she’s also an academic researching adventure counternarratives—her book Flow: Women's Counternarratives from Rivers, Rock and Sky highlights ways of thinking about adventure which deviate from dominant narratives of goal-setting or ‘conquering’ peaks. It also shows that concepts of success and failure in adventure are inherently personal.

Denisa has always been interested in adventure as internal fulfilment, rather than a process of goal-setting. Summiting for her was about seeking the best views; climbing was about exploring new routes, rather than trying to perfect each one.

However, this changed when she began learning to highline, which involves walking on a slackline at extreme heights (for which a harness is required). The goal for most experienced highliners is to ‘send’ the route, which means to walk it in one direction without falling.

Falling is not necessarily a failure every time; it’s a natural part of the process

“Every line is different and falling is not necessarily a failure every time; it’s a natural part of the process,” Denisa says. “For me, crossing a line that's one kilometre with a few falls is amazing, a great success. But then if I'm on a 300 metre-line and I don't send it, that can feel like failing.

“What I really consider a failure is when I try to send repeatedly, and fall only a few metres from the end. I know that I can do it, but I feel afraid.  Every time I tried to send a line that would be my personal record, I would just freeze. I would walk normally, and then be afraid of taking another step because I just couldn't trust myself.

“Unfortunately, that was ongoing and it created a pattern for me. What I see in that is failure to control my mind. Physically, eventually, we can all get there, especially if you have the willpower and the motivation to train. But what distinguishes athletes is being able to control your mind.”

Uta, then, falls into this category of athletes. After the tragedy at Shishapangma, she had to spend a lot of time processing her trauma before feeling emotionally ready to return to the Himalayas and climb again. Her next summit attempt was Kanchenjunga in 2024, an 8,586-metre-high (28,169 ft) peak on the border of India and Nepal. This, too, she didn’t summit.

“Kanchenjunga is a really big mountain and it's also quite technical,” she explains. “The summit day has a very long ascent—from 7,200 to 8,400 metres—and there are a lot of rocks and traverses. It is a difficult mountain.

“The weather was great. We had a big team, but we didn't have a leader, so there was no fixing of the rope. If they don't fix it, nobody climbs it. I didn't feel like there was a failure because of me personally,  because I was ready, I was feeling strong  and everything else. But I think it was a failure because of the way the company organised the expedition.

“When the summit push wasn't happening, I tried to bring everyone together and I talked to the company and asked them to bring more rope and a team, and said we would pay extra. I started to take on the role of organising everything for people. But two others went away from the group and started to organise their own thing. It really hurt me.”

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This organisational failure, for Uta, led to another lesson—that she far prefers to climb on smaller teams. For her next ascent, which was of 8,035m-high (26,362ft) G2 on the Pakistan border, she decided to climb only with her partner and a sherpa.

“It was so peaceful. I could make my own plans, could do my own summit push, and it was very important also for me because sometimes I don't feel good just following the crew and being a sheep in the herd,” she says. “I like to be a leader on my own expedition and make my own decisions.

“You learn much more, actually, on the failed expedition. Not just training-wise, but about how people behave in different situations. Personally, I use all these experiences in my everyday life at home, so then I can be a better person.”

Having now finished climbing all 14 of the world’s 8,000m high peaks (including a successful ascent of Kanchenjunga in 2025), Uta has had time to reflect on her journey—both its successes and 'failures'.

“One thing that I regret for the first four years is I was more focused on climbing to the top,” she says. “But towards the end I was far more grateful and happy to be there.

“I want to take my time to understand each mountain; to climb it, to know it. Whichever mountain I have climbed, I know the route exactly. It's in my memory. That's my message to everyone. Feel it, experience it, take your time. A lot of emotions are  involved in mountaineering. So let these emotions be with you and enjoy the whole thing.”

Uta is currently back in Kosovo, guiding in her local Sharr Mountains and planning a trip back to Everest next year to lead a friend’s summit attempt. She’s finding a balance between peace and adventure.

Denisa too, has decided to take a break from chasing longer distances on highlines. Instead of worrying about ‘freezing’ before the finish line, she’s currently more focused on enjoying different types of adventure and re-finding her ‘flow’.

“For me, success in adventure is about finding your flow,” she says. “I first experienced this when I started walking longer distances on highlines. I got really hooked on and addicted to that feeling. I think in that way flow could be a counternarrative to success because it's not about how far you can get on the highline or whether you reach the summit; it’s more about a process than a destination.”

It's a state that we seek because it fulfills us internally; it's not something that we do for external validation

The flow state Denisa describes refers to being fully immersed in an activity, where you’re beyond the point of distraction. Within sport and adventure it’s something to aspire to—not only because it’s an indicator of peak performance, it’s also deeply satisfying.

“It's a state that we seek because it fulfils us internally; it's not something that we do for external validation,” Denisa says.

Both Uta and Denisa’s experiences show that in adventure, success is far more fluid than we often assume. For Uta, it became about survival, intuition and respect for the mountain. For Denisa, it lies in flow and internal fulfilment. In both cases, failure is no longer something to avoid, but something that has helped them learn and develop as adventurers.

In a world that often celebrates summits, speed records and measurable achievements, these perspectives offer a quieter, more sustainable way of approaching adventure—one that prioritises the journey over the destination.

Because perhaps the real failure isn’t turning back before the summit, or falling short. It’s missing what the experience had to teach you along the way.

Inspired? Check out our adventures across the world, including Hike the Sharr Mountains in Kosovo and North Macedonia, designed by Uta.

Yosemite National Park is a remarkable location, and the best hikes in Yosemite showcase that fact. They are walks that will have you gazing at the tumbling water of Bridalveil Falls, looking out over the granite rock of Half Dome or El Capitan, the climbing wall now synonymous with Alex Honnold, or looking out over all of those sites from Tunnel View, a legendary roadside viewpoint in Yosemite.

While Tunnel View doesn't actually require any hiking, we still think the best vistas in this iconic national park are best reached by foot. Get further from the crowds and the landscape imprints deeper; the stillness of the scene singing to the soul.

Yosemite is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands.

As John Muir, father of the US National Parks, wrote of Yosemite, this "is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find more company of a soothing peace-be-still kind."

Muir became so enamoured by the ecosystems of Yosemite that it led him to conservation. The three-night camping trip he took with President Theodore Roosevelt in Yosemite in 1903 shaped US conservation policy. In 1906, Roosevelt would sign a federal law making Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove part of the Yosemite National Park. “Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine into trees,” the conservationist wrote.

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In this guide to the best day hikes in Yosemite, we’re going to look at walks that will allow you to do just that, immersing yourself in that same landscape; of trees, mountains and lakes; of tough climbs - up to remarkable viewpoints.

We've selected these five routes as the best day hikes in Yosemite National Park:

1. Tuolumne Meadows to Glen Aulin
2. Nevada Falls Hike
3. The Half Dome Trail
4. Snow Creek Trail
5. Columbia Rock & Upper Yosemite Falls Trail
6. The Four Mile Trail
7. Sentinel Dome

It’s important to note that these route descriptions are only short summaries, designed to inspire but not to serve any navigational purpose. They are not intended to guide you on the route and further mapping and planning (or a local guide!) will be required if you want to safely walk any of the trails featured.

Here are five of the best hikes in Yosemite National Park.

7 of the Best Yosemite Hikes: Mapped

Yosemite is in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains, 32 miles east of Mariposa and a five-hour drive north of Los Angeles, or four-hour drive east from San Francisco. Yosemite is a large space for sure, but it’s not absolutely enormous in terms of US national parks. At 1,880 miles² (4,869km²), it's the 16th largest national park in the US. The Yosemite Falls are also one of the latest waterfalls in the world, crashing down the granite rock from 739m (2,425ft).

7 of the Best Yosemite Day Hikes

1.  Tuolumne Meadows to Glen Aulin

• Start/Finish: Lembert Dome parking area, off Tioga Road, out-and-back
• Distance: 11 miles (17.7km)
• Walking time: 6-8 hours
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Best for: Exploring rivers and meadows

This hike begins at Tuolumne Meadows, one of the largest high-elevation meadows in the Sierra Nevada. The Tuolumne River runs through the middle of it, and the wide open grassland is surrounded by pine trees and granite peaks and domes.

You’ll begin by following a flat gravel trail across the meadows, admiring the views. After just under a mile you’ll reach Soda Springs, where carbonated water bubbles up from the ground. The most active part of the spring is surrounded by the ruins of a wooden cabin built by one of Yosemite’s first settlers, John Baptist Lembert. 

A short distance away from the springs is Parson’s Memorial Lodge, a stone building built in 1915 by the Sierra Club, which is now a small museum.

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Continue on the hike. After the three mile marker the trail meets up with the Tuolumne River, before deviating uphill over slabs of granite until you reach some natural rock stairs leading up to a canyon overlook. From this vantage point you can see high rock domes, their lower slopes surrounded by pines.

You’ll then trek downhill across rocks back toward the river. The trail dips beside granite shelves, crosses wooden footbridges, and follows the river past a series of gentle cascades. You’ll enter Glen Aulin, a part of the river valley known for its waterfalls and granite cliffs. The first of these is Tuolumne Falls, which plunge majestically down a stony cliff face. The trail leads you on towards White Cascade, a smaller waterfall which trickles into a pretty natural pool (people swim here on hot days). 

Continue across a footbridge to Glen Aulin’s High Sierra Camp, with canvas tents perched among granite rock formations and grassland surrounded by pines. Many people camp here overnight before returning to Tuolumne Meadows along the same trail.

2. Nevada Falls Hike

• Start/Finish: Happy Isles shuttle stop #16, circuit
• Distance: 6.9 miles (11.1 km)
• Walking time: 5-6 hours
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Best for: Admiring waterfalls

This hike takes you along the Mist Trail and a section of the John Muir Trail, offering views of two spectacular waterfalls and of the granite cliffs of Yosemite Valley. You’ll begin hiking uphill along a paved trail; after 0.8 miles you’ll cross a footbridge and catch sight of Vernal Fall. 

From here, follow the Mist Trail up a steep granite stairway consisting of more than 600 steps. Spray from the waterfalls can make them slippery, so take care! You’ll have excellent views of 92.6m (317ft) Vernal Falls as you hike. 

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Continue along the Mist Trail towards Nevada Fall, passing Emerald Pool and Silver Pool, a gushing cascade on the Merced River. You’ll follow a series of steep rocky switchbacks for around 1.5 miles (2.4km) before reaching Nevada Fall, an 185m-high (594ft) cascade crashing percussively down the granite.

From Nevada Falls, continue over the bridge to join the John Muir Trail and take an alternative route back to your start point. It’s a longer route but you’ll avoid the stone steps, and catch some great views of Liberty Cap, a granite dome emerging from the pine trees.

3. The Half Dome Day Hike

• Start/Finish: Happy Isles (Yosemite Valley shuttle stop #16), out-and-back
• Distance: A 16-mile (27km) round trip
• Walking time: 10-12 hours
• Difficulty: Challenging
• Best for: An unique Yosemite summit experience

This legendary route will take you all the way to the top of the Half Dome, one of the most iconic sites in all of Yellowstone National Park. It’s not easy though. In fact, from the valley floor, you're looking at around a 16-mile round trip with a cable rope to take you to the top which is sure to test your head for heights.

It's worth noting that you need a permit to hike Half Dome. These permits are balloted, and have been since 2013, before which large crowds on the cables were creating a particularly dangerous environment going up the steep slope. Hundreds of permits are given out a day but demand is high. You enter the ballot in March and find out the result in April. Around a quarter of people who apply get a permit.

This route starts on the valley floor, taking a beautiful path around the Vernal Fall and Nevada Fall, then continuing behind the Liberty Cap rock. After that you'll climb up through Sequoia forests and up the subdome, and to the top of the Half Dome via the cables. In total it’s a climb of over 1,463m (4,800 feet).

The hike up the Half Dome Trail starts on either the Mist or the John Muir Trail - two other great hiking routes in Yosemite (seriously, if you miss out on the ballot for Half Dome, it's worth checking them out in full). If you go up one, you can come down the other, meaning that this route not only gets you to the Half Dome and the remarkable viewpoint at the top, looking out over all Yosemite, you also get to sample two of the other best hiking trails in Yosemite National Park.

The misty staircase to Vernal Fall is remarkable, the cable route steep, smooth and slippery. Don't underestimate it. The Muir Trail on the way back down is a little more gradual, with great views out over the Nevada Fall. This is one of the best day hikes in Yosemite National Park - but also one of the most challenging.

4. The Snow Creek Trail

• Start/Finish: Mirror Lake Trailhead (Yosemite Valley shuttle stop #17), out-and-back
• Distance: A 9.4-mile (15km) round trip
• Walking time: 6-7 hours
• Difficulty: Challenging
• Best for: Switchback punishment, with glorious returns

This is another big climb from the valley floor of Yosemite up to big mountain views. Make no mistake about it, the Snow Creek trail demands a lot from you.

Start on the Mirror Lake Trail, you will soon come to the junction of the Snow Creek Trail. From here, ascend out of the Tenaya Canyon (uphill, very much uphill), taking switchback after switchback as you climb until you eventually reach a viewpoint including Half Dome, Quarter Domes and Clouds Rest.

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What's great about this trail is that though the climbing is tough and steep, you get rewarded with views which unfold as you go. After that vista from the switchbacks, you'll only going to climb higher and get even better vantage points on Yosemite.

To get the best view though, the challenge continues on a path that asks you to climb 822m (2,700ft) relatively swiftly. Is this the toughest route running out of the Yosemite Valley? Quite possibly. Does it also offer some of the best views of Half Dome and the Tenaya Creek Canyon in the entire national park? You know it.

5. Columbia Rock & Upper Yosemite Falls Trail

• Start/Finish: Camp 4 area (near Yosemite Valley shuttle stop #7 and El Capitan Shuttle stop #2), out-and-back
• Distance: A 7.2-mile (15km)
• Walking time: 6-10 hours
• Difficulty: Challenging
• Best for: Chasing waterfalls

The Yosemite Falls trail is one of the oldest in the national park, dating all the way back to 1873. To be fair, if you were going to build a trail to somewhere, this isn't a bad place to do it. The Yosemite Falls are North America's tallest waterfall, and the trail leads you all the way to the top.

This is actually one of the only places you can fit Yosemite Falls and Half Dome in the same photograph.

You may be sensing a theme in this list now, but this is another trail which is going to start you off on the valley floor and switchback you all the way up to a very high viewpoint. When you climb 304m (1000ft) to Columbia Rock you'll get a real big lookout point. This is actually one of the only places you can fit Yosemite Falls and Half Dome in the same photograph.

Next it's a fairly simple path for another 0.5 miles before the switchbacks resume and you head to the top of Yosemite Falls. Make no mistake, this staircase workout is going to be tough. At the summit you'll find the small creek that feeds the mighty waterfall, and you can extend the hike to Yosemite Point or Eagle Peak.

It's worth noting that there isn't water on these walls year round. It depends on rainfall. The best months to go to see the falling water are May, June, July and occasionally in the fall or Spring. If you're after an easier route that offers great views of the falls, consider the Lower Yosemite Falls trail. The Upper Yosemite Falls route can take anywhere from six to 10 hours depending on pace.

6. The Four Mile Trail

• Start/Finish: Four Mile Trailhead along Southside Drive (Valleywide Shuttle stop #11), out-and-back
• Distance: A 9.6-mile (15.4km) round trip
• Walking time: 6-8 hours
• Difficulty: Challenging
• Best for: Vertical views of Yosemite, stacked on top of one another

Ah, finally, a nice and easy four-miler, right? Nope. For a starter, the Four Mile Trail is actually more like five miles, making for an all-rounder just short of 10 miles, and demanding a whole lot of climbing. Hey, look, the lower routes can be lovely but the best views and the best trails in Yosemite are going to be a challenge.

If you're wondering how it got its name, the trail was four miles back when it was first completed in 1872. There was also a toll on it though. So it's got longer, sure, but you don't have to pay to use it. This is a strenuous walk, but you'll be rewarded with fantastic views of the valley, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls and Half Dome.

The view of the Yosemite Valley from Union Point, over the 1,828m (6,000ft) mark is well worth a stop and a gaze.

You'll finish the hike at the famous Glacier Point, where there's a snack stand in summer. One interesting return route, rather than going back the way you came, is to instead continue on for 7.5 miles on the Panorama Trail, which will bring you out at the Happy Isles Trailhead and turn this into a thru-hike.

Alternatively, you could also take the easy route and book a bus to take you up to Glacier Point, then hike back down to the valley to get the views without the effort. We won't tell if you don't, but expect crowds at Glacier Point - it's an attraction.

7. Sentinel Dome

• Start/Finish: Parking Lot on Glacier Point Rd, out-and-back
• Distance: 2.2 mile (3.5km)
• Walking time: 1-2 hours
• Difficulty: Easy
• Best for: Great views with little hiking effort

Only a 2.2 mile round trip... this one must be an easy Yosemite hike, right? Well, yes! We're ending on the accessible, short hike to Sentinel Dome, which gives you jaw-dropping views of the Yosemite Valley without the same sort of arduous climbing that a lot of the other routes on this list demand. There's probably no easier way to earn views this good in the national park.

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At the summit you'll see the fallen Jeffrey Pine. Made famous after Ansel Adams captured the truly unique shape of the tree in a photo in 1940. It fell in 2003, though it had been dead for decades, but remains at the summit of the Sentinel.

Once you've finished your relatively simple hike, with a short, steep section to make you at least earn what's coming, you'll get to look out to El Cap, Yosemite Falls, the Valley and to the east, Half Dome and Clouds Rest.

What animals live in Yosemite National Park?

There are over 400 species of animals in Yosemite National Park, including approximately 90 species of mammals and over 260 types of bird. Perhaps the stars of the show are the black bears, which are of real interest to most visitors, though the Sierra Nevada red fox is also absolutely adorable. Lookout too for Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep, which are back in the range after an absence of 100 years, as well as mountain lions and the illusive Pacific Fisher (tree-dwelling carnivores which look a little like pine martins).

There are also fascinating amphibians; notably Californian red-legged frogs and the Sierra newt, while in the sky, you can see American dippers, brightly-coloured Western tanagers, as well as California-spotted and great gray owls.

Where to stay around Yosemite National Park?

There are a full 13 campgrounds which you can stay in across Yosemite National Park, and we would very much reccomend doing so. If you're going to visit Yosemite, it's because of the natural beauty in the area, and this is the best way to immerse yourself in that - in the style of John Muir and President Roosevelt.

Every campsite in Yosemite needs reserved in advance. The most popular campsites, in Yosemite Valley, need booked five months ahead and are operated by a lottery system. Other campsites can be booked at one-week's notice. Many are on a two week reservation cycle. There are also three first-come, first-serve campsites available in late Autumn, winter and early spring.

Fees range from $10-36 per night to use the campgrounds, with most costing $36.

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Wild camping is also actually legal in much of Yosemite, as long as you have a wilderness permit. The National Park Service note: "Camping is not permitted between Yosemite Valley and Little Yosemite Valley. If you would like to camp in a dispersed wilderness setting, you must camp beyond the Half Dome/John Muir Trail junction or beyond Moraine Dome (toward Merced Lake)."

Of course, there are also a whole host of fantastic lodges in Yosemite National Park. Some of the best include the Evergreen Lodge, the Majestic Yosemite Hotel, the Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort and the rustic AutoCamp Yosemite, which offers a luxury camping vibe, as well as glamping options.

What to eat in Yosemite National Park?

There are various places to eat around Yosemite National Park, from snack top ups like the Village Store to pizzerias and fine-dining experiences. The latter is at The Ahwahnee, an extremely luxiours grand banquet hall also known for hosting Sunday brunch buffets. More down to earth options include spots like the Village Grill, Meadow Grill, The Loft at Degnan's and Base Camp Eatery food court.

We'd recommend bringing a lot of snacks in too, as hiking food. You can do a lot worse than bringing in some sandwiches and eating them at a scenic picnic bench.

How to Get to Yosemite National Park?

By train: Sadly there is no current rail service which reaches Yellowstone National Park. The rail provider, Amtrak, does run joint rail and bus services though. So, for example, you can get a San Francisco to Oakland bus, a short Oakland to Merced train, and then a bus to Yosemite in around seven hours.

By plane: The closest airport to Yosemite is the Fresno Yosemite International Airport (FAT), which is 64 miles (102km) from the park. The largest airports near Yosemite are San Francisco International (SFO), Oakland International (OAK), San Jose International (SJC) or Sacramento International (SMF). Each of these airports is around a three-four hour-drive to Yosemite.

By bus: Cities throughout California, and in parts of the rest of the US, offer bus options to reach Yosemite. For example, from San Francisco, you could get a Greyhound to Merced, then transfer to a regional bus to get you to the park. The YARTS bus is one of the best regional services for getting to Yosemite.

Read more:

• The Best Day Hikes in Yellowstone National Park
• A Guide to Denali National Park in Alaska
• Hike the Great National Parks of the Western USA

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It was the final day of a month-long trip around Sri Lanka. I had been learning to surf, doing yoga, hiking and learning to cook local dal with its warm and rich aromas, perfect after a day in the water. While it had been a full-on four weeks, there was still time for one final adventure - a sunrise hike to the top of the Adam’s Peak. We had began to make our way up the 2,243m (7,358ft) mountain at 3am, and faced a gruelling 5,500 stone steps on the way.

Despite the struggles of the staircase and the bleary-eyed tiredness, hitting the top of the peak in time for the sunrise drum ceremony - with a group of newly garnered friends that I'd met across the month - was a feeling like nothing else.

The shared camaraderie and sense of achievement hit differently having done it together, having come from different countries, with different backgrounds and all doing it at different stages of our lives.

It’s refreshing to meet cool people, step away from the planning process and enjoy the adventure. Different travel styles open up different experiences.

On the whole, I would say that I’m a capable independent solo traveller. Do I get anxious sometimes, wandering around a new city at night? One hundred percent. But for the most part, I enjoy setting my own itinerary, wandering aimlessly through back streets and rambling around the world on public transport (with varying degrees of success).

Historically, group travel has been perceived as a halfway house for travellers who aren’t quite ready to step into the world of solo travel, but don’t want to wait for their friends to be available. There can be some snobbery from the solo travel community when it comes to group trips. Certainly, there was a point in my life when I was guilty of it. Surely travelling solo was a badge of honour? A sign that you were capable and confident of exploring on your own: cycling through the countryside freely, rather than bumbling on behind with training wheels on.

My first ever small group trip was a two-week adventure through Eastern USA and Canada. After a break-up, I had the classic realisation that the world was wide and I didn’t have to wait for others to explore it, so I booked the trip. The people I met along the way were wonderful. One introduced me to the wonderful world of MLS and to rowdy Ultras in New Jersey. Another struggled on the cycle up the hill to Mont Royal viewpoint in Montreal alongside me, after a hefty breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup. It was a relief not to have to worry about logistics, getting from A to B or booking excursions to make the most of my time.

We travelled through the cities: New York, Boston, Washington D.C., Toronto, Montreal, but the real magic came in the camping and wild places along the way. Kayaking through Algonquin Provincial Park and returning to shore to see a bear was a standout moment. We roamed the coastline of Cape Cod, eating enough lobster rolls to make Anthony Bourdain proud, and enjoyed the peace of Allegany State Park in Pennsylvania, after a few days of city hopping.

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Camping was part of the draw of this trip for me. Not only did it keep costs down, but it meant we stayed in places beyond the typical guidebook. One thing about group camping that works well in a situation like this is that you get to know people really well and really quickly. Everyone has to pitch in (pun intended) to set up and break down camp, and to help get meals ready. You get the measure of people pretty quickly in these circumstances.

More often than not, the small group trips I’m going on are active adventure ones. This gives me a safer, more supportive atmosphere, where I'm able to get out of my comfort zone...

Small group travel is often touted as a way to avoid the dreaded single supplement (an extra fee charged to solo travellers when they occupy a hotel room or cruise cabin alone), but the cost of this particular tour didn't feel cheap. Of course, every operator prices their trips differently, but the surcharge for convenience and competent guides here seemed hefty. So, if it’s cheaper to do it yourself, and you’re competent at finding deals and building itineraries, why go on a group trip at all? Well, that’s a question that I ask myself a lot.

For me, the question often comes down to two things: location and activities.

If it’s a location that I feel somewhat comfortable with, like a city or somewhere with decent public transport, I’m probably not going to shell out the premium for a small group tour. However, group tours can also open up destinations that may not be as accessible for solo female travellers or may be more intimidating.

Similarly, if the trip is more about exploring touristy sites, then I can probably sort that out for myself. More often than not, the small group trips I’m going on are active adventure ones. This gives me a safer, more supportive atmosphere, where I'm able to get out of my comfort zone and try new things. Before I set out on a group Hadrian's Wall trek, for example, I'd never done a multi-day hike. I was a relatively experienced walker by UK standards, but stacking four days of hiking across Northumbria in a climate that changed from rain to blazing sun in minutes was not something I'd have felt comfortable doing solo for the first time.

Sharing the toughness of the hike, the sore legs in the morning, and the well-earned pint at the end...

I recently went on a group trip to the Lake District. Now, being based in the northwest, I’ve been to the Lakes plenty of times with friends, loved ones, and indeed on my own. Getting there by car or by train only takes a few hours, there are plenty of hostels full of friendly faces, and the trails are all well-marked. It’s a straightforward itinerary, perfect for solo travel, so why did I join a group trip?

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Well, simply put, for the social element. As a society, we’re becoming less social. The weekend trip I joined included workshops from OS Maps, a 10-hour hike with qualified mountain guides and paddleboarding on the lake outside of the Youth Hostels Association in Ambleside, where all our meals were included.

It also brought women from their mid-20s to 50 plus together with a united love of being in the great outdoors. While some were more experienced than others, everyone was up for adventure and generally for having a convivial time, sharing the toughness of the hike, the sore legs in the morning and the well-earned pint at the end. Finding other like-minded women to adventure with is an incredible feeling. So much so that a few of us who met on the trip have already planned a follow-up weekend in the Peak District for later this year.

That’s the beauty of a group trip, no matter how confident you are as a solo traveller. Sometimes, you just want someone to share those experiences with. Sometimes, you want the reassurance of safety and someone else sorting out the logistical headaches for you so you can turn up and relax.

Sometimes, you want the reassurance of safety and someone else sorting out the logistical headaches.

My next group trip is a women-only trip to Kyrgyzstan. It combines women-led cultural experiences with world-class hikes and three days on horseback.

Could I put this together myself with enough time and planning? Maybe. Would it be as comprehensive and stress-free? Absolutely not. Would I meet amazing women along the way and have the support and safety necessary for an adventurous itinerary overseas? Again, no.

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Any snobbery which remains around group travel is misplaced. Just because you can travel in a certain way doesn’t mean you have to.

It’s refreshing to mix it up from time to time - to meet cool people and step away from the planning process, relax and enjoy the adventure. Different travel styles open up different experiences. Not better or worse, just different. By writing off group travel just because you’re a confident solo traveller, you’re leaving incredible, unique experiences and long-lasting connections on the table.

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The Dhampus Trek is a short but scenic overnight trek in Nepal’s superlative Annapurna region, close to the lakeside city of Pokhara. It takes you from the village of Kande up to a viewpoint known as the Australian Camp (2,055m/6,742ft) to watch the sun set over soaring Himalayan peaks. After an overnight stay you’ll return the way you came.

However, there is a longer three day variant of the route (also referred to as the Dhampus Trek). This 25.4 mile (41km) circuit winds through the verdant foothills of the Himalayas, passing through rural agricultural communities and forested ridgelines before finishing in the village of Bhumdi. What sets it apart is its accessibility: it delivers sweeping, panoramic views of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges without requiring trekkers to ascend to extreme altitudes.

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“The highest point in this trek is Panchase Hill, which is at 2,500m. That means people who haven’t walked much at high elevations are very attracted to it,” says guide Sanjeet Twayana. “The Dhampus Trek is popular with people who don’t have much time, because you can experience the mountains, their lifestyle and culture, across three days of hiking.”

To experience this variant of the Dhampus trek, you’ll head out of Pokhara towards the village of Hemja, which is close to Kande (the official trailhead). You’ll follow a gently undulating trail upwards through terraced farmland, passing small villages inhabited by the Brahmin, Chhetri and Gurung communities, each with their own traditions, architecture and ways of life. You’ll see locals tending crops, carrying firewood or herding livestock as you walk.

From Baskot, Hemja, you’ll ascend stone steps up through a dense forest of oak and rhododendron, emerging onto a grassy ridgeline. Follow it to the Gurung village of Dhampus, located at an elevation of 1,750m (5,741ft). It’s surrounded by lush green hills, with a panoramic view of Himalayan peaks including Annapurna I (8,091m/ 26,545ft), known as ‘the world’s deadliest mountain’, Manaslu (8,163m/26,781ft) and the distinctive double-summited Machhapuchhare, or ‘Fish Tail’ Mountain (6,993m/22,943ft).

“It’s possible to stay the first night in Dhampus, but most people will continue trekking to the Australian Camp,” says Sanjeet. “It’s around one hour of uphill walking from Dhampus, and a thousand feet higher. It also has a scenic view where we can see the mountains as well as the Pokhara Valley with lots of the green hills. And then, on the second day, early in the morning, we will see the sunrise, which is beautiful from here.”

At dawn, the sunrise transforms the peaks with a soft golden glow

The climb to Australian Camp is short but rewarding. The trail, made of uneven stone slabs, winds through forest with occasional openings in the foliage allowing glimpses of the mountains.  A series of signposts will let you know how much of your hike is left, although some people (especially those unused to hiking) will take longer.

At the top, you’re greeted with a sweeping panorama of the Annapurna range, including Machhapuchhare and Lamjung Himal. As evening falls, the mountains are blue silhouettes against a fiery sky, and at dawn, the sunrise transforms the peaks with a soft golden glow.

The site itself has an interesting history. Locally known as Thulo Kharka (‘big field’), it was once a grazing pasture for nearby villages. In the 1980s, Austrian climbers began camping here, drawn by its flat terrain and Himalayan views. Over time, “Austrian Camp” evolved into “Australian Camp,” a name that stuck — reportedly because it was easier for locals to pronounce. There are now several different accommodation options on offer; fixed tents, small wooden huts and also a couple of local tea houses.

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The second day of the trek takes you from the Australian Camp to the town of Panchase, a distance of 8.7 miles (14km). The trail descends along a gravel track that threads through terraced farmland and small hamlets. It leads to the Gurung village of Bhadaure, where you’ll have a view of Pokhara Valley and Phewa Lake, surrounded by green hills and the misty silhouettes of the Annapurna range. From here, you’ll walk through the forest to Panchase along a gently winding trail. In spring, the rhododendrons bloom in vivid reds and pinks, adding a burst of colour to the landscape.

Panchase is another town with excellent views out over the mountains and terraced hills. It's peaceful and uncrowded — more so than other trekking hubs in the region — with several tea houses where you can spend the night.

“Panchase is a beautiful place, thanks to the panoramic views of the Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu Himalayan ranges. It’s also the starting point of the Royal Trek,” Sanjeet says.

The third and final day takes you steadily downhill towards Pokhara. The trail passes through dense forest before opening onto meadowland, with occasional glimpses back towards the mountains you’ve just explored. Eventually, you’ll reach Bhumdi; once a separate village, now part of greater Pokhara. It’s a short taxi ride back to the city centre from here.

Panchase is a beautiful place, thanks to the panoramic views of the Dhaulagiri, Annapurna and Manaslu Himalayan ranges

The Dhampus Trek is a reminder that adventure doesn’t always have to be extreme to be extraordinary. It’s proof you don’t need to tackle high summits or take weeks off work to experience the Himalayas. Across a few short days you’ll travel through farmland, dappled forest and across ridges, watching the light dance across some of the world’s highest mountains and immersing yourself in the silence.

FAQs

How far is Dhampus from Pokhara?

It’s around 15.5 miles (25km) from the city of Pokhara to the village of Dhampus, which takes around an hour by car. The fastest route takes you along the NH03 highway.

Is Dhampus Village near Dhampus Peak?

No. Dhampus village is located in the Annapurna region near the city of Pokhara, at an approximate elevation of 1,750m (5,741ft). Dhampus Peak (6,012m/19,724ft) is located north of Dhampus village, in the Dhaulagiri region.

How long is the Dhampus trek?

There are several versions of the Dhampus Trek. The most common is an overnight out-and-back hike which takes you from the village of Kande and up to the Australian Camp via the town of Dhampus. Another three-day option takes you from the village of Hemja to the Australian Camp, then to the village of Panchase, and on the final day to Bhumdi (a village near Pokhara).

How experienced do I need to be to do the Dhampus trek?

People of all ages and experience levels can do the beginner-friendly Dhampus Trek. However, there are some stone steps and other ascents, so having a decent level of fitness and stamina is necessary.

Do I need a guide for the Dhampus trek?

A guide is not required for the Dhampus Trek, and it is popular with independent hikers. However, a guide is recommended if you are new to trekking or would like to do a longer variant of the itinerary. They can also help you with tea house accommodation, organise luggage transfers and give you insights about local culture.

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