TREKKING TRAVEL GUIDE · THE WORLD ON FOOT
Great treks, guided right, all over the map.
Reviews of the best guided treks on earth, range by range. Everest Base Camp and the Annapurna circuit, the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, sunrise on Bali’s volcanoes, the Atlas peaks above Marrakech and the rice-terrace ridgelines of Sapa. Find the right guide, the real route, and what the day actually asks of you.
Worth the airfare
Three treks you can’t take anywhere else.
Day hikes are everywhere now. But the walk into Everest Base Camp, a live volcano summit at first light, and the Atlas-to-Sahara crossing belong to their own corners of the world. These are the days you build a whole trip around.
On the roof of the world
Everest Base Camp
Nothing else on the planet stacks 8,000-metre giants the way the Khumbu does. You fly into Lukla and walk for days through Sherpa villages and prayer-flag passes, the air thinning with every step, until Everest, Lhotse and Ama Dablam ring the horizon. A licensed guide and porters carry the logistics; you carry a daypack and the altitude.
See all 75 →Above the clouds
A Volcano at Sunrise
A handful of places let you stand on a summit that is still alive. On Etna and Stromboli you climb past old lava flows and steaming vents to a crater rim, ideally as the sun comes up and the sea turns gold below. A volcano guide reads the mountain so you can keep your eyes on the show.
- 1 Etna: summit craters trekking with volcano guide 3350mt
- 2 Catania: Mount Etna Trekking Trip off the Tourist Path
- 3 Mount Etna: Summit Trek with Cable Car and snack included
Atlas to the dunes
Toubkal & the Sahara
Two hours from Marrakech the High Atlas rears up to 4,000 metres, and beyond it the Sahara runs to the horizon. You climb Mount Toubkal from a Berber refuge, then trade boots for a camel and a night under the stars at Erg Chebbi. Mint tea, mule tracks and dunes that glow at first light.
- 1 3 Days Desert Tour From Marrakech To Merzouga Dunes & Camel Trek
- 2 3-Day Tour to Merzouga Erg Chebbi with Food & Camel Trek
- 3 Mt Toubkal Ascent Express Trek 2 Days 1 Nights
Start here
If you only book one trek.
More walkers reach for this one than anything else on the site. A sure first booking when you want a guide who knows the route and a day you will remember.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Treks
Everest Base Camp, Etna, Batur, Toubkal, the Inca Trail. The guided days walkers reach for first, in the ranges they most want underfoot.
The regions a trip is built around
Pick a range and go.
The Himalaya for the long lodge-to-lodge classics. Indonesia and Italy for volcanoes you climb at dawn. The Atlas for peaks and dunes in one trip. The Andes for the walk to Machu Picchu. Each one opens onto its best guided days.
Where you sleep at night
Day trek, teahouse or tent.
How you spend the nights shapes the whole trip. Three ways to do a multi-day mountain, from a warm bed in town to a lodge on the trail to a camp where the road runs out.
The Himalaya
Nepal is where trekking grew up.
No range rewards walking like this one. Everest Base Camp through the Khumbu, the Annapurna circuit over Thorong La, the quiet Manaslu and Langtang valleys: weeks of suspension bridges, prayer wheels and 8,000-metre walls, each night in a teahouse with a stove and a plate of dal bhat. A licensed guide and porters make the high country doable for ordinary legs.
See the best treks in Nepal →Indonesia’s volcanoes
Climb in the dark, top out at sunrise.
Bali’s Batur, Lombok’s mighty Rinjani, Java’s Bromo and Ijen with its blue fire: the great Indonesian climbs all start hours before dawn so you reach the crater rim as the sun breaks over the caldera. A guide sets the pace in the dark and knows exactly where the light will land.
See the best volcano treks in Indonesia →Why we walk
The view you have to earn.
No cable car drops you at the best of it. The pass that opens onto a wall of white peaks, the crater rim at first light, the village you only reach on foot: the going is the point. A good guide carries the route-finding and the altitude know-how so all you have to do is keep putting one boot in front of the other.
Browse every guided trek →The Vietnam highlands
Walk the rice terraces of the north.
Up in Sapa and Ha Giang the mountains are carved into staircases of green and the trails link Hmong and Dao villages a day’s walk apart. Add the climb up Fansipan, Indochina’s highest peak, and a homestay night with the family who farms the slope. A local guide reads the paths the map never shows.
- 1 Hanoi – Sapa 2 Days 1 Night Overnight At Homestay
- 2 Sa Pa: Muong Hoa Valley Trek and Local Ethnic Villages
- 3 From Hanoi: 2-Day Sapa Trekking Trip with Homestay & Meals
By effort
How big a day do you want?
Some trips you want a few hours out and a hot lunch after. Some you want a proper full day on the trail. And some you want to walk for two weeks and stand somewhere very few people ever reach. Pick the effort and we will point you at the trek.
A few hours
Out and back before lunch.A cable car or a jeep takes the height; you walk the last stretch to a crater rim or a waterfall and you are back down by afternoon. Big views, small commitment.
A full day on the trail
Dawn till dusk on foot.Eight to ten hours through rice terraces, gorges or volcano slopes, with a village lunch in the middle. One real trekking day, home to a warm bed at night.
The multi-day classic
Walk for days and earn the summit.Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna circuit, the route to Machu Picchu: lodge-to-lodge or under canvas, a guide and porters, the trip you plan a year around.
Two worlds, one trip
Morocco runs from the Atlas to the dunes.
An hour or two from Marrakech the High Atlas climbs to 4,000 metres, and past it the Sahara takes over. You can summit Mount Toubkal from a Berber refuge one day and ride a camel into Erg Chebbi for a night under the stars the next. Mule tracks, mint tea, village kasbahs and dunes that turn gold at dawn.
See all 42 treks in Morocco →By trailhead
Pick a basecamp town.
Kathmandu for Everest and the Annapurnas. Marrakech for the Atlas and the dunes. Sa Pa for the rice terraces and Fansipan. Cusco for the Inca Trail. Mount Etna for Europe’s live volcano. Ubud for sunrise on Bali’s craters.
By country
Pick the country you want underfoot.
Nepal for the Himalayan giants. Indonesia for sunrise volcanoes. Vietnam for rice-terrace ridgelines. Morocco for Atlas peaks and desert. Italy for live craters. Then Thailand, Peru and India. Browse every trek by where it is.
Build up to the big one
A first trekking trip, in three steps.
New to trekking and eyeing a famous route? Here is how to get there: a single guided day to test your legs, a teahouse trek to learn the rhythm, then the classic you came for.
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