The Best Destinations for Adventure Travel
This isn’t your average bucket list
For some people (like me), lounging by the pool for three straight days just doesn’t cut it. In fact, a negroni by the pool hits harder after you’ve plummeted towards your imminent death after jumping from a plane from 10,000 feet. Or trudged across a glacier.
Sometimes, the best moments happen in the margins of danger—diving into the abyss, climbing past your limits, chasing the elements, and trusting that you’ll come out on the other side with a pulse. Because let’s be honest, anyone can book a holiday. But to truly earn the title of an adventurer? That requires places that push you to the edge of your limits.
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So, if your idea of a good time involves subzero dives, vertigo-inducing heights, and nature in its most untamed form, these are the places where thrill-seekers go to feel alive.
Raja Ampat for Diving into the Unknown
Some places are so remote, they don’t feel real. Raja Ampat, a scattered archipelago in Indonesia’s West Papua, is one of them. It’s a place of limestone cliffs rising out of impossibly blue water, where the reefs are so untouched they make everywhere else look overfished. The diving here is world-class. There are no crowds, no resorts blaring poolside music. Just you, the ocean, and the quiet knowledge that you’re in one of the last places on Earth that still belongs to the wild.
Iceland for Glacier Hiking
Iceland doesn’t do gentle landscapes. Everything here looks forged by fire or ice, and hiking a glacier is proof of it. The country’s frozen glaciers—Sólheimajökull and Vatnajökull—are playgrounds for ice climbers and trekkers. Armed with crampons and ice axes, you’ll traverse cerulean crevasses, peer into ancient ice caves, and feel the silence of a world sculpted by time. The realisation that you’re walking on a frozen river that’s constantly in motion will keep you alert.
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Tromsø for Chasing the Northern Lights
Chasing the Northern Lights is a game of patience. It’s cold, unpredictable, and often frustrating. Situated well above the Arctic Circle, this Norwegian city offers front-row seats to nature’s most psychedelic show. When the sky over Tromsø finally erupts in waves of green and purple, it’s enough to make you forget the hours spent waiting in the biting Arctic cold. Whether you watch from a dog sled, a snowmobile, or while camping in the middle of nowhere, this is an experience that’s definitely worth it.
Peru for Climbing Machu Picchu
Machu Picchu may be a bucket-list cliché, but while most opt for the cushy train ride, real adventurers take the Inca Trail. We’re talking four days of high altitude trekking, thin air, and a test of endurance and sheer will. The five-day trek winds through cloud forests, past ancient ruins, and over high-altitude passes. If time isn’t on your side, the two-day trek still delivers the magic, with a steep climb that ends at the Sun Gate, where the first glimpse of Machu Picchu feels almost otherworldly.
Nazaré for Surfing the World’s Biggest Waves
Nazaré, a sleepy Portuguese fishing town, has become the mecca of big-wave surfing, where underwater canyons funnel the Atlantic into monstrous swells that defy physics. The waves here don’t break. Instead, they rise to 100 feet, towering and unpredictable, fuelled by an underwater canyon that turns the Atlantic into a monster. This is where surfers come to test their limits, where wipeouts are brutal and victories are carved in water. Even if you’re not ready to risk your life for the ride of a lifetime, watching the pros dance with destruction from the clifftop Forte de São Miguel Arcanjo is a spectacle in itself.
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Iceland for Snorkelling Between Continents
Ever wanted to swim between two tectonic plates? In Iceland’s Silfra Fissure, you can quite literally float between North America and Eurasia, thanks to a rift that widens by two centimetres a year. The water here is glacial melt, filtered through volcanic rock for decades, resulting in visibility that’s borderline supernatural—think 100 metres of crystal clarity. It’s a bone-chilling 2°C, but with a drysuit, you’ll be rewarded with quite an experience.
Cappadocia for Hot Air Ballooning
Few landscapes feel as otherworldly as Cappadocia, where ancient volcanic rock has been sculpted into surreal “fairy chimneys.” But the real magic happens at dawn, when hundreds of hot air balloons ascend in unison, turning the sky into a floating kaleidoscope. Drifting over this dreamlike terrain, you’ll spot cave dwellings, hidden monasteries, and valleys that look straight out of a Tolkien novel.
Mexico for Swimming Through Cenotes
Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is riddled with cenotes—ancient sinkholes filled with clear water, linked by sprawling underground cave systems. These natural pools aren’t just a photographer’s dream; they’re an adventure playground for those who like their swims laced with a touch of Indiana Jones. At Dos Ojos, you can free-dive into cathedral-like caverns, while Gran Cenote’s submerged stalactites resemble something out of a Gothic fever dream.
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Namibia for Untamed Road Trips
The Skeleton Coast isn’t your standard scenic drive. It’s desolate, raw, and lined with shipwrecks—a reminder of just how merciless this stretch of Africa can be. Namibia’s adventure lies in its vast emptiness: driving through the world’s oldest desert, where the dunes at Sossusvlei glow red at sunrise; tracking rhinos and desert-adapted elephants in the wilds of Damaraland; or sandboarding down the towering slopes of Swakopmund. There are no neatly paved paths, no guardrails—just the open road and the thrill of being entirely on your own.