Tsetserleg

Hiking in Portugal is rewarding almost any time of year — except summer, when the southwest coast bakes under a fierce Atlantic sun and the Algarve interior offers next to no shade. Spring, autumn and winter are Portugal's real hiking seasons, precisely when the Alps are either shut or snow-covered and the Pyrenees are still cold. That makes it an ideal destination for British and American walkers looking for a long-distance trail outside the crowded summer months. Portugal has five distinct hiking landscapes: the wild Atlantic coastline of the southwest, the quiet cork-oak hills and white villages of the Algarve interior, the subtropical levada network of Madeira, the volcanic island trails of the Azores, and the ancient pilgrimage routes of the north. On our multi-day routes, we arrange your accommodation in advance, add luggage transport wherever the route allows, and give you the Bookatrekking app with an offline GPS track per stage. Browse all our walking trips in Portugal or read on for the honest, region-by-region guide.

The Peaks of the Balkans Trail connects Albania, Kosovo and Montenegro in a single circular hike through the Accursed Mountains, a remote corner of the Western Balkans where shepherd paths cross three national borders. Each day ends at a family guesthouse in an isolated valley, far from tourist crowds. If you are considering the Tour du Mont Blanc or the Alta Via 1 and want something rawer and quieter, this is the trail to compare. This guide answers the four questions most hikers ask first: how hard is it, guided or self-guided, how does the permit work, and when should you go. At Bookatrekking, our local partner handles the Cross Border Permits, all guesthouse bookings and the necessary transfers, whether you travel with a guide or with a digital travel guide and interactive maps.

When it comes to walking holidays, Europe gives you more choice than any other continent. Summer glaciers in the Alps, Atlantic coast paths open in January, ancient pilgrimage roads you can start any week of the year. The problem is not finding a route. It is choosing the right one for your season, your available days and your fitness level. This page does something different from a standard top-20 list. Every route comes with the key facts from our own itinerary data, an honest difficulty rating and a clear note on when it runs. Seventeen of the twenty routes are bookable through Bookatrekking as a self-guided package: we arrange the accommodation along the route, and you walk at your own pace with the Bookatrekking app showing the route per stage and the current weather forecast for each hut or guesthouse. Three routes — Coast to Coast, Biokovo and Mount Elbrus — are not currently in our range, and we say so clearly. Difficulty follows four levels, used consistently across all twenty routes: Easy (flat or gently rolling, accommodation in villages), Moderate (long days or steady climbs, no technical terrain), Challenging (significant daily elevation in mountain terrain), Demanding (alpine terrain, sure footing required, sometimes chains or scrambling). Use this seasonal split as your first filter: Summer mountains (roughly mid-June to mid-September): Tour du Mont Blanc, Stubaier Höhenweg, Alta Via 1, Palaronda, Alta Via del Granito, Kesch Trek, Triglav, Porta del Cel and the GR20. These are the routes to book in winter, because the huts fill up first. Spring to autumn: the GR221 on Mallorca, the Dingle Way, the West Highland Way, the Moselsteig and Mount Olympus. October to April, the southern flank: Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Fisherman's Trail in Portugal and the Camino de Santiago, which you can walk all year. For a full explanation of how a self-guided walking holiday works, see our dedicated guide.