Walk your way to inner peace, worldwide
As a bipedal species, we’re meant to walk, even though we often spend hours seated at a desk. Walking is known to have a vast array of mental and physical benefits and the combination of good walking-shoes, pleasant company and a well-deserved long-haul travel destination can take you to wonderful new places while making you healthier and happier. Hendrik du Preez, Vice President Sales – Africa at Qatar Airways shares a few favourites.
The Inca Trail, Peru: You have a choice of several routes, but most are around four-days covering 45kms. Depending on your choice, you’ll pass through cloud-forests festooned with orchids and the vertiginous Dead Woman’s Pass. All the hikes end with a breath-taking view of Machu Picchu, one of the world’s most important archaeological site. You’ll need to be fit, but you’ll also be helped by guides, porters and cooks.
North Sumatra (The trail starts at Medan, Indonesia): Medan is famed for its historic architecture and street-food, and a good base for the seven-day trek into the Guning Leuser National Park and its rainforests (home to elephants, tigers, rhinoceros and orang-utans), the volcano at Mount Sibayak in Berastagi, and then relax at Lake Toba, one of the world’s biggest crater lakes. Du Preez’s tip: Bookend your hike with Indonesia’s famed street food, like the many sotos or traditional broths. Du Preez suggests soto padang, combining beef, galangal, bay leaves, makrut lime leaves, cloves, star anise, salt, sugar, and white pepper, garlic, coriander, salt, white pepper, garlic, hot peppers, turmeric, ginger, chili sauce, ground hot peppers and sugar.
Tour du Mont Blanc, France, Switzerland and Italy: Ostensibly a challenging 170km route through dazzling Alpine scenery, your journey is made easier by the multitude of refuges (well-equipped mountain-huts) offering hearty home-cooked meals and the company of other hikers. The refuges mean you need carry only limited equipment. Some walkers complete the route in nine days, but extending that to twelve allows you time to rest and enjoy the champagne-like air and vast vistas.
Landmannalaugar to Thórsmörk, Iceland: The primal, almost alien geothermal landscape of Iceland means your four-day, 55km route is punctuated by mountain-peaks in yellow, purple, green and red, as well as glaciers and hot springs. The countryside looks otherworldly because it was mostly created by forces far within Earth’s surface: a massive volcanic eruption in 1499. The names of some landmarks reflect this: Brennisteinsalda (“Sulphur Wave”), Bláhnjúkur (“Blue Peak”) and Ljótipollur crater lake (“Ugly Puddle”).
West Coast Trail, Canada: Many walkers complete the trek from Pachena Bay to Gordon River on the fabulously beautiful Vancouver Island in seven days. It’s definitely for the hardy hiker, with no facilities and with gullies to cross, rivers to ford, ladders to clamber and the prospect of sudden weather changes and the sudden arrival of bears. The reward? North America at its rugged, pristine finest.
Peaky Blinders Walking Tour, Birmingham: The fascinating city is rightly proud of its heritage as a powerhouse of Britain’s Industrial Revolution and while it’s renowned as one of Britain’s friendliest cities, along with its sporting, cultural and gastronomic attractions, its working-class roots are also evident. The hugely successful TV series may have taken some liberties around historical accuracy (The gang did exist, but not the Shelby family), the tour is enormous fun: So, by order of the Peaky Blinders, stroll along the canals and sip a pint in The Old Crown, where many scenes from the series were shot.
