Good in January

Some of the most technical and committed granite towers on earth.

An hour with a habituated gorilla family, at the end of days of steep forest walking.

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.

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.

Eight days on the Lemosho route to 5,895 m — the highest you can get on foot without ropes.

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

The 'blue hole of Abisko' — a rain-shadow microclimate with unusually clear winter skies.

Four days across open grass ridges in Poland's emptiest corner — walkable in summer, snowshoed in February.

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

A week timed to Siberian storms that drop fifteen metres of the lightest snow on earth over a season.

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

Winter in the Tatras is real alpinism — crampons, axes, avalanche judgement, and a mountain rescue service with a long casualty list.

Five days on Japan's westernmost island, where hammerhead sharks school in the cold months and the current does not forgive.

Five days in Aomori, where trees freeze into white figures and the annual snowfall is measured in double-digit metres.

Three weeks down Chilean Patagonia's gravel spine, through temperate rainforest and glacier country.

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

Four days by 4x4 from the world's largest salt flat into a high desert of coloured lakes and geysers.

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

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

Proper alpine touring an hour from Kraków airport.

Four days to North Africa's highest summit under snow, with crampons and an ice axe.

Poland's most visited mountain destination and the country's default postcard.

Three days on the Polish–Czech watershed over Śnieżka, sleeping in some of the oldest mountain huts in Europe.

One of the only places left where you can realistically track wild pumas.

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

A working market hall, not a tourist food court.

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

Flyable, but only for pilots who already know how to handle Patagonian wind.