Good in June

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

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

The single most photographed viewpoint in Norway.

The visual shorthand for the entire Alps.

Ten days around a compact range of 6,000 m peaks, crossing eight passes above 4,600 m.

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.

One hundred and seventy kilometres around the roof of the Alps, through three countries, sleeping in mountain huts.

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.

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

Europe's hardest waymarked trail — fifteen days of granite scrambling down the island's mountain backbone.

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

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.

Five days across Iceland's interior, from steaming coloured hills to the pass between two glaciers.

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

Nine days south through the Dolomites, from Lago di Braies to Belluno, sleeping in rifugi.

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

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

The most ridden long-distance cycle route in Europe and the template every other one copies.

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

Two weeks on the second-highest road on earth, across the Pamir plateau at four thousand metres.

A week chasing the largest marine feeding event on earth along South Africa's Wild Coast.

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

Europe's first World Surfing Reserve.

Five days on the Czarna Hańcza, finishing through the hand-cranked lock gates of an 1820s canal.

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

Three days of sawanobori — the Japanese discipline of ascending a mountain by climbing directly up its river.

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

Five days on the quietest stretch of Poland's 500-kilometre red trail, through wooden Orthodox churches and villages that no longer exist.

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

Five days across East Java's volcanoes, including a night descent into a crater where the sulphur burns blue.

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

Two days on a volcanic island off Hokkaido's northern tip — 1,721 metres of ascent starting at the sea.

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

Six days of expedition kayaking beneath thousand-metre granite faces rising straight from the Arctic sea.

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

Nine days in Ladakh through Buddhist villages and over a 5,200 m pass, with the Karakoram on the skyline.

Six days of gravel and old military roads across the western Alps, finishing on the Mediterranean.

Five days down the Krutynia — a hundred kilometres of clear shallow river linking lake after lake.

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.

Five days on the Green Velo route through painted wooden villages, Tatar mosques and river marshes.

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

The archetypal Adriatic island seascape, minus the crowds on the main island.

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

The largest interconnected lake system in Central Europe and a rite of passage in Polish summer culture.

Waist-deep flat water behind the Hel peninsula — the best place in this part of Europe to learn to kite.

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.

The Queen of the Beskids — a lone 1,725 m massif with its own weather and a scrambling route up the north face.

A fast, snag-strewn forest river that Karol Wojtyła paddled long before he was Pope.

Multi-pitch granite routes with proper alpine exposure.

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

Real sea sailing on the Baltic — short steep chop, working ports, and a passage out to Hel and back.

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

Poland's best mountain biking — a purpose-built enduro network cut into the hills above Wisła.

A desert of sand advancing several metres a year on the Baltic coast, which has already buried one village.

Long ridge running with almost nobody else on the trail.

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 tandem flight over the Tatras without any prior experience needed.

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.

A secondary option when the surf wind ruins the waves.

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

Small, undeveloped cave systems away from any tourist infrastructure.