Comprehensive trekking guides for our favorite treks from around the world, from day hikes to multi-day treks. Includes information on routes and itineraries, packing and preparation, and what to expect day by day on the trek.
A few ideas on how climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to the top of Africa can teach you something about life.
For some, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro is another check box on a “to do” list. For me it turned out to be a journey — in its own way, an epic exercise in achievement.
On the topic of trekking in Patagonia, the two names most bandied about: Chile's Torres del Paine and Argentina's El Chalten.
Although their hunks of uplifted granite are similar enough, the prevailing style of hikes they offer are quite different.
Most articles we read about Torres del Paine National Park in Chile focus on Patagonian meadows, turquoise lakes, and rose-tinted granite towers in sunrise.
We’ll allow our photos to do that bit for us.
Instead, we’ll take a different tack and share some of the lessons –- about yourself, your marriage (if you have one), Patagonia, expectations, life, and travel – you might learn from trekking in Torres del Paine.
“Oooh, Machu Picchu!”
Even my mom caught the hype when I told her we were headed there last week. As excited as she’s been about our travels, I think that was the first “Oooh!” of our trip she ever uttered.
The weight of my backpack at 5:00 AM was brutal: 9 liters of water, 1 sleeping bag, and sundry other camping bits and bobs. And I was one of the lucky ones. Dan carried all that plus an old school (read: heavy) four-person tent.
Even at this hour, it was steamy. Under the weight of my pack, I was glazed in sweat before we reached the crossroads for the chicken bus to the trail head. I looked around at the young, energetic faces – mostly in their early 20s – and wondered, “Am I too old to be doing this?”
“What has been your best travel experience?”
Often asked, but impossible to answer.
However, if we were locked away and forced to choose just one experience in order to get out, the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal just might be it. This uber-trek (we took 17 days, some opt for several-day segments and others take a month or more) combines some of the best of what travel has to offer: rich culture, diverse people, stunning landscape, lurking adventure, breathtaking exertion and profound circumstances to clear the mind.
Trekking in Svaneti, an area the high Caucasus mountains of the Republic of Georgia, is so much more than just a physical experience. Yes, you are surrounded by stunning mountain landscapes and vistas. But the Svaneti trekking experience is one steeped in Svan culture, history, cuisine and all the people you meet along the. Here is our experience trekking from Mestia (Mulahi) to Ushguli in Svaneti.
Svaneti, the high Caucasus mountain region in the northwestern corner of Georgia, has a long reputation of fierce independence characterized by the 12th century defensive towers that still dot many of its villages. More recently, Svaneti has been feared as outlaw territory where bandits and escaping terrorists from nearby Abkhazia, Chechnya and Ingushetia took refuge as locals holed up in their homes with guns at the ready.