Good in April

Eighteen days and 360 kilometres on the Colorado, out of contact, camping on beaches inside the canyon.

Eighteen days in the Khumbu taking the high circuit rather than the base camp highway.

Ten days on a liveaboard in West Papua, over reefs holding more coral species than anywhere else measured.

The most reliable place in Europe to see free-ranging bison.

Two weeks around the Annapurnas, from subtropical valleys to a 5,400 m pass and down into desert.

The only place on the planet where you can swim in the gap between two continental plates.

The birthplace of alpinism, and the highest cable car in Western Europe.

Croatia's oldest and most photographed national park, UNESCO-listed since 1979.

Four days on the original stone road, reaching the Sun Gate at dawn before the buses.

The largest natural marsh in Central Europe, walked at dawn in chest waders while elk stand in the mist.

Continuously erupting, permanently in the news, and visible from most of eastern Sicily.

A point break town with a wave and a school for every level.

Twelve hundred kilometres around an entire island, temple to temple, in about six weeks.

The place sport climbing goes on holiday — the most concentrated bolted crag network in Europe.

A thousand-year-old pilgrimage route and the most walked long-distance path in the world.

Five days on Australia's west coast timed to the coral spawn, when the largest fish on earth arrive to feed.

Four days through Fiordland to Milford Sound, on a track with fifty walkers a day and no more.

Eight days skiing and sailing in the high Arctic, where the rifle in the guide's bag is not decoration.

Three days on an island where it rains most days, to a cedar that was already ancient when Rome fell.

Three days climbing Hokkaido's perfect volcanic cone on skins, then dropping into the crater itself.

A UNESCO site that looks structurally impossible in every photograph ever taken of it.

Five days on the Nakahechi route through cedar forest to the three grand shrines of Kumano.

Eight days on islands a thousand kilometres south of Tokyo, reachable only by a twenty-four-hour ferry.

Five days skinning and skiing at Murodo in April, where the road is cut through snow walls twenty metres high.

The best-known tandem flying site in the Alps and the sport's unofficial European capital.

A week aboard a yacht in Arctic Norway, skinning up from the shoreline each morning and skiing back down to it.

Sixteen days around Manaslu in a restricted zone — the Annapurna Circuit as it was thirty years ago.

World-class reef diving you walk into from the beach.

The only lift-linked circumnavigation of its kind, and the anchor of the Dolomiti Superski network.

Europe's first World Surfing Reserve.

Six days across the Tasmanian highlands, from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair.

Four days over three passes above a thousand metres, from the temple town of Koyasan down to the Kumano shrines.

Five days paddling mangrove rivers and traversing subtropical jungle on an island that is ninety percent forest.

Eleven days on the Edo-era highway between Tokyo and Kyoto, through sixty-nine post towns.

The most concentrated shore-diving destination in Europe, and the reason Malta trains so many divers.

The Soča's colour is genuinely unlike any other river in Europe — it's the reason people come.

Five days through sandstone towers and red desert, sleeping under more stars than seems plausible.

Two days on Shikoku's sacred peak, climbing iron chains hung down the rock by pilgrims centuries ago.

Six days across seven volcanic islands, finishing on Stromboli's rim after dark as it fires.

Ten days along Turkey's southwest coast, over headlands and through ruins nobody guards.

Proper alpine touring an hour from Kraków airport.

A UNESCO biosphere reserve holding the continent's biggest pelican colonies and over 300 bird species.

Sixteen days from Fort William to the northwest corner of Britain, mostly pathless and often wet.

The best realistic odds of seeing wild wolves in Central Europe.

Poland's granite trad crag — Sokoliki, where you place your own gear and the slabs punish bad footwork.

Hundreds of short bolted routes within a day trip of Kraków.

Kilometres of tunnel driven into granite by forced labour in 1943, abandoned unfinished, and never explained.

A sandstone plateau cracked into corridors narrow enough to turn sideways for.

A flat, shallow lagoon that makes learning to kite genuinely easy.

A working market hall, not a tourist food court.

Poland's best-decorated cave, opened by a quarry blast in 1966 and full of cave bear bones.

A wooden raft poled through a limestone gorge by men in embroidered waistcoats, then the climb up Trzy Korony above it.

Both an easy show cave and real wild systems, five minutes apart.

Flat, easy forest running for recovery days between harder trips.