Anyone can walk uphill. Picking the right hill is the hard part.
How many days Everest Base Camp really needs. Whether Batur is worth a 2am alarm. What a Toubkal guide costs, and which Sapa homestay walk stays off the jeep track. Reviews of guided treks on six continents.
Four walks that settle an itinerary.
A live volcano, a sunrise crater, the long haul to Everest, and North Africa’s highest summit in a weekend. What each one asks of your legs, and what it costs.
01The new oneLa Palma: Tajogaite Volcano Guided TrekLa Palma’s Tajogaite cone only stopped erupting in 2021, and the guided line crosses ash fields that were farmland three years ago. Still warm underfoot in places.
02The 2am alarmMount Batur Sunrise Trek With Guide and BreakfastUp Batur in the dark, breakfast cooked on volcanic steam at the top. The most-booked walk on this site, and still the best-value morning in Bali.
03The fortnightEverest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysFourteen days to Everest Base Camp and back, acclimatisation days built in. Book the Lukla flight and the guide together or the schedule falls apart.
04The weekend summitMt Toubkal Ascent Express Trek 2 Days 1 NightsToubkal in two days from Marrakech. Mules carry the load to the refuge, you carry a jacket and go up at four in the morning.
The most-walked guided treks on the site.
Every trek review →More people book these than anything else we have reviewed, and each one earns the slot for a different reason. Prices are per person, before the bargaining.
1
Mount Etna: Trek to 3000m with cable car and 4×4
Reach Mount Etna at 3,000 meters with guides such as Antonio, Giuseppe, Michele, or Dario. Ride the cable car and 4x4, then hike across black volcanic sand to Barbagallo Crater, recent lava flows, a 2002 eruption vent, and a lava channel. Expect three to four hours of walking, thin air, cold wind, and striking views when the clouds clear.
From · $65
Read our review →
2
Mount Batur Sunrise Trek With Guide and Breakfast
from $27
3
From Chania: Full-Day Samaria Gorge Trek Excursion & Guide
from $41
4
La Palma: Tajogaite Volcano Guided Trek
from $45
5
Etna: summit craters trekking with volcano guide 3350mt
from $77
6
From Rethymno: Samaria Gorge Full-Day Trek, Pickup & Guide
from $37
7
Mount Etna Trekking Tour Beyond the Tourist Trails
from $81
8
Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
from $1,800
Everest, Annapurna, Poon Hill or Mardi Himal. Days decide it, not fitness.
Every Himalayan teahouse route is the same walk at a different length: lodges each night, a guide and a porter, and a slow climb. What separates them is how long you must be away and how high you sleep.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Days
Everest Base CampTwelve to fourteen days, a flight to Lukla, 5,364m at the end.
Annapurna Base CampA week to ten days in a sanctuary ringed by eight-thousanders.
Poon HillThree or four days, no altitude worth the name, the whole range at dawn.
Mardi HimalFour or five days on the ridge that most groups still walk past.
All 588 treks in Nepal →
Six countries carry most of the world’s guided trekking.
Himalayan teahouse routes, Indonesian crater rims, terraced valleys in the north of Vietnam, a live volcano in Sicily, the Atlas above Marrakech and the Andes out of Cusco. Each with the walks worth the airfare.
The dawn summit is the most-booked walk on earth, and Indonesia perfected it.
Leave in the dark, climb on gravel by torchlight, and stand on a crater rim as the light comes over the next island. Batur, Rinjani, Agung, Etna after dark and Stromboli at dusk all sell the same hour.
Bali and Lombok: three volcanoes, three different alarms.
Everything in Indonesia →
The island chain sells more guided walking than anywhere outside Nepal, and almost all of it is volcanic. Batur is a pre-dawn stroll with a view; Rinjani is a proper two-day expedition; Agung is the one that turns people back. Pick by how much sleep you are willing to lose.
Batur, and breakfast on the rim
Pickup somewhere around two, headtorches on by half three, and the rim at first light with the lake below still black. Eggs cooked in a steam vent at the top, back at your hotel by ten.
Rinjani over two days and a night
Up through the treeline to a camp on the crater rim, the lake and its new cone below, then the summit push before dawn on day two. Porters carry the tents and the water; you still walk every metre of it.
Munduk, the ridge and the falls
Coffee and clove plantations on the way down to a pair of falls in the north Bali hills. The walk the day after Batur, when the calves have opinions.
Not every good trek involves altitude sickness.
Rainforest rivers in Sumatra, rice terraces cut into a Vietnamese valley, waterfall chains in northern Thailand, a night in a village house where dinner is whatever came off the terrace. Low, green, warm, and a fraction of the price of a summit.
A guided trek costs anything from a taxi fare to a mortgage payment.
Everything on the site, grouped by what it costs per person. The gap is mostly nights: a morning on a volcano and a fortnight in the Khumbu are not the same purchase.
Sunrise volcanoes, waterfall days, terrace walks and anything that gets you back for lunch.
Two-day summits, village homestays with meals, and the guided days that include transport from the city.
Base-camp routes, Kilimanjaro, the Inca Trail and everything with permits, porters and a week of nights attached.
- 1Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 Daysfrom $1,800
- 2Perito Moreno Glacier Trekking Tour and Cruisefrom $396
- 33-Day Mount Toubkal Climbing Trekfrom $226
Four treks that run on permits, not on your calendar.
Most of what is on this site can be arranged the night before from a guesthouse. These four cannot: they are rationed by government quota, by a mountain flight, or by a season that simply closes.
- 013 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in UgandaGorilla permits are capped at eight visitors per family per day and sold for a named date. In high season they go months ahead, and no guide can conjure a spare one.
- 02Sucre: 1-Day Trek in the Crater of Maragua and Inca TrailsClassic Inca Trail permits are limited per day and routinely sell out four to six months out. The trail also shuts through February for maintenance.
- 03Everest Base Camp Trek – 14 DaysThe route runs on a flight into Lukla that weather cancels without notice, and on two narrow seasons either side of the monsoon. Build spare days in before you book the flight home.
- 048-Day Small-group Lemosho Kilimanjaro Summit TrekkingPark fees are paid per day in advance and the good operators fill their March and September departures early. The wettest months are cheap for a reason.
Three walks with no substitute anywhere on earth.
Mountains repeat themselves. A morning with a habituated gorilla family, the roof of Africa on foot, and an Inca road that ends at a gate above Machu Picchu do not.
Gorilla Trekking
A ranger team tracks a habituated family from where it nested the night before, which can mean forty minutes of walking or six hours of cutting uphill through wet vegetation. Time with the group is capped at one hour, permits are dated and numbered, and Uganda and Rwanda price them very differently. Nobody books this twice by accident.
- 13 Days gorilla trekking Safari tour in Uganda★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 121 reviews
- 28-Day Murchison Falls, Chimp and Epic Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 72 reviews
- 35-Day Pearl of Africa Chimps and Gorilla Trekking Safari★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
Kilimanjaro on Foot
No ropes, no technical ground, just 5,895 metres of walking and the altitude that comes with it. Route choice is the whole decision: Machame is scenic and busy, Lemosho adds days and success rate, Marangu has huts and the worst acclimatisation profile. Anything under six days is selling you a low chance of the summit.
- 18-Day Small-group Lemosho Kilimanjaro Summit Trekking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 186 reviews
- 2Best Kilimanjaro Adventure 7 days Machame route Trekking★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 42 reviews
- 3Kilimanjaro 7 Day Private Trekking Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 40 reviews
The Inca Roads
The classic four-day trail runs on government permits that are capped daily and gone months ahead, which is why half the market walks Salkantay or Lares instead and arrives by the back door. Those routes cross higher passes and see fewer people, and they end at the same gate in the end.
- 1Salkantay Trek Challenge – 3 Days / 2 Nights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 101 reviews
- 2Choquequirao Trek 4 days and 3 nights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 81 reviews
- 3Machu Picchu: 5-Day Salkantay Trek with Panoramic Train★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 79 reviews
Sapa is a rice-terrace valley with a town bolted to the top of it.
Ignore the town. The walking is down in the Muong Hoa valley, along field bunds between Hmong and Dao villages, and the good version ends with a bed in one of them rather than a minibus back up the hill. Two days covers the valley; three gets you past the day-trip line.
Every Sapa trek →
Morocco keeps its best walking two hours from a Marrakech riad.
The High Atlas starts at Imlil and climbs straight into Berber villages, walnut terraces and mule tracks. Toubkal at 4,167m is a hard weekend rather than an expedition, and the valley walks below it need nothing but boots. Go outside July and August, and take warm layers for the refuge.
- 1Mt Toubkal Ascent Express Trek 2 Days 1 Nightsfrom $147
- 22-Day Mt. Toubkal Trek with 1-Night Stay & Mealsfrom $122
- 32-Day Atlas Mountains Trek with Village Stayfrom $96
Monsoon, snow and the months the passes close.
Nepal drowns from June to September and the Himalayan passes hold snow until April. Rinjani closes in the wet. None of that stops the walking: it moves it downhill, into rainforest that is at its best wet, waterfalls running hard, terraces flooded and green, and a hot spring at the end of the day.
By country — where the trail starts
By kind of walk — summit, crater, valley or forest
Nepal in order: Kathmandu, a lakeside start, then as high as your days allow.
The newest trek reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
Morocco Desert Trek 4 Days: 2 days on foot in Morocco
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3 Days Berber Villages Trek – Authentic Atlas Mountain Experience
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3 Day Trekking in Atlas Mountains and Berber Villages From Marrakech
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Mount Toubkal Trek in 2D/1N Private From Marrakesh
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Hiking 3 Days Trek Toubkal (4167m) From Marrakech :
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Exclusive 2 Days Toubkal Trek Pritvate From Marrakesh
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