The trips worth crossing the world for.
Not a bucket list — a shortlist. These are the experiences I keep sending people toward: the hikes that earn their sunrises, the coasts worth learning to surf on, and the once-in-a-lifetime days that quietly become the reason you went. Every one walked, sailed, climbed or flown in person.
A hundred-plus trails in, these are the ones I’d walk again tomorrow — from four-day treks to overnight volcano climbs, spread across the Andes, Central America and the far North.
Inca Trail to Machu Picchu
Four days, a pass at 4,200m, and a sunrise through the Sun Gate that earns every single step. The hike that started the whole obsession.
Read the guide →Torres del Paine — the W trek
Patagonian wind that pushes back, granite towers that turn pink at first light, and refugios that feel earned by nightfall.
Read the guide →Acatenango Volcano at night
An overnight climb to sit above the clouds and watch Fuego erupt against the dark. Cold, steep, and worth every layer.
Read the guide →Ometepe’s twin volcanoes
Two cones rising straight out of a lake, and trails that ask a lot more of your legs than they look like they will.
Read the guide →Huaraz’s Cordillera Blanca
Turquoise glacial lakes, jagged 6,000m peaks, and passes that leave you gasping for reasons beyond the altitude. Laguna 69 and the Santa Cruz trek, back to back.
Read the guide →Iceland’s waterfall & glacier trails
Black sand, blue ice, and paths where the weather changes its mind by the hour. Bring the good jacket and expect four seasons a day.
Read the guide →Whether you’ve never stood up on a board or you’re chasing your next point break, these coasts made me a better, braver surfer — from beginner-friendly beach breaks to serious Atlantic swell.
El Salvador’s surf towns
Long right-hand point breaks and pupusas after, where “dangerous” turned out to mostly mean “unfamiliar.”
Read the guide →Nicaragua’s Pacific coast
Consistent swell, uncrowded line-ups, and offshore winds most mornings. The kind of place you extend your stay for.
Read the guide →Costa Rica — learning to surf
Warm water and forgiving beach breaks — the friendliest place I know to learn something new and laugh at yourself doing it.
Read the guide →Bali’s breaks
Reef breaks for the brave, beach breaks for the rest of us, and a warung waiting for you when the arms give out.
Read the guide →Portugal’s Atlantic
Cold, clean and serious — the coast that taught me to actually respect a wave, and the easiest country I’ve ever traveled alone.
Read the guide →Trips built to put something back — saunas, cold water, yoga mornings and thermal springs. The kind of travel where slowing down is the whole point, not the thing you feel guilty about.
Sauna & fjord plunge
Heat, then the shock of cold fjord water, then a calm that resets the whole day. The Nordic reset, done properly.
How to book it →Yoga retreat in India
Sunrise flows over the Ganges in Rishikesh, then nothing on the schedule but stillness. Where yoga actually comes from.
How to book it →Iceland’s thermal springs
Soaking in geothermal water while it snows around you — the most Icelandic way there is to end a long, cold day outside.
How to book it →The days that don’t fit a category — the ones you’ll still be describing to people years later. Sea, sky, desert and ice, gathered from across five continents and every kind of terrain.
Helicopter over Rio
Christ, Sugarloaf and the whole improbable city folded between the mountains and the sea — Rio makes the most sense from the air.
How to book it →Lençóis Maranhenses
White dunes and rain-fed blue lagoons as far as you can see — skydive over it, take in the helicopter views, then cross it on a three-day trek between the pools.
How to book it →Wine tasting in Mendoza
Malbec at the foot of the Andes and long vineyard lunches that quietly turn into whole afternoons.
How to book it →Wine country, France
Old cellars, unhurried tastings, and the art of letting a lunch take as long as it wants to. Slow travel in a glass.
How to book it →Sandboarding Huacachina
A real desert oasis, dune buggies at full tilt, and boarding down the face of a dune as the sun drops. Pure, silly joy.
How to book it →Yacht trip to San Blas
Empty palm-dot islands, Guna villages, and water so clear the boat looks like it’s hovering. The Caribbean before the crowds found it.
How to book it →Sailing the Komodo Islands
Dragons on land, manta rays gliding below, and a pink-sand beach between them. A boat trip that feels like three trips in one.
How to book it →Chasing the northern lights
Standing in the cold, waiting for the sky to do the one thing you flew all that way for — and then it does.
How to book it →Heli-skiing the backcountry
Untouched powder dropped in by helicopter, on lines no chairlift will ever reach. Big terrain, bigger silence between runs.
How to book it →Heli & hike the long trails
Fly past the hard access miles to start deep in the mountains, then walk the long alpine routes you’d never reach on foot in a day.
How to book it →Wildlife watching in Canada
Bears along the salmon runs, whales offshore, and the particular quiet that only very big landscapes make.
How to book it →Whale watching, Península Valdés
Southern right whales close enough to hear them breathe, off the wild Patagonian coast. Time your trip and they come to you.
How to book it →The Salar de Uyuni
The salt flats run on until sky and ground stop being separate things. In the wet season it becomes the world’s largest mirror.
How to book it →Galápagos up close
Animals that never learned to fear people — sea lions, blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises. The closest thing to time travel I’ve found.
How to book it →Antarctica by ship
The seventh continent, where the penguins outnumber the people and the silence has real weight. The trip that ends every list.
How to book it →Want help building a trip around one of these?
Bring me the experience you can’t stop thinking about — I’ll help you plan the route, the timing and the confidence to go do it solo.