Top 10 Hiking Destinations ➙ New Zealand

There’s no debate.

The Land of the Long White Cloud Aotearoa is by far the single best hiking destination on Earth.

North Island? South Island? Both are great. And both much different.

New Zealand has EVERYTHING a hiker could want.

Rees-Dart Track

New Zealand is insanely great for hikers. It’s safe. It’s clean. Trails are not crowded. It’s terrific for kids.

There’s no risk of altitude sickness as the glaciated peaks are at low elevation.

Best months are mid-November through mid-April for most treks.

More information on our New Zealand information page.

Our favourite tramp in New Zealand is the volcanic Tongariro Circuit. You’ll feel like you’ve entered Mordor in Lord of the Rings.

Click PLAY or watch a 1 minute introduction on YouTube.

See our Tongariro Circuit Information page.

Start planning your New Zealand hiking vacation right now.

‘Coasteering’ = Hiking / Swimming Rocky Coastlines

Coasteering is movement along the intertidal zone of a rocky coastline on foot or by swimming, without the aid of boats, surf boards or other craft.

Coasteering allows a person to move in the “impact zone” between a body of water and the coast where waves, tides, wind, rocks, cliffs, gullies, and caves come together.

The term was first used by Edward C Pyatt as the combination of the words “mountaineering” and “coast” and was adopted by Andy Middleton in Wales in 1985, who then made it a business idea. …

The rocky cliff coasts of western Britain provide the world’s principal location for organised guided coasteering, where it is available from over 100 activity centres. …

Coasteering may be included as one of the disciplines for a stage of an adventure race. …

Read more – UKC – Coasteering: The Wildest Way to Explore the Coast


BestHike – Puez-Odle Altopiano, Dolomites, Italy

One of our top 10 day hikes in the world.

Why?

  • fantastic vistas of jagged Dolomite peaks
  • family friendly as you can get to elevation with a cablecar
  • 9 miles / 14.5 km with 500 m ascent / 1100 m descent
  • Rifugio Puez is a good destination for lunch or hot drinks
  • extend the walk if you have good weather, time and energy
  • there are many more great hikes nearby

World → EuropeDolomites → Italy → Puez-Odle Altopiano

photo by Away On The Road

For details click over to our Puez-Odle Altopiano information page.

Fastpacking Japan’s Hardest Hiking Route

The RAB film In the Footsteps of Banryu follows athletes Jake Baggaley, Aoi Chan, Yusuke Tannaka, and Sam Hill as they attempt to fast pack a route known as the Kamikochi, Yarigatake, and Hotaka Circuit. This path, following knife-edge ridges and climbing jagged peaks …

GearJunkie

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Camping Inside Hang Én, The World’s 3rd Biggest Cave

I’d hoped to sign up for this unique adventure on my upcoming trip to Vietnam.

BUT the only company running the trip shuts down from mid-September until end of November.

Én is the third largest cave in the world, after Hang Sơn Đoòng in the same national park, and Deer Cave in Malaysia.

The cave has its own jungle, waters, beach, and climate.

Details

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Trip report by Indie Traveller:

First explored in 1994, Hang En is now known to be the world’s third-biggest cave. …

First, you have to hike for a half day through the stunning Phong Nha Ke Bang national park. Then, you get to camp in tents set up inside the cave.

When you wake up, you’ll see the first sunlight beaming through the cave entrance.

Making it feel even more special is that the tours to Hang En are kept wonderfully small-scale; only one company is licensed to run expeditions there and they will only take one group of up to 12 people at a time. …

Camping Inside Hang En, The World’s 3rd Biggest Cave

This 2-day ecotourism adventure is easily one of the most epic things I’ve done in Asia



BestHike loves Cortina, Italy

You can see weird and wild limestone spires right from town. Convenient, efficient public transport makes for easy access to trails for hikers of all levels of ability.

One of our top 10 hiking towns in the world.

Cortina d’Ampezzo (German: Hayden) is a town and commune in the southern (Dolomitic) Alps …

The city centre is located at an altitude of 1,224 m …

Cortina is situated more or less to the center of the Ampezzana valley, encircled nearly completely on four sides by the high Dolomites. …

Population (2008) was 6150.

Shop at La Cooperativa di Cortina for gear and trekking food.

More interesting photos tagged Cortina.

La Baita

Our favourite hike hikes in the Dolomites, to mention just a few, are:

• Bocca di Brenta to Molvena
• Over the Nuvolau
• Sciliar through the Catinaccio
• Tre Cime di Lavaredo Circuit

Check our Dolomites information page.

besthike editor Rick McCharles – Tre Cime

Best months for hiking are mid-June to early October.

Check our Dolomites information page.

Apple Watch for Hiking in 2025

Mostly, I use my Apple Watch as a remote for taking PHOTOS and VIDEOS on the trail.

Most of the time, the watch shows a low resolution image so I can better frame the shot.

For example, I took this photo of myself in a Prambanan temple using the watch. Typical range is 33 feet (10 meters) — but I find it varies quite a bit.

One downside ➙ doing this does kill the watch battery quickly. MUST remember to bring the charging cable with me on the hike. 😀

I was inspired by Kurt Papke to better organize how I use my Apple Watch while hiking.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Fever Trees of Borneo by Mark Eveleigh

Mark Eveleigh has been a full-time magazine writer and author for almost 30 years.

A British citizen, he grew up in Ghana and Nigeria and has spent more years based in Spain, South Africa and Indonesia than he ever did in UK.

He’s a badass adventure traveler.

Fever Trees of Borneo: A 2000km expedition through uncharted jungle is terrifying.

‘Sponsored by Heineken (1995) to reach the parts other explorers cannot reach, itinerant traveller Mark Eveleigh sets off on foot and by canoe across the heart of Borneo.

On the way he endures shipwreck, malaria, leeches and exhaustion, not to mention enforced alcohol abuse and barbecued mouse-deer foetus.

Such hardships, you would imagine, might be enough to put a man off his boiled fish and rice, but the author confronts each challenge with a spirit that is as understated as it is refreshing.

All too often travelogues dwell on the downside of discovery, but Mark’s unique blend of enthusiasm and humour is genuinely absorbing and immensely readable.’

– Global Adventure Magazine.

I really enjoyed the book while sailing between Indonesian islands, myself.

The most astonishing takeaway for me, however, is the narrator of the audiobook.

Excellent.

“Narrated by: Virtual Voice” indicates an audiobook that was not narrated by a human, but by an AI-generated voice created by a technology like Amazon’s Virtual Voice on KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing)

This computer-generated speech technology creates audiobooks from ebooks, offering authors a way to produce an audio version at a low cost or no cost. 

The narration quality varies by title, and Audible (and other platforms like Amazon and Alexa) will clearly label these audiobooks and provide samples for listeners to evaluate before purchasing.