No phone signal, no crowds, and sometimes no guidebook either. Just seven lesser-trodden trails for your bucket-list – from lunar salt lakes in Tajikistan to glacier-carved peaks in Uganda.
From Thurso to Struy the wrong way round – straight into a headwind – Paul Glendell rides the Great North Trail through the wild Flow Country, featuring remote glens and a cast of unforgettable characters.
The Dolomites are famous for their world-class via ferrata – but for writer Nike Werstroh, it’s the wartime history hidden high in the mountains that keeps drawing her back.
Scotland’s most accessible coastal trail might just be the perfect beginner backpacking route: 28 miles of clifftop drama and pretty harbour villages in a relaxed three-day hike, with legal wild camping and zero stress.
Seasoned ultrarunner Sophie Ranson set out to run 104km across the Portuguese island paradise of Madeira. She got lost, nearly quit, hallucinated in the woods – and somehow ended up on the podium.
The UK has a wealth of waves to suit pretty much every kind of surfer – here Alf Alderson, author of the long running guidebook ‘Surf UK’, picks something for everyone.
The Bisaro Anima cave system has no finish line and no guarantee of a way out. Just darkness, discovery, and the thrill of going where no one has gone before. Aila Taylor descends into the heart of the Rockies.
With a broken campervan and six days to kill, Alf Alderson races the arrival of autumn to ride the Tour de Gironde – a 480km loop through world-class wine country via rolling Atlantic coastline.
From dinosaur footprints to singing stones, Britain’s unique geological landscape tells stories millions of years in the making. Here’s where to find them.