7 essays tagged “trekking”.
Hobart, Australia
Tasmania is Australia's island state, the size of Ireland, with one of the largest temperate-wilderness reserves on earth and a small population concentrated on the eastern coast. The walking, the food, and the genuine emptiness are the reasons to come.
April 15, 2024
Queenstown, New Zealand
Queenstown sits on the shore of Lake Wakatipu under the jagged Remarkables peaks. It is the most adventure-sport-marketed town in the world — bungy, jet boats, paragliding, skydiving. The mountains and the lakes, however, are the actual reason to come.
December 4, 2022
El Chaltén, Argentina / Chile
Patagonia is, at its heart, the experience of being very small in a very large landscape. The wind shapes everything. The granite spires rise on a planetary scale. The travel logistics are demanding. The reward is one of the last genuinely big-empty regions left on earth.
November 19, 2022
Antananarivo, Madagascar
Madagascar is the most biologically distinct landmass after Australia — 90% of its plants and animals are endemic — and one of the most logistically demanding countries I have travelled in. The reward, for the patient, is a country unlike anywhere else.
September 26, 2022
Aguas Calientes, Peru
Machu Picchu is a place that survives its reputation almost entirely. The site is genuinely astonishing — a complete Inca city built on a vertical Andean ridge at 2,400 m, abandoned to the cloud forest for centuries, rediscovered in 1911. The trick is choosing how to arrive.
June 12, 2022
Paro, Bhutan
Bhutan is the only country I have visited that requires a daily Sustainable Development Fee (now US$100/day) and a state-licensed itinerary. The cost is the point. The kingdom uses tourism to fund its national health and education systems, and to keep the country from being overrun. It works.
May 28, 2022
Kathmandu, Nepal
Kathmandu is two cities — the dusty, traffic-choked, modern capital, and the medieval Newari city of pagoda temples, hidden courtyards, and 1500-year-old shrines. The second city is the one to come for.
March 12, 2022