An overnight somewhere local can be an unforgettable experience, but there’s much to be said about furthering your horizons and checking out backpacking options more out of the way. The world is full of beautiful backcountry begging to be explored!
The Chenjiapu Great Wall
This trail near Yanqing, in Beijing, is considered by most to be a moderately challenging route. It takes just under two hours to complete on average and is excellent for walking, camping, and hiking. It’s an excellent option if you’re not a fan of company when you’re backpacking since it’s highly unlikely you’ll encounter many other people here.
The John Muir Trail
The John Muir Trail will take you through what many people consider to be some of America’s most magnificent mountain scenery. You’re looking at an area that boasts canyons, granite cliffs, peaks of up to 14 000 feet, and thousands of lakes, all in one of the mildest, sunniest climates of a major mountain range worldwide.
The three weeks it takes to complete the John Muir Trail from Yosemite Valley to Mount Whitney in California will change you forever.
The O Circuit
The Torres del Paine National Park’s O Circuit in Chilean Patagonia is a wonderful hiking adventure. The route’s scenery is fantastic, filled with diverse wildlife, gorgeous waterfalls, strange mountains, stunning viewpoints, and turquoise lakes aplenty. The route shows hikers the highlights but also incorporates off-the-beaten-track aspects.
Backpacking in Torres del Paine will give you the chance to explore some of South America’s most beautiful places in between six and 10 days.
The Routeburn Track
New Zealand’s Routeburn Track may be a shorter, multi-day hike, but it has a lot of marvellous scenery for backpackers to take in. Think soaring mountain peaks, deep valleys, gorgeous waterfalls, and serene lakes.
It takes three days and two nights to complete, and you’ll be able to experience the proliferation of birdlife during the track’s forested sections. including bellbirds, fantails, robins, tomtits, and wood pigeons. You may even be able to spot a kea, the only alpine parrot in the world!
The Salkantay Trek
This is a sublime alternative to The Inca Trail, the better-known, traditional route to Machu Picchu. It’s more challenging as well as more remote and less crowded. The Salkantay Trail is popular with backpackers because it connects Cusco, the ancient Incan capital, to the astonishing wonder that is Machu Picchu.
It takes between four and six days to complete but there are extensions that can turn this adventure into an eight-day odyssey that winds through the Peruvian Andes as well.
It’s Bucket-List Time
One of the many benefits of backpacking is that it gives you the opportunity to travel far and wide and see a lot of what the world has to offer at a lower price than traditional travel. This means you can keep aside more money for NZ gambling online – and if you win big, you could even travel more.
With proper planning, the necessary budget, and relevant backpacking experience, you can tick one, or all, of these incredible backpacking routes off your List of Must-Dos. What are you waiting for?