ADVENTURE TRAVEL · WORLDWIDE
The Rockies, the rainforest, the northern lights.
Outdoor trips worth crossing the world for. Trekking, white water, glacier lakes and aurora nights, from the Canadian Rockies to northern Thailand to the edge of the Arctic. The adventures worth booking, and what they are really like once you are out there.
Worth the airfare
Three adventures worth crossing the world for.
Trekking and rafting turn up on most continents. Standing under the aurora, washing a rescued elephant in a Thai river, and paddling a glacier-blue lake in the Rockies do not. Build a trip around these three.
Aurora season
Hunting the Northern Lights
You can only chase the aurora from the far north, in the cold half of the year, on a clear night with a guide who knows where the sky is breaking. Tromso runs out under the lights most evenings of winter; Iceland and Finnish Lapland do too. Cold hands, a thermos, and a green ribbon overhead that you do not forget.
- 1 Tromsø: Northern Lights Tour with Free Professional Portrait
- 2 From Reykjavik: Northern Lights Tour
- 3 Chase the Magic of the Northern Lights in Tromsø Norway
Northern Thailand
A Day at an Elephant Sanctuary
In the hills around Chiang Mai, the old logging and trekking camps have given way to sanctuaries where rescued elephants are fed and bathed rather than ridden. You mix their mud, walk them to the river, and spend a morning closer to the largest animal on land than you ever expected. Nowhere else does it at this depth.
- 1 Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting
- 2 Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary & Waterfall Group Tour
- 3 Chiang Mai: Elephant Sanctuary Feeding Program Half-Day Tour
The Canadian Rockies
Banff's Glacier-Blue Lakes
Moraine Lake and Lake Louise are the colour they are because glacial rock-flour hangs in the meltwater. Add the Icefields Parkway, a gondola up Sulphur Mountain, grizzlies on the slopes and canoes on the still water, and Banff is the Rockies at full volume, an hour and a half from Calgary.
- 1 Banff: Banff Gondola Admission Ticket
- 2 Banff: Lake Louise, Moraine, Emerald Lake & Johnston Canyon
- 3 Banff: Lake Minnewanka Cruise
Start here
If you only book one adventure.
More travellers book this than anything else we cover. If you lock in a single trip before you fly, make it this one.
The classics
The Most Popular Adventures Right Now
Elephant mornings, glacier lakes, aurora nights and big-water rafting days. The trips that fill most adventure itineraries.
Where to begin
The experiences a trip gets built around.
Trekking, rafting, aurora, elephants, glaciers and wildlife. The kinds of adventure travellers plan a whole trip around, and the best of each.
When to go
Wherever you are in the year, something’s in season.
The best thing about adventure travel: somewhere is always at its peak right now. Pick the season you can travel, and the map sorts itself out.
Northern Thailand
Chiang Mai, where the jungle starts.
The old walled city sits where the rice plains give way to forested hills, and the days fill themselves: a dawn at an elephant sanctuary, gold temples up Doi Suthep, bamboo rafting and waterfalls in the Mae Wang valley, a cooking class in a farm garden, and the night markets once the heat drops. The cheapest, friendliest base for a first big adventure in Asia.
All Chiang Mai tours and day trips →The Swiss Alps
Interlaken runs on adrenaline.
Wedged between two lakes under the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau, Interlaken is where the Alps get loud. Drop into a slot canyon on a canyoning trip, clip into a via ferrata bolted across a cliff, or rope into the Grimsel and Chli Schliere gorges. When you want the mountains to push back, this is the base.
See the Interlaken trips →Why we do this
The best days have no signal.
There is a moment on every good trip when the bars on your phone drop to nothing, and the day gets a lot bigger. A pass above the treeline, a river too loud to hear yourself think, a ridge with the lights overhead. Unwired is built for that moment: the trips worth switching off for, and the operators who get you to them.
Find your next adventure →Out in the wild
Grizzlies, whales and the wild north.
Half the point of getting outside is what you meet out there. Track grizzlies on the slopes above Banff, watch humpbacks and orca roll through the fjords off Tromso and Reykjavik, and share the trail with moose, reindeer and bald eagles. Wild animals on their own ground, with guides who know where to look and how to keep a respectful distance.
- 1 Banff: Wildlife and Sightseeing Minibus Tour
- 2 Chiang Mai: Night Safari Ticket with Transfer
- 3 Banff: Wildlife on the Bow River Big Canoe Tour
Going up
The view from the top, the easy way.
Not every summit needs to be earned on foot. A gondola up Sulphur Mountain hands you the whole Bow Valley in eight minutes; cable cars across the Alps lift you to glacier terraces and ridgeline cafes; and a chairlift over the jungle canopy is its own kind of thrill. The big view, minus the climb, for the days your legs have had enough.
See all 8 gondola rides →Pick a base
Six corners of the world to start with.
Chiang Mai for the elephants and the jungle. Banff for the Rockies. Tromso for the lights. Interlaken for the canyons. Cusco for the Inca Trail, and Reykjavik for the whales and the ice.
By activity
Or pick how you want to get out there.
On foot if you came to trek. On the water if you came for the rapids. Up high if you came for the views. Plus the elephants, the wildlife, the glaciers, the aurora and the canyons.
Just added