Life.Culture.Discovery.

8 hikes to get your heart pounding, from Nepal’s Annapurna Circuit to the Inca Trail in Peru

Wave goodbye to the festive season and stretch your legs with a brisk walk through some spectacular scenery

Vietnam and Taiwan offer hill walks of varying difficulties, while Iceland’s trails take in many of the nation’s greatest hits

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Hikers walk past rice terraces during a trek from Sapa to Lao Chai, in Vietnam. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 6:00pm, 25 Jan 2020Updated: 7:14pm, 25 Jan 2020

Once the Lunar New Year celebrations are behind us, marking the end of the festive season, it might be time to consider a walking holiday. Blow away the Christmas cobwebs by limbering up with a few stages of the MacLehose or Lantau trails, then venture further afield, to where the skies are deep blue and the air tastes like champagne.

Here are eight hikes, treks and pilgrimages that will get your heart pounding, blood pumping and lungs burning. Some are day walks, others feature overnight accommodation. None involve camping on a freezing mountaintop with sleet blowing in sideways.

The former French hill station of Sapa, in northern Vietnam, is the gateway to a stunning region of rice paddies and rugged peaks, steep valleys and sleepy villages inhabited by members of ethnic minority groups, including the Hmong and Dao. Give the weather another month or two to warm up and hit the hills sometime between March and June.

Hiking independently is safe and there are lots of marked trails but hiring a local guide will bring places to life and won’t break the bank. If possible, opt for a longer trek, as the best part of the experience is the village homestay accommodation. If your hosts like you, they will break open a bottle of home-made rice wine. If they don’t, they will open a second bottle.

Pilgrims climb up to the Cruz de Hierro (“iron cross”) on the Camino de Santiago, in Spain. Photo: Shutterstock

The Camino de Santiago is an 800km Christian pilgrimage through the emerald countryside of southwest France and northern Spain. According to legend, the body of Spain’s patron saint, James the Apostle, is housed in Santiago de Compostela’s cathedral, elevating the city’s status and sowing the seeds of the pilgrimage tourism industry.