1.New Zealand
The country that invented bungee jumping rekindles adventure excitement post-pandemic
The country that brought you bungee jumping is bouncing back from the pandemic. On New Zealand’s South Island, a re-energized Queenstown is again welcoming adventure travelers from all over the world. They come to this lakeside town of some 15,000 for skiing, as well as year-round hiking in the deservedly named Remarkables range. But bicycles should be generating the most excitement. By 2025, the Queenstown Trails Trust aims to complete a network of recreational and commuting bike lanes and paths that will link up workplaces, schools and other urban spaces. The network’s shining star: an 80.7-mile biking route called the Queenstown Trail, one of New Zealand’s Great Rides. Starting on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, the ride pedals east from Queenstown to Gibbston.
2. Choquequirao, Peru
An adventurous trek to the remote sister site of Machu Picchu is becoming more accessible
One of the most remote Inca sites in the Peruvian Andes, the ruins of Choquequirao are reserved for the hardy few who put in the effort to reach it. Those who make the trek to the sprawling complex can do so only on foot, zigzagging up and down steep paths for 18 miles to reach its 10,000-foot elevation, suspended between the high Andes and the jungles below.
But change is coming to rock the ‘cradle of gold’, the meaning of Choquequirao in the Quechua language. New infrastructure plans are expected to boost visits to Machu Picchu’s sister city.
Pre-pandemic, Machu Picchu had more than 1.5 million visitors annually, according to Peruvian tourism officials. Choquequirao counted fewer than 9,500. To increase accessibility, the Peruvian government has committed to spending $260 million (£231.12 million) to build a cable car spanning three miles between the town of Kiuñalla and the archaeological site.
3. Utah, United States
This popular adventure state is boosting its lesser-trafficked areas to combat overtourism
With five national parks and eight national monuments, Utah is an adventurer’s ultimate playground. But outdoor lovers tend to visit only a small and iconic group of destinations, such as Zion National Park. Now the Utah Office of Outdoor Recreation has created an innovative grant program to help fund new outdoor recreation projects throughout the state, including the Zion National Park Forever Project.
In Zion, known for its dramatic narrow canyons and towering sandstone cliffs, work began in 2022 on a new visitor center on the park’s east side. The hope: to draw some of Zion’s annual five million visitors away from the crowded main south entrance and popular trails like Angels Landing. In addition to the sustainable visitors centre, plans include 30-plus miles of new mountain biking trails and 40 miles of hiking trails outside the east entrance.
4. Austrian Alps
The cross-country Bergsteigerdörfer network of 36 mountaineering villages focuses on local life and culture.
To save a mountain range, it sometimes takes a village. Since 2008 an association of high-altitude hamlets located in Central Europe’s Eastern Alps have banded together to promote their small communities to the world’s adventure travelers interested in mountain hiking, biking and climbing, as well as winter sports like cross-country skiing and ice climbing .
Called the Bergsteigerdörfer, or the ‘Mountaineering Villages’, the network is concentrated primarily in Austria’s western states, including Tyrol and Carinthia, with additional member towns in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and Slovenia. The Mountaineering Villages works to protect villages’ culture and traditions while preserving mountain landscapes from overdevelopment. Rejecting large-scale tourist projects like sprawling ski lodges and peak-scaling cable cars, the Bergsteigerdörfer villages, now numbering 36, put greater emphasis on green or sustainable mountain tourism.
5. Revillagigedo National Park, Mexico
The ‘Galápagos of Mexico’ protects one of the largest aggregations of sharks and oceanic mantas in the world
Some 300 miles off the southern tip of Baja California Peninsula lies a national park steeped in superlatives. Revillagigedo National Park, a 57,000-square-mile Mexican marine reserve, is North America’s largest fully protected underwater park. It offers sanctuary to the continent’s greatest concentration of tropical marine megafauna, from hammerhead sharks to humpback whales, earning it the nickname ‘the Galápagos of Mexico’. And the waters surrounding its four main islands are almost becoming a mecca for scuba divers.
“The park is one of the few places, if not the only place on the planet, that you can have intimate interaction with giant oceanic mantas,” says marine biologist and underwater filmmaker Erick Higuera. He says the mantas, which can weigh up to 3,600 pounds and attain a wing span of 27ft, seem to like the feel of the divers’ oxygen bubbles on their bellies. The bottlenose dolphins that inhabit the park’s waters also show curiosity toward humans and will often swim up to and investigate divers.
6. Sierra Sur, Oaxaca, Mexico
Oaxaca’s epic trail gains in popularity for visitors seeking Indigenous connections
Oaxaca is celebrated for its folk art and vibrant cuisine, but there’s more to be sampled in this subtropical Mexican state than black pottery and moles. Travelers searching for meaningful and respectful cultural exchanges with members of the 16 recognized Indigenous peoples are lacing up their hiking boots to venture into the agrarian heart of the Oaxacan interior on foot.
Growing in popularity is the Copalita Trail, a five-day adventure walk from the state’s southern Sierra Madres to its Pacific coast, stopping to camp, swim, and break bread in Zapotec villages. Because the trail is remote, with few intersecting roads, there is no opportunity to leave it and must be done with a guide. The journey begins in Oaxaca City where a bus brings hikers deep into the mountains. Over the next four days, hikers descend from the slopes past thick pine forests, down through coffee and bamboo plantations and into jungles, before floating down the Copalita River to arrive on the golden sand beaches near Huatulco.
7. Bhutan
The reopened Trans-Bhutan Trail traverses 250 miles across the Himalayan kingdom
After using the pandemic downturn to reflect and rebuild, Bhutan officially reopened its borders in September 2022. As a mountainous country vulnerable to climate change, Bhutan is famously committed to sustainable, ‘low volume’ tourism that benefits the local community. The increased Sustainable Development Fee of US$200 (£180) per person, per night will be put to good use funding healthcare and education for Bhutan’s citizens, planting trees, and preserving the country’s cultural heritage.
Enticing pilgrims to the Himalayan kingdom is the 250-mile Trans-Bhutan Trail, which has reopened for the first time in 60 years, allowing hikers and bikers to traverse the length of the country. The track connects previously remote communities, spreading the economic benefits of tourism while sharing entirely new insights into Bhutanese life.
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