Trips

Dolomites, Italy

Kilimanjaro National Park, Tanzania

Mount Kenya offers classic climbing to all backpackers

Yoho National Park, British Columbia

Planning to climb Mexico's famous volcano Iztaccíhuatl? Start with our online guide.

Try this ultra-scenic route if you attempt North America's third highest peak.

Denali National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Jasper National Park, Alberta

The short but stunning Mahoosuc Range has major-league attractions, like the toughest mile on the Appalachian Trail and conditions that discourage the faint of heart.

When you hike the world's highest peaks in search of the legendary snow leopard, be prepared for the unexpected.

Rather than simply stare at the Great Wall, a determined hiker decided to get a different perspective.

Let rivers and ridgelines be your compass as you hike in the shadow of Alaska's Mt. McKinley.

The Annapurna Circuit is your path to the rooftop of the world.

Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in Massachusetts.

Follow this BACKPACKER reader's tip to get the most out of your candles on the trail.

Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in Texas.

Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in Virginia.

Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in Vermont.

Do you ever have the urge to step off the edge and fly like a bird?

Our comprehensive guide to the best backpacking you can find in New Jersey.

Hike a rugged, historically rich trail for 21 miles along a nearly deserted island off British Columbia's coast.

Camping with kids can plant a wild seed in them that will grow as they do-but only if you get them Out There.

How many miles of trail or acres of wilderness will we sacrifice for a tank of gas? Here's a look at eight threatened wildernesses and what you can do to stop the drilling.

When you're deep in the wilds, a bedraggled stranger wandering into camp triggers a moral dilemma: Offer him dinner or run for the hills?

When bushwacking a trail, go high altitude and stay there.

We know the strength that courses through flesh and bone when standing at a trailhead, ready to set out and practice our primitive art.

For 30 years, some wide-eyed dreamers have been chiseling a 745-mile route through the Canadian Rockies. The result is a labor of love set to become one of North America's most magnificent long trails.

A double lung transplant slows, but doesn't stop, Pacific Crest Trail hiker Dennis Coffey.

Just because it's flat and treeless doesn't mean it's easy hiking.

"With some eagerness, and some anxiety, and some misgiving, we enter the canyon below?." -John Wesley Powell, August 13, 1869

Everything you'd want in a long trail.

Can you tackle our readers' favorite long trail? Test your hiking mettle against the Continental Divide Trail.

Compared with the rough-and-tumble Chilkoot Trail, the Senate is a walk in the park for Ione Christensen.

In the 20 years since the passage of the Alaska Lands Act, nothing has changed in many of the state's wild places. And that's reason to celebrate.

Some well-meaning, leave-no-trace horsepackers are trying to rein in their environmentally uncouth brethren. The question is: can they change practices and attitudes that date back to the wild west days?

Robert Taylor wants African-Americans to know "there's something great out there."

The Appalachian Trail community lost a prominent supporter, volunteer, hiker, and maintainer.

Five troubled teens and three well-meaning volunteers head into the Colorado mountains, hoping the wilds will help heal the youngsters. But in the end, it's hard to tell whose lives were forever shaped by the experience, the youths or the adults.

Why huff and puff to get to an isolated campsite? Simply grab a paddle, then let the current carry you to a secluded riverside trailhead.

Catch rainbows -- trout, that is -- in Rockhouse Basin's rivers, where you're more likely to see a wildcat than another human.

Sometimes walking "backward" is the only way to go in New Hampshire's White Mountains.

If you plan on hiking the European Alps, get ready for some differences across the pond.

If you run into the big white bears, should you be scared?

All along the 23-mile Shenandoah Mountain trail and in the forested areas throughout the Appalachian Mountains, vernal pools are rich aquatic breeding grounds.

With the fervor of a pulpit-pounding evangelist, Ron Strickland has wandered the land, preaching the gospel of the Pacific Northwest Trail he hoped to create.

The bawling in the black night is the spring chorus of hooting barred owls.

The best bird window coincides with the best hiking season in the Chihuahuan Desert.

Vast meadows of wildflowers sprawl across the ridgetops and valley bottoms of the Three Sisters.

Guy Waterman died near the summit of Mount Lafayette, a peak in the White Mountains in northern New Hampshire, on February 6.

In the European high-country Alps you can wander through the most stunning mountains in the world. Vive la difference!

In mountains most hikers don't even know exist, the 150-mile Cohos Trail just waiting to carry you far from the crowds and on to Canada.

Combine white sand beaches and gin-clear water with snow-free highland hiking, and you've got Baja, the perfect midwinter escape.

Appalachian Trail (AT) advocate Edward Garvey, 84, recently died of congestive heart failure at Arlington Hospital in Virginia.

Jim Lockart of Pughtown, Pennsylvania is part of a unique group who have scaled all 50 states' highest peaks.

What happens when you go from sea level to altitude too fast? One brave editor found out the hard way, and offers her blow-by-blow findings in hopes that you don't suffer a similar fate.

Like your first love, you never forget your initial visit to the Arctic.

Hike this gorgeous, mountainous section of Virginia's Appalachian Trail.

With all of the trail options in Pennsylvania's Michaux State Forest, it's hard to pick just one.

Last time you went looking for a new place to hike, you probably consulted a guidebook. We all do. So why is author Michael Kelsey getting lambasted for giving us what we want?

Imagine that your well-coiffed, country club mother calls and says, "I want to go backpacking." Would it be your worst nightmare or a family dream come true?

A once-in-a-lifetime solo hike through Lake Clark National Park, where the midnight sun shines like candlelight on the mountains.

Journey to Alaska's far northern edge, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, where the midnight sun shines like candlelight on the mountains.

Looking for a really wild time? Grab your passport and head to Canada, where the mountains are big, the views stretch beyond your imagination, and you can't fling a moose pellet without hitting some kind of wildlife.

Who says the Appalachian Trail has to stop in Maine? Certainly not some plucky Canadians, who're extending the long-trail concept 600 more miles into their homeland.

Sometimes a place is so magnificent that it burns itself into your soul and overrides all sensation-even the urge to heave up your guts.

If you like stunning mountains, challenging trails, breathtaking scenery and warm temperatures in winter, New Zealand is your ticket to paradise. Just watch out for the thieving parrots.

We travel to New Mexico's Aldo Leopold Wilderness to understand the roots of the preservation movement and see just how far we've come.

The 10 once-in-a-lifetime adventures any backwoods fanatic should have under his hipbelt before hanging up the ol' pack.

The 50-mile-long Massanutten range in Virginia may be D.C.'s top-secret hiking getaway.

Grab your passport and follow these 25 hikes where wild winds Blow, strange animals roam, and even the alpenglow adds to the adventure.

Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante is huge, remote, controversial, and one of the finest destinations for backpackers in the Lower 48.

Some say Goat Rocks Wilderness has the best scenery along the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail. Decide for yourself.

The bison are relics from the past, and the wolves know no fear. Welcome to Wood Buffalo National Park, where time stands still and the land shrugs off man's attempts to alter its primitive spirit.

At the edge of the world, Canada's Algonquin Provincial Park offers a window to the past.

Get lost on Georgia's Duncan Ridge Trail.

The host of BACKPACKER's television show gives us a peek inside.

When it came to continent crossing, the noted U.S. explorers were a step behind Canada's Alexander Mackenzie. And until you hike his namesake trail, you can't truly appreciate the toughness of his journey or the magnitude of his accomplishment.

A classic story from the winter 1975 issue of Backpacker.