Good in September

A week in the northern Serengeti timed to the migration, watching a million wildebeest decide to cross.

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

The single most photographed viewpoint in Norway.

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

The high route across Poland's only alpine terrain — chains, ladders, and the top of the country at 2,499 m.

The visual shorthand for the entire Alps.

Three weeks from Yosemite to the summit of Mount Whitney, over eight passes and mostly above the treeline.

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.

Fourteen days between the two great alpine towns, under eighteen of the twenty highest peaks in the Alps.

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.

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

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

Seven days on the high ridge from Kamikochi to Tsurugi, sleeping in mountain huts that serve rice at altitude.

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

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 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.

Six days across a volcanic plateau with no villages, no huts worth the name, and brown bears that live there.

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

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.

Four days over the great notch between Yari and Hotaka — chains, ladders and a knife-edge with a thousand metres either side.

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

Three days on Japan's most feared non-technical peak, up chain-hung slabs with names like Crab's Vertical Climb.

Forty kilometres and 3,776 vertical metres from a beach in Shizuoka to the summit — the whole mountain, from zero.

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.

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.

Eight days in Europe's last true wilderness — no trails, no huts, no bridges, no phone signal.

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

Five days over Japan's second and fourth highest peaks, on a range far emptier than the north.

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

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.

The unmarked high route from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, done in sections or all forty-five days of it.

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.

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

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.

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

Small, undeveloped cave systems away from any tourist infrastructure.