Islands are much more than beaches and palm trees. Throughout my travels, I’ve found them to be places where rare adventures thrive—their isolation lets time and tradition hew experiences you won’t find on the mainland.

While everyone’s idea of an island paradise is different (no judgment if you’re a “feet-up-by-the-pool” type), I’m drawn to islands that push me into new adventures. I love a place where I can hike down into a canyon one day and dive over coral the next, then experience a culture completely foreign to me—like riding around town on a motorbike in Vietnam, swapping sake pours in Japan, or trying (and failing) to cut swirls in a miniature pineapple in Mauritius. From one under a rainforest canopy to another deepening into a cave system, each island I’ve ever explored offers the opportunity to make memories as unique as its coastline.

Whether you’re seeking hidden hikes, rock-climbing crags, or ski slopes with ocean views, or just want to unwind on the perfect beach, this list has you covered. These wild isles are truly among the best and most beautiful in the world.

United States

1. Channel Islands, California

Five of the six Channel Islands—Anacapa, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Miguel, and Santa Rosa—form Channel Islands National Park, among one of the country’s least-visited (50th out of 63 total). A ferry ride, taking anywhere from one to four hours depending on your chosen isle, transports you into a landscape of sweeping Pacific views, open prairies, and sawtooth mountains.

Take the path less traveled on a 14-mile-round-trip day hike, , which ends in a sloping beach swamped in pinnipeds, where I arrived to the deafening roar of hundreds of seals and sea lions. (Be sure not to leave the actual hiking path on this particular island—the detritus from mid-century military exercises means unexploded ordnance still poses a risk in uncleared areas.)

If you choose to stay the night anywhere in the park, whether backcountry or at a more accessible site, the reward is the same: a California sky untouched by light pollution.

Alone outside of the national park is Catalina Island, where wild buffalo graze the hillsides, having long ago been left behind from a Golden Age film shoot. Here you can trek the stunning , a rugged through hike marked by desert scrub and ocean views.

Offshore, gray whales breach in winter and blue whales glide through in summer, turning the sea into a stage for nature’s greatest performances. Beneath the surface, the waters teem with life.

Each island is distinct. At Catalina’s Casino Point, step into underwater worlds from the stairs that drop straight into the sea, where kelp forests house garibaldi and (if you get a lucky day like I did) enormous sea bass.

Divers encounter a giant sea bass meandering through Casino Point’s kelp forest. Video: Alexandra Gillespie.

Or hop aboard a to see the wonders of Anacapa, where Spanish shawl nudibranch and California sheephead move through towering kelp forests. On Santa Cruz, you can explore sea caves by kayak. Park visitors who have a can enjoy the spoils of the sea: No scallop has ever tasted better than the one I pried from a rock off the shore of San Miguel, carrying it several miles uphill in a drybag full of seawater to fry in ghee at sunset.

2. Kauaʻi, Hawai

In Kauaʻi, nature reigns supreme. With 90 percent of its lush rainforests, jagged cliffs, and hidden beaches inaccessible by car, this wild paradise demands to be explored by foot, in a kayak, or from the sky.

Along the Na Pali Coast, hike the legendary 11-mile , which clings to cliffs that drop into the turquoise Pacific. Then the Wailua River, slipping through dense rainforest to . Maybe strap in for a through jungle canopies or centuries-old tunnels carved into volcanic rock.

For surfers, KauaÊ»i is a siren call. Each winter, legendary breaks transform into rushing walls of water, testing even the most seasoned wave riders, while summer swells mellow out and welcome beginning surfers. Rookies can also cut their teeth at the gentle rollers of PoÊ»ipĆ« or find their rhythm on the dependable waves of Kealia Beach. Thrill-seekers chase dangerous, heavy reef breaks far from the crowds at Shipwreck Beach and Polihale.

Dive into Poipu’s crystal waters to swim with sea turtles, or soar over the rolling peaks of Waimea Canyon in a . At night, seek the traditional experience of Kauai at a luau, where a vibrant culture comes alive through music and dance.

3. Isle Royale, Michigan

Isle Royale strips nature down to its raw essentials on hiking trails through lofty forests and endless vistas of water. Situated in the cold, clear clutches of Lake Superior, this 98-percent untamed Isle Royale National Park in my home state is a haven for adventurers from spring through fall. Hike the 40-mile for sweeping views that make you feel like you’ve reached the edge of the world. Or dive deep beneath the surface of the lake, exploring the eerie wrecks of the 525-foot steel freighter the Emperor or the 328-foot Glenlyon—haunting reminders of Lake Superior’s power.

Gray wolves and moose roam freely, a restless dance of predator and prey subject to an of the volatile population dynamics.

The night sky is a celestial masterpiece unmarred by city lights. Stargazing at Scoville Point might even reward you with the sight of the elusive Northern Lights.

Whether you’re fishing for trout, paddling serene waters, or standing in quiet awe, Isle Royale demands that you lose yourself in its wild interior.

South America

4. Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, Chilean and Argentine Patagonia

Tierra del Fuego, a land of jagged peaks, windswept coasts, and staggering beauty, is the last whisper of the world before Antarctica. Hike along the Beagle Channel on the Senda Costera, or push yourself on the steep for awe-inspiring views of mountains plunging into icy waters. The bold can tackle the Dientes de Navarino Trail—one of the most southerly trekking routes in the world.

In Tierra del Fuego National Park, guanacos graze, condors soar, and dolphins cut through glassy bays. Take a ride on the Train at the End of the World, along a picturesque four-mile stretch of the world’s southernmost railroad, which was initially built for prisoner transport.

Guanacos in Chilean Patagonia, north of Tierra del Fuego in Valle Chacabuco, Parque Nacional Patagonia. (Video: Alison Osius)

Stir history into your trip at Estancia Harberton, a run by the fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-generation members of the first permanent European missionaries to arrive here, an experience that offers a window into early YĂĄmana-settler relationships.

During winter (June through October), carve fresh powder at Cerro Castor, Argentina’s southernmost ski resort, or strap in to go and .

Caribbean Sea

5. Dominica

Dominica is unspoiled and unforgettable. Lace up your boots for the 115-mile , the longest hiking trail in the Caribbean, through thriving rainforests, soaring waterfalls, and misty peaks. Then trek to , a cauldron of steaming water in the jungle, where you can soak in natural volcanic hot springs and mud baths.

For water enthusiasts, Dominica recently unveiled a groundbreaking 32-nautical-mile kayak trail encircling the island—a six-day journey through pristine waters. You can snorkel or dive at , where volcanic springs bubble up through the ocean floor, creating an underwater celebration.

Whale watching here is more than a distant boat sighting. It’s an in-water encounter, as Dominica is home to a . The experience of snorkeling alongside these gentle behemoths is said to be nothing short of transformative.

6. Bay Islands, Honduras

The Bay Islands are three gems of organic beauty and underwater wonders: RoatĂĄn, Utila, and Guanaja. Hike through the Carambola Botanical Gardens and Nature Trails on RoatĂĄn, over 40 acres of tropical forests to sweeping views of the sea, or summit Pumpkin Hill on Utila for a quick, rewarding climb with vistas clear to the horizon. The islands’ rich biodiversity, from tropical birds to marine life, embraces you.

These islands are a diver’s paradise. Whale sharks—gentle giants bigger than school buses—glide through the depths from March and April and October to December, while the Halliburton wreck sits ever-waiting, and another site offers radiant coral reef. Kayakers can lose themselves in the or paddle through the peaceful waters of RoatĂĄn’s West End, where the only company is the song of birds and the soft splash of paddles.

Asia

7. CĂĄt BĂ  Island, Vietnam

My memories of CĂĄt BĂ  Island are faded Polaroids, worn and softened at the edges. Even after half a dozen years, I still revisit my physical and mental snapshots from my time on that rugged, beautiful island in one of my favorite countries.

Lan Ha Bay is Cát Bà Island’s crown jewel, where imposing limestone karsts bursting out of jade-green water craft an otherworldly landscape. Think Ha Long Bay, but without the crowds. You can kayak through hidden lagoons and drift past the region’s . When I visited in 2018, it cost a grand total of $80 to charter a private boat tour for two, and the price included a kayak excursion. can choose from among nearly or go rogue with deep-water soloing, dropping into the sea if they fall or choosing whether to jump from the top.

Inland, beneath the island’s surface, whisper haunting stories of war, and a bombproof hospital used during the American War (or, as we call it stateside, the Vietnam War) still stands as a museum.

Topside, the 102-square mile CĂĄt BĂ  National Park covers a third of the island, with trails that snake through jungles, up mist-shrouded peaks, and across wildlife-rich terrain. Hike 1.5 near-vertical, damp miles to the top of for sweeping views (I found the slippery rocks worth the risk of a tweaked ankle), or take on the challenging Ao Ech route through the rainforest to the remote Viet Hai Village.

When it’s time to unwind, grab a ferry to nearby Monkey Island, where aggressive monkeys provide a good laugh on the beach—or hike there from the other side of the island after a night at , which served a fresh seafood barbecue I still dream of.

8. Taiwan

In Taiwan, adventure collides with jaw-dropping landscapes and a lively culture. Start with its hikes: explore the marble cliffs of Taroko Gorge, or take in the sunrise over ancient forests in Alishan. For a city-side thrill, climb and view Taipei’s skyline with the famed skyscraper Taipei 101 piercing the clouds.

Taiwan’s untamed mountains, like Jade Mountain—at nearly 13,000 feet the region’s highest peak, located in Yushan National Park—invite trekkers to rise above the clouds, where Formosan black bears roar and rare birds like the endemic mikado pheasant pass by.

If the sea is calling your name, head south to , where coral reefs hum with life beneath the waves, or catch the surf at Jialeshui Beach. Cyclists can carve through the countryside on routes that loop around famed , or push through the rolling hills of the . For the sandstone cliffs at soar above crashing waves.

Europe

9. Lofoten Islands, Norway

Sculpted by glaciers and smoothed by icy waters, Lofoten is an ideal Nordic isle for adventurers. In summer, hike the spine of the island chain on the 99-mile , climb Reinebringen for panoramic views of a lifetime, or like the four-mile Justadtinden. For a real challenge, tackle the highest peaks like , or keep it mellow with shorter routes like , where every view is postcard worthy.

Though known for unpredictable weather year-round, the islands are driest and get drenched in October. This dry season also has the longest daylight hours, averaging seven to eight a day. You’ll experience the Midnight Sun from May to mid-July. In contrast, Polar Night—when the sun does not crest the horizon for more than 24 hours—extends from early December to early January, and coincides with high precipitation levels.

From mid-January through March, trade hiking boots for skis and carve down slopes that plunge toward shimmering fjords. Ski resorts like Lofoten Ski Lodge offer powder runs with ocean views that no other ski destination can match. If you’d rather be on the water, paddle through majestic fjords framed by snow-capped mountains, or go deeper and in the icy seas Vikings once fished.

And if you’re here from October to January, shimmy into a dry suit and as they hunt herring in the cold, clear fjords—for a raw, heart-pounding encounter with the ocean’s top predator. As night falls, look up: the often set the sky ablaze in a kaleidoscope of green and purple (especially in October or January to mid March).

10. SĂŁo Miguel, Azores, Portugal

SĂŁo Miguel is a volcanic playground set adrift in the Atlantic. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű pulses through its hidden trails, arching waves, and steaming hot springs.

Hike the craggy ridges of Sete Cidades, where twin sapphire lakes glisten below kayakers, or meander on the winding paths to the crater lake of Lagoa do Fogo. Brave the canyon walls of Ribeira dos CaldeirÔes, into hidden pools, or skip through into the clear waters off Vila Franca do Campo, where whales and dolphins . The surfing in Portugal is more than the 100-foot waves at Nazaré: Experienced surfers can tackle the powerful swells at Praia de Ribeira Grande on São Miguel.

São Miguel is also a place to savor. When you’re ready to slow down, sip your way through Gorreana, Europe’s only tea plantation, where the salty ocean air infuses every leaf. Then sink into the mineral-rich hot springs at Furnas, where the earth itself simmers beneath your feet, or wander through the botanical paradise of Terra Nostra Park, home to over 600 different types of camellias, one of the largest collections in the world. End the day with Cozido das Furnas—a local stew , a culinary experience as raw and earthy as the island itself.

11. Corsica, France

Corsica is an adventure where mountains, sea, and sky meet.

For the hardcore hiker, the through Corsica’s craggy ridges, where granite peaks and expansive vistas remind you of just how small you are. But there’s something for everyone—take the family on a coastal stroll at Cap Corse or stand in awe at the serrated spires of Aiguilles de Bavella. Climbers on the red cliffs of will revel in Mediterranean views.

Corsica’s waters are as clear as glass. Dive into the , a UNESCO World Heritage site, where cliffs plunge into an underwater world brimming with life such as crabs, bottlenose dolphins, and over 450 different seaweeds. Paddle along the Gulf of Porto and uncover hidden coves or snorkel over vibrant reefs at .

Even in winter, Corsica keeps calling. for views that stretch to the sea, or hit the runs at Ghisoni where seven slopes stretch before you.

Oceana

12. Moorea, French Polynesia

Moorea is a paradise that stitches the seam between lush peaks and crystalline seas. Hike through changing canvases, from the steep, thrilling climbs of Mount Rotui—offering dual bay views—to the rainforest-draped paths of the . For those seeking a quick yet rewarding trek, the two-mile Magic Mountain trail rises more than 1,300 feet to unveil a panorama in turquoise waters. Zip line adventures at Tiki Parc offer another bird’s-eye view of the verdant landscape.

But the true wonders of Moorea are beneath its waves. The island’s clear lagoons are snorkeling sanctuaries where colorful reefs flourish. Kayak in waters so pure you can see the ocean floor through the bottom of your transparent vessel, or get up close and personal with reefs diving . Moorea brings you face-to-face with the ocean’s gentle giants, whether it’s watching resident dolphins play in the wake of a boat or witnessing the majestic humpback whales.

Africa

13. Zanzibar, Tanzania

Zanzibar is a crossroads of the senses. Beneath its turquoise waters, the reefs come alive—dive , where the marine biodiversity rivals that of any aquarium, or explore Nungwi’s sprawling coral gardens. For the more adventurous, offers out-of-the-way dives where dolphins twirl through the currents and reef sharks glide by in silent elegance.

Above the waves, the consistent winds and shallow waters at Paje Beach make for a , drawing aficionados from around the world. And far, far above the waves, soar over lush terrain as the Indian Ocean glimmers ahead, offering rare shoreline landings on white sands.

Prefer something more tranquil? along Zanzibar’s serene coastlines through mangroves and lagoons that feel untouched by time.

But Zanzibar is more than its beaches—it’s alive with history. In Stone Town, a Swahili coastal trading town with UNESCO status, every corner is a story. Stop at the Old Fort, get lost in the buzz of Darajani Market, or taste the island’s blend of Swahili, Arab, and Indian flavors on a .

Alexandra Gillespie is a freelance writer covering water and outdoor travel. From Mauritius to Mackinac, islands hold a special place in her heart—if you need a boat to get there, she’s game. She was previously the digital editor of Scuba Diving magazine. Her most recent stories for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű include “The 12 Most Beautiful Scuba Diving Destinations in the World,” “Gear-Testing Trips That Let You Try Before You Buy,” and “Stockton Rush, the Pilot of Missing Titanic Sub, Told șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Why He Kept Going Back.”

The post The 13 Best Islands in the World for Outdoor șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

One of the most biodiverse places on the planet, Costa Rica is a carefully preserved paradise for adventure travelers. The country’s government has protected one quarter of its land by designating parks, refuges, and reserves, and safeguarded approximately 30 percent of its marine area, too.

I first started traveling to Costa Rica nearly two decades ago, drawn to its then sleepy, surf-swept Pacific coast. As more people started to discover the pura vida vibes of laid-back beach towns like Malpais and Nosara, I ventured further inland and visited the wildlife-packed natural parks and cloud forests in the north. More recently, I scoped out the Caribbean coast, home to stellar waves, snorkel spots, and hiking trails, and a totally distinct culture—food, music, architecture—that made me feel like I was rediscovering a country I thought I knew.

On my latest trip last year, I hiked the country’s 174-mile, coast-to-coast with outfitter (from $565). This cross-country trail is the ultimate showcase for Costa Rica’s cultural and natural diversity, crossing four provinces and seven microclimates. (If you don’t have time to complete the entire 16-day hike, you can piece together an itinerary that delivers just as much variety in a shorter time frame.)

Bottom line: I don’t think I’ll ever tire of traveling to Costa Rica. From kayaking freshwater canals and surfing barrel waves to zip lining through clouded forests and scuba diving colorful reefs, Costa Rica offers the best adventure travel options. Here’s a cheat sheet to experiencing the country’s highlights, including six must-know tips from a local expert if you’ve never been before.

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Map of Costa Rica: Regions and National Parks to Visit

This interactive map of Costa Rica highlights the country’s diverse regions, and pinpoints each national park I mention below—all musts for first-time visitors. (Map: Erin McKnight)

Costa Rica Travel: A Word on Getting Around

Newbies should know that most of the country’s coolest spots require a car to get there. You can rent one at airports for a DIY road trip, or hire a driver to take you from region to region. Below, I share both flight and car options to reach each of destination. Plus, how renting the right rig and interpreting weather forecasts can dramatically impact your experience. Now, to the good stuff.

Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast

Surf swept coastline, laid back beach towns, and intensely biodiverse protected areas—both on land and at sea—make this one of the most popular areas for adventure.

Where to Go in the Nicoya Peninsula

Nosara

One of five official Blue Zones, geographically designated areas people statistically live longer, the Nicoya Peninsula offers an endless choice of dreamy beach towns including Santa Teresa, Malpais, and Manzanillo. But, Nosara stands out for its long, wide, golden sand beach, Playa Guiones, which has perfect waves for longboarding. You’ll find countless surf schools, including ($8,300 per week including room and meals), (lessons from $125; board rentals from $25 for a half-day) and (lessons from $120; week-long retreats from $5,642), where you can finesse your pop up or have a guide take you wave hunting up the coast. And there are plenty of delicious restaurants to refuel you, like (its fish tacos are a must).

How to Get There: Guanacaste’s Daniel Oduber QuirĂłs International Airport, also known as Liberia International Airport (LIR) is roughly 2.5 hours by car. Juan SantamarĂ­a International Airport (SJO) in San JosĂ© is a five to six hour drive.

Where to Stay: Family-friendly is a five-minute walk to Playa Guiones and has its own surf club and school and offers mountain bike rentals and tours (from $168 per night).

Where to Go in the Osa Peninsula

Corcovado National Park

Located in the southernmost region on the Pacific coast, Corcovado National Park packs 2.5 percent of the world’s biodiversity into .001 percent of its surface area. The country’s largest park covers more than 30 percent of the Osa Peninsula and protects mammals like the two and three-toed sloths, cougar, and giant anteaters, birds like the endangered Baird’s tapir, several types of hummingbirds, and one of the largest populations of scarlet macaws, and some 220 species of butterflies. Trails range from the mellow .8-mile out-and-back Quebrada San Pedro that leads to a view of a waterfall to the day-long, 6.3-mile out-and-back La Leona Madrigal, a bird watcher’s dream with epic sea views.

How to Get There: Sansa Airlines has daily 50-minute flights from San José to Puerto Jiménez airstrip (PJM). The drive from San José is around seven hours.

Where to Stay: Founded in 1993, is often called Costa Rica’s original eco-lodge. Rooms are nestled amidst the treetops of a 1,000-acre private reserve of Central America’s last remaining tropical lowland rainforest that skirts the park boundary (from $823 per night).

Where to Go in the Central Pacific

Manuel Antonio National Park

This seven-square-mile protected area combines beautiful beaches, rainforests, and wildlife. The resort town of the same name has all the amenities you’d want from an access point to such pristine nature. Wide, golden beaches including Escondido Beach, Manuel Antonio Beach, and Espadilla Sur can be reached via the main, 1.3-mile flat trail. The government recently capped daily visitors at 1,200 people and you must . The park is closed Tuesdays.

How to Get There: From San JosĂ© it’s a three-hour drive or a 20-minute flight on Sansa to the gateway town of Quepos (XQP).

Where to Stay: Splurge on a stay at , a sustainable, community-minded resort set on an 11-acre, trail-laced, private nature reserve. After a ten-minute walk from the property, a short trail unfurls to the north end of the beach, and the resort’s team of naturalists took me on nature walks to point out sloths and fiery-billed aracari (from $610 per night).

Marino Ballena National Park

One of the country’s newest national parks has a distinctive whale’s tail shape and is committed to conserving the marine systems within its boundaries. Twice a year (mid-July to October and December to March) humpback whales migrate to these waters. Book a whale-watching tour with (from $78). The local outfitter also offers snorkeling tours to Isla de Caño, which lies just outside of the protected area but promises sightings of dolphins, turtles, and colorful fish. hosts camps (one week from $1,795) and one-off surf lessons (from $65) at beach breaks in the park. The park has four entrance points, but head to Uvita—the main gateway to Whale Tail Beach where boat tours depart.

How to Get There: From San JosĂ© it’s around a four-hour drive or connect via a 20-minute flight on Sansa to Quepos, then drive one hour.

Where to Stay: Perched high atop a steep hill, has unparalleled views of Uvita town and the national park from its eight suites, open-air restaurant, and infinity pool (from $788 per night). And the more affordable in Uvita has just 12 rooms, each with terraces from which guests can spot hummingbirds and toucans (from $155 per night).

Costa Rica’s Caribbean Coast

The less trodden east coast offers all of the natural beauty—wildlife-filled rainforests, virgin beaches—of the west, but has fewer crowds and a distinct Afro-Caribbean culture. Expect to hear Patois spoken alongside Spanish, dance to Calypso music, and dine on Jamaican-influenced cuisine like saltfish fritters and rondon, a rich coconut stew.

Where to Go in the Northern Caribbean

Tortuguero National Park

This nearly 50,000-acre patchwork of canals, lagoons, dense jungle, thick mangrove forest, and beaches on the northern Caribbean Coast often draws comparisons to the Amazon. The name is a nod to the thousands of turtles that nest on its shores, mainly from July through October. In addition to leatherback, loggerhead, hawksbill, and green sea turtles, you can see around 400 species of birds, including toucans and spoonbills, 60 some species of mammals, and over 100 reptiles. Within hours of a recent visit, I ticked off sightings of capuchin monkeys, a sloth, red dart frogs, howler monkeys, and the emerald basilisk. A night boat tour along the canals revealed the glowing eyes of crocodiles, a coiled boa in a tree, and my eagle-eyed guide spotted a common potoo camouflaged in a cluster of broken branches.

How to Get There: The park can only be accessed by boat or plane. From San José, you can drive two hours to the La Pavona Dock and catch a two-hour scenic boat transfer. Sansa has a daily 40-minute flight to Tortuguero Airport (TTQ). Most lodges in the parks can arrange van and boat transfers from San José.

Where to Stay: is a collection of 11 humble, off-grid bungalows immersed in jungle and perched in front of the Madre de Dios lagoon. Guests have free use of kayaks and canoes and can join day and evening boat tours guided by wildlife experts (minimum two-night stay from $700).

Where to Go in the Southern Caribbean

Note: These three destinations below are accessible day trips from Limón, so you can pack each hot spot into a span of a few days—or better yet, take more time and relish the diverse nature of each. Our tips below on how to get there and where to stay apply across the board here.

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

In fall, expert surfers flock to this lively beach town to test their mettle riding Salsa Brava, arguably Costa Rica’s biggest barreling wave. The black sands of Playa Negra are ideal for lounging beneath palm fronds and an excursion to the nearby , which rehabilitates and rewilds the cats, is a must. You can get a taste of the region’s signature Afro-Caribbean flavors and sign up for Afro-Latin dance classes at locally loved . The town is also a jumping off point for Cahuita National Park and Gandoca-Manzanillo National WIldlife Refuge.

Cahuita National Park

Set aside one day to explore the coastal wildlife trails that reveal sloth, monkeys, keel-billed toucan, and paca, a rodent that resembles a big guinea pig. The other should be devoted to chilling on the unspoiled beaches or snorkeling and diving the largest system of reefs in Costa Rica. In autumn the waters are calm and clear, making it easy to view stingrays, reef sharks, and 35 types of coral. guides boat trips to snorkel the reef of Cahuita National Park ($90).

Gandoca-Manzanillo National Wildlife Refuge

Stretching south nearly to the border of Panama, this collection of unique habitats includes a six-mile swath of golden sand, two swamps, a vibrant coral reef, and 740 acres of trail-laced rainforest. The reef teems with brain coral, Venus sea fans, neon anemones, electric blue parrot fish, and along the coastline you’ll find rare mangrove oyster beds. On land, you may spot endangered ocelot, the elusive harpy eagle, and from March to May four species of turtles come to nest here.

How to Get There: From San José, you can drive five and a half hours, or Sansa offers multiple daily 35-minute flights to Limón International Airport (LIO).

Where to Stay: has 15 boho-chic rooms nestled on a forest-fringed beach in Puerto Viejo. I’m a fan of the complimentary bikes and snorkel gear, and applaud the hotel’s commitment to hiring employees and sourcing ingredients locally. The national park is just 25 minutes away and the wildlife refuge, ten minutes; the hotel can arrange tours of both. (Rooms from $365 per night.)

Costa Rica’s Northern Region

You could spend a lifetime park hopping in the north. First timers won’t want to skip Costa Rica’s crown jewels: Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve and Arenal Volcano. Miravalles Volcano National Park, Tenorio Volcano Park, and waterfall mecca Juan Castro Blanco National Park are less known but equally spectacular.Ìę

Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve

The cloud forests of Monte Verde, a more than 35,000-acre reserve in the Cordillera de Tilarán mountain range, contain approximately 50 percent of the country’s flora and fauna, including over 420 types of orchids, 200 species of ferns, rare birds like the three-wattled bellbird and iconic resplendent quetzal, and charismatic mammals like the sloth. You can get a bird’s eye view of the wildlife from walkways suspended in the canopies or on a zip line tour. leads night walks in nearby Monteverde Wildlife Refuge where you can observe nocturnal animals like ocelot, sloth, and armadillos (tickets from $25).

How to Get There: It’s about a 2.5-hour drive from either San JosĂ© or Guanacaste airports.

Where to Stay: A hanging bridge connects (from $265 per night) to Aguti Wildlife Reserve and guests get free admission. The reserve is minutes away and the hotel’s in-house naturalists take guests on tours of the adjacent expanse.

Arenal Volcano National Park

The park’s namesake stratovolcano soars 5,357 feet towards the clouds and is one of the northern region’s most popular attractions. But there’s plenty else to see and do in the 30,000-acre protected area including zip lining, river rafting, horseback riding, and hiking. The Heliconias, Coladas, Tucanes, and Los Miradores trails provide views of flora and fauna as well as the remains of volcanic lava tracts. Outfitter offers a trip that combines a hike through the park with a scenic boat ride on Lake Arenal (tickets from $88).

How to Get There: The gateway town of La Fortuna is around a 2.5 to 3-hour drive from either San José or Guanacaste airports.

Where to Stay: Adults-only is a luxe option in the heart of the park; villas come with private hot spring-fed soaking pools (from $396 per night). And carbon neutral is nestled at the base of the volcano, so you get the up-close experience (from $375 per night). Day passes to Tabacón’s massive hydrotherapy circuit are also available for non-guests.

Costa Rica Travel: 6 Expert Tips for First-Time Visitors

Even though I’ve been to the country over 20 times, I know I’ve barely scratched the surface. So I called Javier Echecopar, co-founder of travel company , to share his top tips for smart travel, to get that extra local’s intel Here’s what he says every Costa Rica first-timer should be aware of to make the most of your trip.

1. Know Your Seasons

Despite the size, Costa Rica has two distinct weather patterns. December through April is hot and dry in most of the country, but rainy on the Caribbean side. May through November is wet and green across the country, but dry on the Caribbean side.

2. Ignore the Daily Weather Forecast

Ask any Tico (a colloquial term for native inhabitants of Costa Rica) and they’ll tell you normal day-by-day weather forecasts are pretty much useless. For example, the forecast might show rain every day for a week but those tropical showers will only last one hour each afternoon.

3. Consider Using a Driver

Costa Rica is one of the safest places to travel but the roads can be challenging. While driving along the coast is easy, you might consider hiring a driver to explore the mountains and rainforest, which can be more challenging with tight roads, sudden rainfall, and early nightfall.

4. If You Do Drive, Choose Your Rig Wisely

Try to rent a high-clearance SUV with all-wheel drive, and if you need extras like a car seat for kids or roof rack for surfboards, book with . It’s the only company that offers all of the above for no fee. Locals avoid Google maps which has been known to confuse rivers for roads. Instead, follow instructions on Waze.

5. Don’t Expect Late Nights

Costa Ricans are early risers. Sunrise is usually around 5:30AM, year-round. And it will be dark by 6PM as well. Expect to shift your day a little earlier to make the most of your time here. If you want nightlife, head to the capital, San José.

6. Carry Small Bills for Tips

American dollars are widely accepted. “I haven’t touched a colón in a long time,” says Echecopar, referring to the local currency. You can pay almost everything with a card, but keep some smaller bills in either currency for gratuities.

Jen Murphy has visited Costa Rica more than 20 times and feels like she has still barely scratched the surface of all the country offers. Last year she trekked the Camino de Costa Rica from the Caribbean to the Pacific Coast and encountered fewer than five other tourists on the trail.

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Don’t worry about the sharks. They’re large, yes, but they’re sand-tigers, which are relatively docile compared to other species in the water. It’s the barracudas you might consider. From where I’m standing, on the edge of a light tower in the middle of the ocean, I can see dozens of them floating around the structure, waiting for a snack.

“They have a mouthful of K-9-like incisors. Creepy fish,” says Dave Wood, one of the owners of the off the coast of Wilmington, North Carolina. “They typically leave people alone, but don’t wear anything shiny into the water. It gets them going.”

Not that I’m planning on falling in, but when you’re 32 miles out in the middle of the ocean, perched on top of a 60-year-old light tower, watching a bunch of predators swimming below, you wonder.

This is definitely the most adventurous and remote place I’ve ever stayed.

What Is the Frying Pan Tower?

The Frying Pan Tower is a decommissioned Coast Guard light station built on the tip of Frying Pan Shoals, an unusually shallow stretch of water running for 30 miles from the tower west to the Barrier Islands along the coast. Between the 1600s to the mid 1900s, hundreds of ships wrecked on the shoals—known as the Graveyard of the Atlantic—and the lighthouse was built in 1964 by the U.S. government to help keep mariners safe.

The building was decommissioned in the early 1990s when sailors started using GPS to navigate around dangerous obstacles. Frying Pan sat empty until 2010, when Richard Neal, fresh off a corporate job and looking for a project, purchased it in a government auction for $85,000. Since then, Neal has been working tirelessly to restore the structure, passing ownership on to 10 investors and taking over as the caretaker and head of a non-profit, FPTower Inc., tasked with keeping the tower from falling into the ocean.

“Frying Pan can still help keep mariners safe. It’s the only structure out here,” Neal says. Various things can go wrong for ships out at sea, from systems failures to people getting injured. “And it’s a resource for scientific research. We’ve had marine biologists out here, NASA, NOAA, people from MIT. Frying Pan can be a point to collect wave data, hurricane data, shark data
It still has value.”

The șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűs Are Endless at the Frying Pan

It’s also one hell of a basecamp for adventure. Imagine all the benefits of ocean-front property, but put that property in the middle of the sea without any neighbors (or, granted, amenities like grocery stores). Frying Pan sits in only 55 feet of water. On a clear day, you can see the coral on the sandy floor from the catwalk that wraps around the living quarters.

These are ideal conditions for scuba, snorkeling, and free diving. Anglers can drop a line off the edge of the tower and pull up grouper and cobia for dinner. Several times during my two-day visit, I stood mesmerized on the edge of the catwalk watching sharks rise to inspect the bait we cast into the water.

If you get bored with your immediate surroundings, you can explore the Greg Mickey, a fishing vessel about 1,000 yards north that was sunk in 2007 to become an artificial reef in honor of a fallen diver. Or take a 20-minute boat ride to the Gulf Stream for deep-sea fishing for wahoo and tuna.

“I would pass by this tower when I was a kid on small boats, and it was always a comfort to see, because you’re so far away from land,” says Jason Guyot, an owner of Frying Pan who grew up fishing the area with his dad. “It’s nice to know there’s something out here if things go bad.”

And the view? Climb to the very top of the structure, 135 feet above the surface of the water where the actual Coast Guard light stands, and you see ocean. Flat and blue and all around you without a spec of land in sight. As far as vacation real estate goes, it’s one of a kind.

Staying on the Frying Pan

Originally intended to house a crew of 17 Coast Guard personnel, Frying Pan looks like an oil platform. The 5,000-square-foot living space boasts eight bedrooms, a commercial-grade kitchen, two bathrooms, and even an entertainment room with a pool table. A stainless-steel catwalk hangs outside the main floor of the tower, while a helicopter pad occupies the top deck. The actual lighthouse stretches out from that pad, standing 135 feet above the water.

While most lighthouses are located on land, the Coast Guard built seven of these offshore towers, modeled after oil platforms, in the 1960s for added safety. Three of those original towers have been dismantled because of their deteriorating structures; another was destroyed in a storm. The three remaining towers were all scheduled for dismantling until private owners stepped in to purchase them.

According to Neal, Frying Pan is in the best shape of the existing structures, but it still needs constant maintenance. There’s a small movement of private citizens working to preserve lighthouses in this country, and Neal is in the thick of it.

When Neal took over Frying Pan nearly 15 years ago, it had been abandoned for decades. The windows were broken, bullets were embedded in the walls from vandals, it had no power, there were holes in the floors, and rust was eating away at much of the exterior structure.

Restoring the Frying Pan

Neal spends every other week on the tower, working through various projects, while others pop out as often as they can. The renovation project has attracted an interesting mix of investors, all of whom are DIY advocates. They come out together to weld, re-wire, re-build, and generally figure out how to maintain the building. They each bring something different to the situation. One is a helicopter pilot, another a retired contractor. Others are divers and anglers and carpenters, providing fish for the kitchen and practical skills for the restoration.

Technically, Frying Pan is in international waters, so the owners could turn the tower into anything they want–a casino, a bordello, even its own sovereign nation. But they just want to make sure Frying Pan continues to be a resource to the maritime and scientific communities.

The biggest single room is the workshop, loaded with metal cutting-band saws, welding torches, cranes, chains, power cords, two wave runners on racks, massive diesel generators, canisters of oil and soy bean oil. Neal and his cohorts have replaced the windows, installed air conditioning, reconfigured the bedrooms to handle paying guests, and renovated the bathrooms. Neal estimates he’s put $300,000 of his own money into the tower, and it likely needs another $1 to $2 million more to be fully restored.

The largest hurdle in that restoration work is also Frying Pan’s greatest appeal: its location. It’s remote. For my trip, I take a 2.5-hour ride on a 27-foot fishing boat in rough seas and spend the majority of the time trying not to vomit. Supplies need to be either shipped in by boat or flown in by helicopter, neither of which is cheap. This means that Neal and his cohorts end up improvising a lot on site.

“I can’t just run to Home Depot. If I need something, I’m probably going to make it,” Neal says. “If I can’t make it myself, I try to find smart people who can.”

When I reach the tower, Neal and the owners are fabricating braces to hang on the side of the tower to support a row of solar panels, welding together custom-fit stainless-steel tubes. Neal stands on top of a six-foot-tall ladder, set on the edge of the catwalk, roughly 100 feet above the ocean, with a welding torch in his hand to burn a hole into the top of the exterior wall to fit a bracket that will eventually hold the brace for the solar panels.

“I love this stuff,” Neal says, hanging precariously above the ocean with a lit torch in his hand.

While I’m on site, he works from sunup to sundown, tackling one task after another, the half-dozen other owners on the tower at the time working right alongside him. Most of the owners started out as working volunteers, spending a few days on Frying Pan scraping rust or putting down carpet, and fell in love with the property and the challenge of figuring out the solution to the next problem.

Later in the day, Neal and a volunteer will scuba dive below the tower to replace the that stream a live feed of the bottom of the ocean to . After the solar panels are in place, the team will replace some of the exterior doors that are rotting through. Eventually, they’ll have to address some of the structural supports beneath the living quarters that are reaching the end of their shelf life. It all costs money, which is where guests play a part.

How to Visit the Frying Pan

Frying Pan Tower hosts visitors every other week throughout the year, with the proceeds going straight back into restoration. Guests can sign up for a ($900), where they’ll spend most of their time working alongside Neal, welding or cleaning or rewiring. Or they can sign up for an ($1,950) and spend their time diving or fishing or just soaking up the view. When I was there, a volunteer was cooking and the owners brought food, but on most trips you would bring food and cook it yourself.

Most people who find themselves on Frying Pan are infatuated with the open sea. They’re divers and snorkelers, anglers casting off the sides of the tower or taking quick trips to the Gulf Stream. The tower has also seen cliff jumpers and free divers, scientists and Boy Scout troops.

The potential for adventure is only limited by your imagination. Jason Guyot dreams about bringing a kitesurfing rig to the tower and exploring the surrounding seascape. I want to come back with a paddleboard and snorkeling gear. I’d also love to bring my wife and kids; they’d have a blast snorkeling at the base of the tower and watching the sharks from above.

The Stargazing Is Incredible

The night sky is the darkest I’ve ever seen. Not a single light competes for the attention of the stars in any direction on the horizon. Our group of owners and volunteers gravitates to the helicopter pad after the sun sets, and settles in to watch the sky above for shooting stars. The Milky Way is a broad white paint stroke across the darkness.

I don’t go in the water during my brief stay at Frying Pan, but I do help with restorations when I can, hit biodegradable golf balls filled with fish food into the sea below, cast for fish, and generally try to grasp the nuances of life in the middle of the ocean. This is the most isolated I’ve ever been in my entire life. The nearest Starbucks is more than 40 miles due west. If something goes wrong, it would be hours before help arrives.

That sort of isolation makes a lot of people anxious. But for others, it’s relaxing. All of the distractions of life on the mainland are gone. Your priorities shrink. There is only the task at hand, whether it’s fishing or hanging a solar panel, food, and rest.

For dinner, we fire up a grill on the helicopter pad. Jason Guyot, who owns car dealerships and runs a real-estate business on land, is constantly in motion, cooking steaks brought in from a farm in eastern Carolina. He turns the meat slowly, looks around and says, “I wonder what the rest of the world is doing right now?”

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. His time on Frying Pan was brief, but he’ll always remember the brightness of the Milky Way above and the sight of sharks feeding below.

For more by this author, see:

9 Beautiful Mountain Towns in the Southeast

The 10 Best Bike Towns in America, Ranked

8 Surf Towns Where You Can Learn the Sport and the Culture

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When started diving, she found inner peace through her connection with the ocean. Now, she’s on a mission to share that joy with the world. See what’s out there, and discover new adventures wherever there’s water.

Born on the water in 1983,ÌęÌęis on a mission to create the best sunglasses on the planet and protect the watery world. An industry-leading manufacturer of color-enhancing, all-polarized-glass sunglasses, Costa combines superior lens tech with unparalleled fit and durability, helping outdoor enthusiasts See What’s Out ThereⓇ.

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Here are some features I genuinely never thought I’d see on a watch: subaquatic topo maps; a dive-readiness tracker; underwater text messaging. Shockingly, all of these features exist on the , the most lusted-after top-of-the-line smartwatch and dive computer on the market. After two months of using the Mk3i for running, hiking, and diving, I can confidently say it’s the only watch I’ll ever need for the foreseeable future, and, apart from the significant pricetag hurdle, a no-brainer for anyone who spends time underwater.

How Is It as a Regular Smartwatch?

I’ve found that most dive watches that also profess to work as daily smartwatches are not worth the cost. There are almost always tradeoffs, like poor app integration, bulky or technical looks, and hard-to-read screens, especially underwater. (Luxury “dive watches” are not helpful for fitness on land or underwater).

The Mk3i has the same operating system and features as Garmin’s high-end smartwatches, like șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű favorite Fenix 7X, or the extra-fancy epix Pro. It has outstanding GPS accuracy and comes with preloaded maps, excellent fitness tracking, painless integration with third-party apps like Spotify, and easy-to-navigate menus. Importantly, it also looks sleek: apart from the larger, 51-millimeter face, the Mk3i wouldn’t look out-of-place at an upscale restaurant.

Welcome to the Future

As a basic dive computer, it does everything exceptionally well. Its BĂŒhlmann ZHL-16C decompression algorithm works as it should. Air integration (in the “i” models) using Garmin’s new T2 transceiver never skipped a beat or lost connection. Setting bearings and navigating underwater are easy with the compass. Critically, screen brightness and sharpness are next-level. The Mk3i has a 454×454 pixel AMOLED color touch-screen display, an upgrade from the , which had a light-reflecting MIPS display. Even for a far-sighted person, I had no trouble reading my watch sitting on a dive boat in midday sun.

Now to the James Bond stuff. Yes, you can send messages underwater. Six basic preloaded messages (“Are you okay?,” “Come to me,” etc.) travel via “Subwave” sonar to anyone else using a T2 transceiver. I didn’t have the chance to test it out since my dive partner was using an older Mk2 and T1 transceiver, but fellow divers tell me it works as advertised. It seems mostly helpful in low-visibility scenarios where hand signals are impossible, but for regular dive buddies who invest in the equipment, it’s a very cool perk.

Despite the inability to message my partner, I was still able to see his tank pressure, distance, and depth on my watch, which meant I never had to worry if he was running low on air or drifting too far away. The ability to track up to eight different transceivers is a game-changer for dive instructors with big groups.

Other futuristic features? DiveView Maps, a highly detailed topographic underwater map that lets you see exactly where you’re jumping in (it doesn’t track you below the surface, unfortunately). A “readiness score,” similar to a training recovery score on other tracking devices, judges your alertness and physical health for diving based on how well you’ve been sleeping, heart rate, jet lag, and other indicators. This was, however, the only Mk3i perk I found superfluous. If I refused to dive after every red-eye, I’d never dive at all. Lastly, the watch has a super bright flashlight that I initially thought was a bit gimmicky, but proved very useful for peering into dark nooks and crannies for octopuses and other reclusive creatures.

The most miraculous thing about the Mk3i is its battery life. Garmin claims up to 66 hours in Dive Mode. I spent three full days diving in Cozumel, Mexico and another day cave diving in cenotes outside of MĂ©rida, and still had 89 percent battery life. For reference, the Mk2 had roughly half that battery life, and some competitors can hardly make it through a day of diving. If you took the Mk3i on a two week-long liveaboard and forgot your charger, you’d probably last the entire trip.

The High Price of Perfection

Predictably, the Mk3i has one major downside: price. At $1,600 for the 51mm version (or $2,100 if you need a new transceiver), this is one of the most expensive smartwatches Garmin makes. It’s far too expensive for someone who only goes diving once or twice a year. If you need a top-end fitness-tracking watch and you’re a regular diver, however, the exceptional performance in both use cases makes it a reasonable splurge.

Need a great smartwatch and only dip your toe in the water? The Apple Ultra 2 ($800) offers a very basic dive computer via the Oceanic+ app. And, if you just need a simple, reliable dive computer separate from your watch or fitness tracker, will do the job—just don’t wear it to dinner.

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Every scuba dive starts the same way: Gurgling bubbles and a hissing regulator. Then silence. Signaling “okay” to your buddy, you descend into whatever adventure waits below. After this, there’s no script—nature determines what will come. You’re just the lucky witness. And fortunate you are. A scuba certification is an underwater passport that lets you access some of the best scuba diving in the world. Just like topside travel, you can pick destinations based on what you enjoy most. Some divers swear swimming with a bait ball is the most stunning experience under the sun. You’ll also find others who insist a calm reefscape can’t be beat while others chase the drama of a wall dive.

I’m a kelp woman. To me, the sunbeams of a kelp canopy are holier than any light seeping through cathedral stained glass. I’ve dived around the world and have yet to find anything that beats twirling sea lions and scuttling crabs. Other divers will tell you nothing is worth squeezing into a 7 millimeter wetsuit. More forest for me, I suppose. And, as my family often says: De gustibus non est disputandum—in matters of taste, there can be no disputes. (Though, to be honest, we usually say it with sarcasm about a clearly poor opinion. I have a huffy ‘de gustibus’ ready for anyone who thinks soaring through kelp isn’t worth wearing a hood.)

So, what are you waiting for? The ocean’s ready. Pack your bags, grab your gear, and choose your adventure. The options are endless, but here’s my shortlist to the best scuba diving in the world. (By the way, I got scuba certified in 2019, I was the digital editor of Scuba DivingÌęmagazine from 2020 – 2022, and I’ve gone diving in four countries across three continents, racking up 150—and counting—total plunges. So yeah, I know what I’m talking about.)

Best Places to Scuba Dive in the U.S.

Monterey, California

California’s Monterey Bay Submarine Canyon is a geography that demands superlatives. The largest undersea canyon on the U.S. West Coast, it’s comparable in size to the Grand Canyon. The slope starts at the shore of the Monterey Peninsula and quickly plummets more than a mile. This is why the Monterey Bay Aquarium constantly releases amazing deep sea footage so often—the deep is their backyard.

It also means divers can access a unique underwater environment in the bay’s sheltered conditions. A swift ascent from the shallows delivers stunning encounters on a shore dive, from massive fried egg jellyfish to hulking mola-molas. Below you, California sea stars slouch in silence. And overhead? The current drives opalescent and the Rainbow nudibranch to wiggle hello at the sea nettles drifting past. You can dance with playful sea lions and marvel at massive kelp—there’s a reason these are called the Sequoias of the Sea.

Don’t Miss: Fried egg jellyfish are easy to spot in the water column, but that doesn’t make the sight of a 2-foot fried egg with tentacles that can stretch to 20 feet any less impressive.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Monterey Expeditions, a outdoors tour company owned and operated by two local divers, runs expeditions to lesser-known spots along the Monterey and Big Sur coast. include sea lion dives ($199), where you can meet upwards of a dozen resident pinnipeds, and the Canyon and Canopy tour ($299)—a 2-tank kelp forest trip with sightings that can include a mola mola cleaning station and lingcod, followed by a beach grill out.

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: Up to 65°F from August – October, down to 50°F from December – February
Ìę Visibility: 10 – 50 feet
Ìę Equipment: 7 millimeter (mm) wetsuit with hooded vest and boots minimum; a drysuit is recommended.
Ìę Training: ; drysuit cert if you’re using one

Hawaii

Volcanic fury sculpted these islands, and their handiwork is visible in the blue (after all, the islands are just the portion of the eruptions that broke sea level). Lava tubes—underwater caverns and tunnels—weave through the reef, remnants of its fiery creation. And all around coral explodes in color, a testament to the volcanic soil’s rich nutrients and the deep water’s bounty.

This aquatic Arcadia attracts the underwater glitterati: turtles glide with ancient grace, sharks patrol the edges, whales breach the surface, and dolphins weave through the blue. Even the state fish, the humuhumunukunukuapua’a (or reef triggerfish, for the less tongue-tied), flaunts its vibrant colors.

Don’t Miss: The waters off of Kona boast a resident population of more than 200 oceanic mantas, which have a wingspan that can hit 26 feet. Having dived with these animals in Mexico, I can attest that they are truly awe-inspiring—and you can meet them at night off the shores of Kona. Divers drop into the water shortly after sunset with flashlights, which pull the mantas in to swoop directly overhead as they feed.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Several operators offer after-dark manta encounters, including: (from $170); (from $149); (from $199 for a 2-tank); (from $199 for a 2-tank)

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 75°F – 80°F
Ìę Visibility: 50 – 120+ feet
Ìę Equipment: 3 mm
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Best Places to Scuba Dive in the Caribbean, and Central and South America

Cozumel, Mexico

Ditch Cancun’s beach clubs for the currents of Cozumel, Mexico where drift dives whisk you to a new world.

Now, don’t let the word ‘drift dive’ scare you. Although the currents at famous sites like the Santa Rosa Wall dictate your dive, it’s like floating along in an underwater lazy river, not a riptide. You get to kick back, breathe deep from your regulator, and watch ocean life hustle by. As you flit through this low-rise coral city, keep your eyes peeled for eagle rays soaring overhead, green turtles flapping by, morays opening wide for cleaner shrimp, nurse sharks resting on the sand, and dozens of fish species dancing around.

Keep your eyes peeled for the endemic splendid toadfish — found only in Cozumel—that has a spiky beard and settles into cracks like a grumpy man on his front-porch rocking chair.

Don’t Miss: Palancar Reef, on the southwest side of the island, is one of the most popular reef systems in the area. Divers can swim through caves and underwater tunnels while keeping their eyes peeled for eagle rays and stingrays.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Dive with Martin offers a that, in addition to two days of Cozumel reef diving, includes a day of diving the Yucatan Peninsula’s famous cenotes, limestone sinkholes that are essentially underground lakes ($380).

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 75°F from December – February; 85°F from June – August
Ìę Visibility: 80 – 100 feet
Ìę Equipment: Rash guard or 3 mm shorty; surface marker buoy (SMB)
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Belize

The world’s second-largest barrier reef is a riot of life—nearly 1,400 species call this UNESCO world heritage site home. Green, hawksbill and loggerhead turtles all scuttle around here, as well as angelfish, blennies, seahorses, and parrotfish. They spend their days weaving in and out of a rich tapestry of hard and soft corals that stretches for 190-miles. Shark aficionados will be delighted with the chance to encounter several shark species, including lemon, nurse, and Caribbean reef sharks.

To me, ”ț±đ±ôŸ±łú±đ’s real magic arrives after dark. I can never get enough of the sea life that comes out in the light of the moon, especially unfurling octopus and eels with glinting eyes. During my week there, not a night went by without a Caribbean reef squid encounter. One little guy that swam straight into my face, balled his tentacles into fists, and inked me in a fit of pique.

Don’t Miss: The Great Blue Hole—made famous by SCUBA inventor Jacques Cousteau himself—is a 407-foot deep sinkhole in the middle of Lighthouse Reef. The staggering submerged stalactites jut downward into a (seemingly) infinite darkness, making this a one-of-a-kind dive.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Experience the in just three days with Ambergris Divers (five dives, from $499).

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: High 70s December – April, low 80s May – November
Ìę Visibility: 40-80+ feet, best April – June
Ìę Equipment: 3mm shorty – 5 mm full wetsuit, depending on personal comfort and number of dives
Ìę Training: A will allow you to go 130 feet deep, instead of the standard 60 foot limit for an Open Water diver.

Bonaire

You don’t need a boat to do Bonaire. This Dutch Caribbean island, the “Shore Diving Capital of the World,” lets you roll out of bed and into adventure. Vibrant reefs teeming with 470 fish species wait right off the shore—Salt Pier, Alice in Wonderland, Bari Reef, and 1000 Steps, to name a few sites. Rent a truck, go through the , and you’re ready to dive.

Dip below the waves and you’re instantly transported. Tarpon streak past, eels slither from their dens, stingrays glide like phantoms. Turtles—hawksbill and green—cruise serenely, while playful dolphins weave through the blue. Keep your eyes peeled, you might spot a frogfish camouflaged amongst the coral, a seahorse clinging to a swaying fan, or even a pygmy goby, smaller than your fingernail. Disappointment is as rare as a bad day in paradise when you can spot more than 100 species on a single dive.

Don’t Miss: Turtle lovers rejoice – this is a great place to meet your flippered friend on their turf. Hawksbill and green turtles live near the island year round, and lucky divers can encounter loggerhead turtles from April to December.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Get the full Bonaire experience with Buddy Dive’s week-long , which includes a car rental, accommodations, unlimited shore diving, six boat dives, and more (from $1,256).

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 78°F – 84°F
Ìę Visibility: 100 – 150 feet
Ìę Equipment: Rash guard or 3 mm
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

This world-famous chain of 13 islands is nestled 600 miles from mainland Ecuador. Divers who make the crossing get a view of the islands even Darwin didn’t experience during his formative five-week stint here. (I wonder how the sight of hundreds of hammerheads bustling beneath the HMS Beagle would have shaped his theory of evolution—talk about a plot twist.)

These waters are stocked with once-in-a-lifetime encounters: One in five marine animals is endemic, meaning they are found nowhere else in the world. This includes the world’s only marine iguanas—which forage underwater for sea algae—and tropical penguins. Plenty of large animals live here as well, setting the stage for incredible encounters, including Galapagos and hammerhead sharks, and whale sharks (the world’s largest fish, which top out longer than a school bus).

Don’t Miss: Hammerhead sharks are the only shark species that schools, and hundreds of scalloped hammerheads aggregate at a time in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. While they live there year-round, they are most abundant in January around Darwin and Wolf Islands.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Spend an entire week diving the islands aboard the , a 16-passenger scuba yacht that offers up to four dives a day and two land excursions during the trip. (From $7,100; $100 for nitrox). And, fun fact, passengers on this boat witnessed the Darwin Arch collapse in real time when it crumbled in 2021.

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: Highly variable.Ìę62°F – 68°F from June – December; 70°F – 82°F from December – May
Ìę Visibility: 10 – 70 feet
Ìę Equipment: 7 mm wetsuit, hood, boots, gloves, SMB, marine rescue GPS
Ìę Training: Advanced Open Water Diver Certification recommended to be better equipped for local conditions, which can be challenging

Best Places to Scuba Dive in Asia and Oceania

Indonesia

Variety is the name of the game in Indo. Whether you want to dive a reef or a wall, see a wreck or encounter endemics, catch a drift or search through muck, you can do it here.

This immense archipelago is the epicenter of the Coral Triangle, a global hotspot of marine biodiversity, and home to some of the best scuba diving in the world. Divers can encounter a dazzling array of sea creatures, massive manta rays and impossibly tiny pygmy seahorses, the bizarre mola mola, the deceptive Rhinopias, the gelatinous cuttlefish, and the mimic octopus, just to name a few.

And that’s before you consider the wreck diving. Due to its strategic location in the Pacific during World War II, these waters were a major battle ground. The remnants of this conflict lie scattered on the ocean floor, including USAT Liberty, Emma Miller, and Spiegel Estate.

Don’t Miss: Here’s my one topside tip—Komodo dragons can only be seen in Indonesia, so don’t miss your chance. Visit Komodo National Park on Komodo Island to see these fascinating lizards live before you hit the deep sea.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Sail in style on the , a luxury wooden ship with spa, outdoor dining, and more staff than guests. Itineraries shift throughout the year depending on the season. (From $4,760 for 7 nights.)

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 82°F – 84°F
Ìę Visibility: 30 – 60 feet
Ìę Equipment: 3 mm; reef hook; SMB
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Sabah, Malaysia

Sipadan’s a riot, a swirling, fish-drunk mess that’ll leave you reeling. Walls of coral tumble from this small inland into the impossibly blue, teeming with so many turtles they cause traffic jams. Schools of jackfish swirl like underwater tornadoes, thousands strong, parting to reveal patrolling sharks. Then there’s the muck, the weird stuff—frogfish, seahorses, and other minute creatures. It’s Barracuda Point, though, that’s the main event. A whirlwind of teeth and scales, these fish frenzies hypnotize even the most seasoned scuba divers.

Across the channel, Mabul and Kapalai offer a different dance, a quieter ballet of the bizarre. Dive down to the sandy havens, where flamboyant cuttlefish strut their chromatic wares, and flamboyant cuttlefish wannabes, the mimic octopus, put on their one-man shows. Torchlight reveals the otherworldly: bobbing nudibranchs in fluorescent hues, and the toothy grin of a moray eel peeking from its coral castle. It’s a land of the strange and the small, a microcosm of wonder waiting to be unraveled, one seadragon swirl at a time.

Don’t Miss: Barracuda Point is the show stopper here. Where else will turn your head with a tornado of teeth?

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Advanced divers can snag a coveted Sipadan permit through their chosen dive operator. These permits (178 daily) are limited to conserve the ecosystem. It’s advised that you stay for at least four days to get a dive day in. guarantees a permit for 3 day, 2 night bookings (from $468)—the other days are spent diving Mabul and Kapali.

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 78°F – 84°F
Ìę Visibility: 30 – 80 feet
Ìę Equipment: 3 mm; reef hook; SMB
Ìę Certification: Advanced Open Water Certification required

Great Barrier Reef, Australia

This is no aquarium. So large it’s visible from space, the Great Barrier Reef is the beating heart of the ocean, wild and unforgettable. You could spend a lifetime scuba diving here and still not see it all.

Vibrant coral unspool beneath your fins, teeming with fish that swirl and flash like neon confetti. Turtles cruise with the calm of ancient mariners, sharks sleek and curious. Then there’s the big stuff: the manta rays, whale sharks, and dugongs. And if you’re lucky between November and March, maybe, just maybe, you’ll time it right and see a coral spawning—an underwater blizzard of life beginning anew.

Don’t Miss: offers liveaboard itineraries that overlap with coral spawning, though the experience is not guaranteed. Coral typically spawn between the 2nd and 6th day of the November full moon when the water has been north of 80 degrees for a month, a date that can shift with water temperatures. (I promise that’s , not a horoscope.) Contact Mike Ball to see which itinerary is expected to line up with the upcoming spawning.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Fin through the Coral Greenhouse, the world’s largest underwater structure, at the —one of dozens of installations in Queensland’s submerged gallery crafted by underwater artist Jason deCaires Taylor. ($390 adult, $340 children; departs from Townsville and Magnetic Island)

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: Low of 68°F June – August; High around 84°F December – February
Ìę Visibility: 30 – 100 feet
Ìę Equipment: 3 – 5 mm
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Best Places to Scuba Dive in the Indian Ocean

Maldives

There are more dives than islands in the Maldives—and that’s saying something in a country stitched together across more than 1,100 islands. Whether you crave drift dives through vibrant coral gardens, adrenaline-pumping pinnacles, or the eerie allure of wrecks, this scattered paradise caters to every diver’s whim.

Pelagic lovers will be delighted by the wide variety here, from tiger sharks to manta rays, mola molas to barracudas. Drift dives generally offer the best opportunities to encounter these big animals, as the currents bring in nutrients that pull them in from the blue. South Ari Atoll is known for its drift adventures; other spots with awe-inspiring big animal encounters include the cleaning station at Lankan Manta Point in the MalĂ© Atoll and Hammerhead Point in the Rasdhoo Atoll. Photographers will delight in the candyland that’s Rainbow Reef, which bustles between islands in the MalĂ© Atoll.

Don’t Miss: Whale sharks, the world’s largest fish, live in the Maldives year-round. Growing up to 40 feet in length, this is an encounter many divers chase for years—and happens pretty much every day at South Ari Atoll.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Contribute to whale shark research when you spend 11 days aboard the M/V Felicity, swimming with whale sharks to collect data for the (From ).

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: 80°F – 86°
Ìę Visibility: 30 – 100 feet
Ìę Equipment: 3 mm; reef hook; SMB
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Seychelles

Forget the overfished reefs and crowded coral walkways. Nestled at the intersection of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Sea, and the Somali Current, the Seychelles offers solitude on land and vivid adventure below.

Here, the vibrant hues of coral gardens rival any rainforest canopy. These healthy reefs —protected by the country’s unwavering commitment to conservation — teem with biodiversity. Silent giants like manta rays and whale sharks soar through technicolor depths. Reef sharks patrol their claim with quiet purpose, while more than 20 species of playful dolphins weave between divers, their curiosity as boundless as the ocean itself. Layer turtles, eels, batfish, yellow snapper and another 1,000-or-so fish across this aquatic city, and you have more than enough beauty to last you a lifetime.

Don’t Miss: Keep your eyes peeled for nudibranchs—these minute and stunning sea slugs that come in every hue and shape imaginable. Orange polka dots with purple ruffles? Sure. Zebra striped with yellow splotches? You got it. With hundreds of different species in the Seychelles seas, these sands are a slug circus.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Explore as you like with Dive Explorer Seychelles, which offers everything from a day ($520.50) to a that lets you taste everything the islands have to offer ($3,567).

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: Low of 77°F from June to September; highs around 84°F April – May and October – November
Ìę Visibility: 30 – 100 feet
Ìę Equipment: Rash guard or 3mm
Ìę Training: Open Water Diver Certification

Best Place to Scuba Dive in the Southern Ocean

Antarctica

A certain breed of divers itches for ice. If that’s you, the fractured ice shelves of Antarctica will be Eden.

Unlike the brazen hues of coral, the palette here is stark—glacial blues, inky blacks, the occasional flash of silver. With patience and luck, action ruptures the stillness: Gentoo penguins rocket past in a black and white ballet before colossal leopard seals glide with alien grace, their yellowed eyes locked on yours.

Spring unveils a feast. Krill, the lifeblood of the Southern Ocean, paints the water a cloudy red. This bounty draws colossal whales, their mournful songs echoing through the water column.

It’s a world usually untouched that radiates with untamed power. And it’s not for the faint of heart, but for those who dare, it etches the soul.

Don’t Miss: Encountering a leopard shark is far from guaranteed, but meeting this apex predator in their natural habitat is to encounter unbridled energy.

Awesome Dive șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Add diving to your , which traverses waters traveled by Humpback, Minke, and Fin whales. (From $5,450 for the cruise, plus $815 to add dive excursions; 30 drysuit dives required to book dives)

Conditions, Gear & Training:

Ìę Water Temps: Mid 20s to mid 30s °F
Ìę Visibility: 40 to 100 feet, excluding plankton blooms
Ìę ÌęEquipment: Drysuit; heated vest; hood; gloves; boots; ice-rated regulator
Ìę Certifications: Ice diving required and rescue diver training recommended

Life was never the same after getting dive certified in the 54°F waters of a flooded Ohio quarry. Local diving led Alexandra Gillespie to a globetrotting stint taking dozens of dives in cool places and writing about them afterward. Now a freelancer for șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű, she covers water and travel. Her writing has also appeared in NPR, National Geographic, Scuba Diving, and other national outlets.

The post The 12 Most Beautiful Scuba Diving Destinations in the World appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Last year was a banner one for our national parks, with 325.5 million recreation visits in the books for 2023. Last week the National Park Service released its , detailing the total number of visitors to the 400 units—which include national seashores and historic sites—the park service manages. Overall, recreation visits increased by 13 million, an uptick of 4 percent compared to 2022. The number of hours spent hanging out in our parks was also up 4 percent, from 1.36 to 1.4 billion hours. That’s a lot of hiking, or sitting in moose traffic jams, depending on the park.

Parks have never been more popular than they were in 2016, when the national park service was celebrating its centennial and visitation numbers hit a record 330,971,689. That total stayed constant for the next few years, with more than 327 million recreation visits in 2019. Then the pandemic hit, parks closed, travel halted, and visitation dropped by 90 million visits in 2020. The popularity of our scenic national parks has been climbing steadily since, last year almost reaching pre-pandemic levels.

The stats break down , so you can see which of our treasured landscapes are the most and least popular. The Blue Ridge Parkway continues to be the most sought-after park unit in the country (with 16,757,635 visits), and Great Smoky Mountains National ParkÌęrules by far among national parks (13,297,647 visits, with the next-highest contenders all in the four million range). Gulf Islands National Seashore jumped three spots to make it into the top five most popular park units in 2023. And Glen Canyon National Recreation Area climbed into the coveted top-ten list with a near doubled 5,206,934 recorded visits, a massive jump from 34^th in 2022, when it saw 2,842,776.

protects 1.25 million acres of land in Utah and Arizona, including Lake Powell. A multi-year drought had kept many visitors at bay, but the record-breaking snowfall of the winter of 2022 to 2023 brought water levels back up, allowing several boat ramps and access points to reopen. I’ve explored Lake Powell by packraft at low water level, when it was muddy around the edges, but still pretty damn spectacular. Visiting the lake when the water is up would be amazing.

Then again, I like this next trove of data—because it tells you where to go to avoid crowds. My home is close to both the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so I know a little too much about the popular places.

While the top 10 or so most-visited parks see millions of people a year, the parks at the bottom of the list see only a few thousand. Alaska’s Gates of the Arctic National Park has reclaimed the longtime title of “Least Visited National Park” in the U.S. after the National Park of American Samoa displaced it in 2022. Congratulations?

These overlooked parks are no less spectacular: offering tropical islands, massive sand dunes, 18,000-foot peaks, and more glaciers than any other spot in the U.S. It might take extra time and work to reach some of them, but the rewards are dramatic landscapes and big adventures
all to yourself.

Here are the 11 least visited national parks in 2023.

1. Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Recreational Visits: 11,045

Location: Sitting in Alaska, north of the Arctic Circle, Gates of the Arctic covers 8.4 million acres of the rugged and cold Brooks Range. There are no roads or maintained trails within the park, although there is one small village, Anaktuvuk Pass (pop: 451), a Nunamiut Inupiat settlement typically reached by small plane.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Backpack among the Arrigetch Peaks, a cluster of mountains known for steep, vertical spires deep within the Brooks Range. It’s a that requires a series of bush plane flights.

2. National Park of American Samoa

Recreational Visits: 12,135

Location: In the South Pacific, 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii, National Park of American Samoa covers portions of three volcanic islands full of tropical forests, coral sand beaches, and traditional Samoan villages. The seascape is just as impressive; the ocean surrounding the islands are home to more than 950 species of fish and 250 species of coral.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: The national park facilitates a where visitors can stay with locals to learn Samoan customs and the South Pacific lifestyle.

3. Lake Clark National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Recreational Visits: 16,728

Location: Roughly 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, Lake Clark is 4,000,000 acres of glaciers, peaks, and active volcanoes. No roads lead to the park, which can only be reached by small plane. The park is home to three National Wild and Scenic Rivers (the Mulchatna, Tlikakila, Chilikadrotna), attracting paddlers and anglers alike.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Backpackers should hit the 50-mile Telaquana Route, where you can follow in the footsteps of local Dena’ina Athabascans and fur traders who blazed the path between the shores of Lake Clark and Telaquana Lake.

4. Kobuk Valley National Park, Alaska

Recreational Visits: 17,616

Location: Sitting 25 miles north of the Arctic Circle, Kobuk Valley National Park protects the river of the same name that has served as a thoroughfare for wildlife, particularly caribou, and the people who have been hunting the river valley for 9,000 years. Kobuk Valley is home to the 25-square-mile Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, which rise abruptly from the surrounding trees.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Take a bush plane into Great Kobuk Sand Dunes, camp, hike, and watch for caribou.

5. Isle Royale National Park, Michigan

Recreational Visits: 28,965

Location: A cluster of islands in the middle of Lake Superior near the Canadian border, Isle Royale is a car-less wilderness where moose and wolves roam. The park is only accessible by boat or float plane, but once you’re there hikers have 165 miles of trails to explore. A small population of gray wolves have lived in Isle Royale since 1948, when the first wolves crossed an ice bridge that formed, connecting the island to mainland Canada. The population had nearly died out when, in 2018, park wildlife experts relocated wolves to the island.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Backpack the 40-mile , which crosses over the park’s main island, connecting backcountry lakes and campsites. Or, hike an 8.5-mile stretch of the from Windigo Dock to Feldtman Lake, which includes a quick, .8-mile side trip to Rainbow Cove, where a rocky shoreline on Lake Superior offers long range views of Rock of Ages Lighthouse on a clear day.ÌęÌę

6. Katmai National Park and Preservation, Alaska

Recreational Visits: 33,763

Location: Man, Alaska has a lot of lonely national parks. But Katmai is special because it’s so diverse. Situated on a peninsula in southern Alaska, roughly 260 miles southwest of Anchorage, it has the rugged mountains and glaciers you’d expect, but also lush valleys, tumultuous coastline, and 40 square miles of desert landscape, thanks to the eruption of Novarupta Volcano, which scorched the earth more than 100 years ago. Katmai is probably best-known for its , where you can sit in your office and peep at brown bears eating salmon at Brooks Falls on the Brooks River.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Katmai isn’t connected to any town by road, so most people show up via boat or float plane from King Salmon or Anchorage. That alone is an adventure. Visitors usually start by visiting Brooks Camp, home to the park’s summer headquarters, to check in and get the required bear-safety orientation, then head to the various platforms that overlook the Brooks River. If you’re looking to dig deeper, consider paddling the 80-mile , which connects a chain of lakes through Katmai’s backcountry. Starting at Brooks Camp, kayakers will paddle a circle around 3,183-foot Mount La Gorce, navigating two class I-II rivers and huffing a 1.5-mile long portage between open-water stretches of three different lakes.

7. North Cascades National Park, Washington

Recreational Visits: 40,351

Location: Only three hours from the city of Seattle, North Cascades is a rugged expanse of mountains with more than 300 glaciers, the largest collection of any park outside of Alaska. In other words, North Cascades is wintry and snow-covered most of the year, so much so that most visitors only hit the park between June and September.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Hike , a steep, 9.4-mile ascent from the edge of Ross Lake that delivers sweeping views from a lookout tower of the Ross Lake National Recreation Area.

8. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve, Alaska

Recreational Visits: 78,305

Location: Sitting more than 200 miles east of Anchorage, Wrangell-St. Elias encompasses 13.2 million acres where four major mountain ranges converge, encompassing both the largest collection of glaciers and the highest concentration of 16,000-foot peaks in the U.S., including seven of the 20 highest peaks in America. The park is a land of extremes—14,163-foot Mount Wrangell is an active volcano with vents of steam on the summit, and Bagley Icefield, near the coast, is North America’s largest subpolar icefield.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Climb Mount Bear, a 14,831-foot peak deep in the St. Elias Range that doesn’t require any technical climbing, but is a beautiful adventure.

9. Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

Recreational Visits: 84,285

Location: Head to Key West and then keep going, 70 miles west into the Gilf of Mexico to Dry Tortugas, a collection of seven islands only accessible by boat or seaplane. The atolls are a mix of palm trees and soft sand beaches with world-class snorkeling and diving just offshore. Visitors can camp on the largest island, Garden Key, in the shadows of the massive Fort Jefferson, a Civil War-era prison.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Dive the Windjammer Wreck, the remains of a ship that sank in 1907 off Loggerhead Key after running aground on the surrounding reef. The wreck is in shallow water (20 feet at the deepest point), so snorkelers and divers can explore it together. Or, bring a kayak and paddle around Garden, Bush, and Long Key, a trio of islands so close together, they’re sometimes joined by sandbars. You’re looking for nurse sharks and sea turtles in the clear water below and, above, any of the 300 species of birds that migrate through the park every year.

10. Great Basin National Park, Nevada

Recreational Visits: 143,265

Location: The 77,180-acre Great Basin National Park sits in the high desert of Eastern Nevada, 300 miles north of Las Vegas. The terrain ranges from the 13,064-foot Wheeler Peak to an expansive cave system, called Lehman Caves. You’ll also find alpine lakes, old-growth bristlecone pine forests, and Nevada’s only remaining glacier, Wheeler Peak Glacier.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Glimpse Nevada’s last piece of permanent ice by hiking the 4.8-mile to the bottom of the two-acre glacier. You’ll cruise through groves of ancient bristlecone, some estimated to be 4,000 years old.

11. Voyageurs National Park, Minnesota

Recreational Visits: 220,825

Location: In Northeastern Minnesota, up against the Canadian Border, Voyageurs National Park is mostly made up of water. This 218,055-acre park is loaded with lakes—four big ones that form a border for the park and 26 smaller interior lakes, most interconnected by 60 miles of canoe and kayak trails. There are endless shorelines and islands to explore, and dense habitat for healthy moose and wolf populations.

One Big șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű: Head to the interior lakes, where marked canoeÌętrails lead to primitive backcountry campsites you can only reach by boat. And you have to use the national park service’s boats; once you have a , you get a code to unlock one of the canoes that the NPS has staged at certain points for use to prevent the spread of invasive species. The Chain of Lakes are four small bodies of water on the interior of the Kabetogama Peninsula that you can piece together via short portages and creeks to create a 13-mile hiking and paddling adventure. Each of the four lakes has its own campsite, one per lake, and most people will pick a single campsite as a basecamp and explore from there, so the mileage of your adventure will vary.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. After researching these remote parks, he’s thinking it might be time to get his pilot’s license and invest in a float plane.

For more by this author, see:

7 Most Adventurous Ways to See the Total EclipseÌęof 2024

The 6 Most Adventurous Train Trips in North America

The Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries in U.S. National Parks

The post And the 11 Least Visited National Parks Are
 appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The hike was hot and brutal. My wife and I started on the edge of Sabana de la Mar, a village in the Dominican Republic, after breakfast and drove our rental car until the road ended. Then we navigated patchwork farms until dipping into the jungle and heading toward the coast. Liz and I were young and unprepared, so we ran out of food and water almost immediately, eating mangoes from trees and trying to crack coconuts in our thirst.

Our goal was an isolated beach with a two-stool, open-air bar that you could only reach by boat or hike. We were tired of crowded resorts and wanted something serene. We didn’t find a boat so we hiked. And hiked. And hiked. The bar was closed when we got there, but we had the beach to ourselves: a quarter-moon sliver of sand flanked by tall palms, the Samana Bay stretched out before us.

Sometimes I want to stand on a beach or outcropping or mountaintop and know that the nearest McDonald’s is days away. But just because a destination is far-flung doesn’t mean you actually want to go there.

For example, the farthest-away spot in the United States is Saint Matthew Island, which is technically part of Alaska, but located in the Bering Sea more than 180 miles from the nearest human settlement, halfway to Siberia. You have to take a 24-hour ship ride to reach the island, which is battered by storms and shrouded in fog. Oh, and it’s cold. I’m sure Saint Matthew has its charms, but I can think of more pleasant remote places to vacation.

So, I started looking into destinations across the globe that occupy that sweet spot of “remote” and “attractive.” There’s a variety of landscapes on this list, from dunes to hot springs, so it’s not just tropical atolls,Ìęalthough they’re in here, too.

Here are 11 far-flung places worth the endeavor to see them. These spots are just the beginning. It’s a great big world out there. While this is bucket-list stuff, damn, it’s fun to dream.

1. Remote Tropical Island

Lord Howe Island, Australia

Traveling to a remote island doesn’t always mean you have to enter survival mode. is a volcanic remnant in the Tasman Sea, roughly 320 miles east of New South Wales, Australia. It’s remote, sure, but it also has some pretty plush digs, and a small population (roughly 350 people) living on the northern tip of the island opens apartments and small lodges to travelers.

The south end of the island is comprised of primeval forest, isolated beaches, volcanic crags, and towering peaks. The island is only seven miles long and 1.25 miles wide, but roughly 70 percent of that mass is protected as a Permanent Park Preserve. Moreover, locals limit the number of tourists, not allowing more than 400 on the island on any given day.

While you’re on-island, spend your time snorkeling in the crystal-clear waters of Ned’s Beach, where sand leads to a coral reef teeming with mullet and kingfish. Arrange with your lodge host for a guide to take you on the three-mile trek to the top of Mount Gower. It’s an all-day adventure that has you scrambling up volcanic rock and hiking through the lush interior forest. The summit rises 2,870 feet above sea level, punctuating the south end of the island.

Or, book a to Ball’s Pyramid, the largest sea stack in the world, rising 1,807 feet from the ocean roughly 14 miles south of Lord Howe. There, you’ll see turtles, wahoo, and the rare Ballina Angelfish. Trips and rates are determined once you’re on island, but you can book single-dive excursions to other sites for $160 per person.

How to Get There: A limited number of commercial flights reach Lord Howe from Sydney. It’s a two-hour flight. Accommodations are scarce on the island (there are only 400 beds in total), so book your lodging at the same time as your flight. has relatively affordable rates (from $300 a night). If you’re looking to splurge, stay at the , which has nine suites with views of both the Pacific Ocean and Mount Gower (starting at $1,900).

2. Remote Hike

Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, Iceland

The is one of the most isolated areas in Iceland, enveloping a 220-square-mile chunk of the Westfjords, a peninsula on the northern tip of the country where towering cliffs meet deep fjords. Uninhabited since the 1950s, the reserve is blossoming from an environmental perspective; since the last residents left, and with a hunting ban now in place, local species like the Arctic Fox thrive, while seals flock to the rocks against the water.

The beaches are a mix of sand and smooth stones, while ferns and wildflowers dominate the slopes up to the cliffs, with icefields above and waterfalls that drop straight into the sea. Hornbjarg, a massive buttress that rises 534 meters from the Arctic Ocean, looking like a cresting wave, is the biggest draw for hikers. The starts on the gray-sand beach on Hornvik Bay where most people are dropped off (see below) and climbs 3,500 feet up the side of the cliffs.

How to Get There: It’s a four-hour drive from Reykjavik to Isafjordur, the capital of the Westfjords, from which you charter a boat across the Bay of Hornvik, or arrange for a guide service to take you across. Arriving at the reserve, you’re on foot, as there are no roads or infrastructure. offers daily boat rides across the bay, guided hiking trips, and multi-day camping excursions into Hornstrandir (from $375 per person).

3. Remote Ruins

Rio Bec, Mexico

The , in the state of Campeche at the base of the Yucatan, Mexico, is known for its Maya archaeological sites. Here, the great ancient city of Calakmul has more than 6,000 documented structures, some towering over the surrounding jungle. You can take organized tours of these and other ruins along with thousands of other tourists every year.

Rio Bec, however, is a lesser-known Maya city tucked more deeply into the jungle of the same reserve that gets a fraction of the visitors. The ruins are so remote, and the jungle so dense, that an entire section of the structures was lost for more than 60 years after the original site discovery in 1912. Put in the extra effort (see below) to come here and you’ll likely have the site to yourself as you climb the steps of stone pyramids stretching 50 feet high, built around 700 A.D.

Some of the buildings have crumbled, while others still boast the skyward-reaching twin towers indicative of the Rio Bec architectural style, unusual in that it serves no practical purpose other than to make a building look more grand. Faux steps going nowhere are even carved into the tower walls. The jungle surrounding the stone structures is full of howler monkeys, jaguars, and wild pigs, and reaching the site is half the adventure.

How to Get There: Fly into the city of Campeche (there’s an international airport) and drive 300 kilometers to Xpujil, the largest town near the Biosphere Reserve. That’s the easy part. No roads lead to Rio Bec, and most tour operators eschew expeditions to the site, as it requires an approach of 15 kilometers (about ten miles) on narrow, difficult trails. Your best option is meeting up with the local guide , who takes small groups into the jungle on ATVs and motorcycles ($450 for two people, in cash).

4. Remote Hot Springs

Uunartoq Hot Springs, Greenland

The Inuit word “Uunartoq” translates to “the hot place,” appropriate for this natural spring on an uninhabited island in the middle of a fjord in southern Greenland. While the island has never been permanently settled, legend says that Vikings visited this steaming pool more than 1,000 years ago.

Aside from the addition of a small wooden structure built as a changing room, the springs are the same primitive, rock-dammed pool they have been for centuries. Unlike most hot springs in Greenland (most of which are actually too hot to soak in), the water of Uunartoq is heated not by volcanic activity but by friction, as layers of the earth’s crust rub against each other, warming the water and sending it up to the surface.

The springs are usually between 98 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or about the temperature of a welcoming hot tub. Soak in the pool and savor the views of the iceberg-choked bay and the rocky peaks that define southern Greenland. There is no lodging on the island, but you’re welcome to camp. Keep an eye out for the resplendent northern lights.

How to Get There: Fly into the international airport at Narsarsuaq, then catch either a flight or boat to the town of Qaqortoq, the gateway to Uunartoq. A number of operators in town offer boats and tours to the springs. It’s a 1.5-hour ride across the Qaqortoq Fjord, which is full of icebergs and where you may see the occasional humpback whale. offers a half-day trip from June to September ($375 per person). The company also guides trips to the nearby Greenland Ice Cap and multi-day hikes through South Greenland that have you spending nights on local sheep farms (starting at $140 per person).

5. Remote Lookout Tower

Three Fingers Lookout, Washington

Lookout towers are by definition remote, but Three Fingers takes the concept up a notch, sitting on the summit of in the heart of Boulder River Wilderness. It requires technical climbing to approach, so you need the equipment and know-how. Built in 1933 using dynamite to blast off a section of the rocky peak, the structure is so significant that it’s on the National Register of Historic Places.

The journey to the tower is awesome but to be taken seriously. Hike for six miles through a dense forest and amid subalpine meadows to Tin Pan Gap, where the technical climbing begins. You’ll need ice axes, crampons, rope, harnesses, and route-finding capabilities to negotiate snowfields and a glacier, scramble up rocky pitches, and finally climb a series of vertical ladders to the lookout on the south peak of Three Fingers Mountain.

The lookout tower sits at 6,854 feet and sleeps three or four people—first come, first served. The views extend deep into Boulder River wilderness, and you’ll be able to spot the 6,865-foot Whitehorse Mountain to the north and 5,437-foot Liberty Mountain to the south. Goat Flat, five miles from the trailhead, is a ridge-top meadow that makes an excellent campsite if you can’t score a night in the lookout.

How to Get There: Granite Falls, Washington, is the closest town. The shortest route to the tower is from the trailhead for Trail 641, the , at the end of Tupso Pass Road (FS41). It’s a 15-mile out-and-back trek into Boulder River Wilderness, with almost 4,200 feet of elevation gain. If you want a longer trip, check the Washington Trail Association website for the status of Tupso Pass Road, which was washed out at the time of publication and would add eight miles of gravel road walking. You can also take this .

6. Remote Whitewater

Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho

You want the middle of nowhere? The , in Idaho, is that and then some. The wilderness comprises 2.3 million acres, making it one of the largest roadless areas in the lower 48 (only Death Valley Wilderness is bigger). With two major whitewater rivers—the Salmon and the Middle Fork of the Salmon—flowing through the Frank Church, the best way to explore this vastness is by raft.

Let’s focus on the Middle Fork, which slices through the heart of the roadless area for 104 miles, from its source at the confluence of Bear Valley and Marsh Creeks to its convergence with the Salmon. Many consider this to be the best river trip in the country, thanks to the scenery (the waterway rolls through a landscape full of 10,000-foot peaks, vertical cliffs, and thick Douglas fir) and the adrenaline rush (100 rapids, from class III to class IV, in 100 miles).

Thousands of people paddle the Middle Fork every summer. Fortunately, the river is managed for its wilderness quality, with only seven group launches allowed per day during the summer and a 30-person max for commercial trips. During the week-long trip, you’ll camp on the beaches, see Native American artifacts like petroglyphs and pottery left by the Nez Perce and Shoshone-Bannock tribes, and soak in hot springs.

The most out-there you’ll feel is 80 miles into the trip, paddling into Impassable Canyon, a narrow, steep-walled gorge packed with big rapids. Shortly after entering the canyon, eddy out and take a quick side hike to Veil Falls, a waterfall that drops into a cave-like amphitheater.

How to Get There: Most boaters and commercial trips put in at Indian Creek and take out at Cache Bar, after the rivers converge. offers six-day trips on the whole river ($3,599 per person) with catered meals. If you want to lead your own group, apply for a , to be assigned via a random lottery ($6 reservation fee and $4 per person per day recreation fee). Applications for lottery permits to raft between May 28 and September 3 are accepted from December 1 to January 31, with results announced on February 14.

7. Remote Hike

100-Mile Wilderness, Maine

The 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail is legendary, but it’s not exactly remote, considering that it crosses roads and dips into towns along the Appalachian chain up the East Coast. The section, in Maine, is an entirely different story, however, offering a stretch of trail interrupted only by the occasional forest road and fishing camp/hiker lodge.

Hike this piece of the A.T. from highway 15 to Abol Bridge in Baxter State Park if you want a bit of solitude, but be prepared to work for it. The route typically takes 10 days and features more than 20,000 feet of elevation gain up and over the Barren-Chairback and Whitecap Mountain Ranges. You’ll ford rivers and traverse ankle-turning scree. You can filter water along the way, but will need to carry your food, so count on a heavy pack, too.

Cranberry bogs and isolated ponds punctuate the landscape of dense pine and hardwood forest, and you can see Lake Onawa from the rocky peak of Barren Mountain. As for fauna, you may well spot moose as you hike. You can add another 14 miles to the hike to tack on Katahdin (5,268 feet), Maine’s highest peak and the official end of the A.T.

How to Get There: It’s easy to reach the southern end of the 100-Mile Wilderness; it’s located off highway 15 in Monson. But traversing the truly remote stretches of the A.T. through this stretch of wilderness is up to your legs and lungs. July is the best month, as the black flies have mostly disappeared and the north-bound thru-hikers haven’t showed up yet. in Monson offers shuttles and can arrange for food drops to lighten your load. The 100-Mile Wilderness isn’t completely devoid of civilization; the Appalachian Mountain Club operates a few lodges in the area, but you won’t see them from the trail.

8. Remote Surf Break

Santa Rosa Island, Channel Islands National Park, California

Channel Islands National Park protects five islands off the coast of Southern California, and all offer the kind of remote setting many of us crave after spending time in a generally populous region. While coming here is an effort, the 53,000-acre Santa Rosa Island promises secluded backcountry beach campsites on soft patches of sand tucked into coves and surrounded by cliffs and sea caves, with wilderness-style surfing where you’ll never have to wait in a lineup for a wave.

The only access is via boat. If you take the ferry operated by Island Packers (see below), you’ll be dropped off at a pier in Becher’s Bay. Just 1.5 miles from the pier is the 15-site Water Canyon Campground, with drinking water and shelter from the sun. There are even flush toilets. You could feasibly base out of here and day-hike to various beaches on the southern coast of Santa Rosa, where the surfing is the most consistent in summer. Water Canyon also has its own beach that extends from the pier to East Point for several miles during low tide.

But the best surfing is further south, as the coast picks up south-southwestern swells during the summer. There are breaks along the beaches starting at East Point and moving south down the coast. After a drop-off at the pier (see below), follow Coastal Road south from the pier for several miles through grassland and Torrey Pines until it wraps around East Point. This means carrying your surfboard and camping gear. You’ll see small beaches along the rugged coast that are open for camping between August 15 and December 31. Look for the high-tide line to determine which beach is safe for camping (and then pitch your tent way above that mark). Larger beaches are just another mile down the coast.

Santa Rosa offers loads of other adventures as well. The water is surprisingly clear compared to what you find off the mainland, so snorkeling is primo, with reefs and kelp forests hiding abalone and lobsters. And there’s no light pollution, so the night sky is popping.

How to Get There: If you have a friend with a boat, call in a favor, as you could cruise the 40 miles from SoCal to Santa Rosa and surf one of these remote breaks without needing to camp. Otherwise, catch a ferry with (from $45 per person, one way) and get dropped off at Becher’s Bay and start hiking. Make sure you have a in advance (from $15 per night), because you’ll need that to reserve a spot on the ferry.

9. Remote Safari

Mount Nkungwe, Tanzania

Africa is brimming with remote places, but , in the western edge of Tanzania, has a special mix of isolation, exceptional wildlife, and beauty. There are no roads within the 632-square-mile park, so all travel is on foot, and Mahale occupies a peninsula jutting into the massive Lake Tanganyika, one of the largest lakes in the world, so the only way to reach it is by plane or a day-long boat ride.

The park was established in 1985 to protect the world’s largest known population of chimpanzees, which today are thriving at 1,000-strong. It’s also one of the few places in the world where chimps and leopards share the same terrain. The park’s landscape quickly shifts from white sandy beaches on the shore of Tanganyika to dense forest and steep mountain slopes cloaked in mist.

Reaching the park alone is a feat, but if you really want to tick off a far-removed spot, climb Mount Nkungwe (8,077 feet), the tallest mountain inside the park’s borders. It’s a grueling 10-day hike, requiring that you go up and over two sub-peaks and gaining more than 6,000 feet in elevation to reach the summit. Most hikers break the trip up into three days, camping along the way. The views from the top are astounding—you can see all of the Mahale Mountains and Lake Tanganyika below—but the summit isn’t the real highlight of this journey. In addition to chimpanzees, you’ll have the chance to see elephants, giraffes, and buffalo, not to mention the red colobus monkeys that live in the higher elevations of the park.

How to Get There: The fastest way to reach Mahale Mountains National Park is by plane, but most people arrive by boat. It’s easy to charter a boat from the town of Kigoma, and speedboats make the journey in four hours. , a six-tent luxury property on the white sands of Tanganyika, is the most popular place to stay, especially since a family of chimps lives in the jungle nearby (from $2,250 a night during high season between June and September, all inclusive). Published fees to enter the park are $40 per person, but reports from some previous visitors indicate the price fluctuates. All hikes require accompaniment by a ranger. Reach out to the directly for timing, fees, and other information.

10. Remote Dunes

Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park, Saskatchewan, Canada

The Athabasca Sand Dunes Provincial Park covers 62 miles of sand dunes in far north Saskatchewan. These are the most northerly sand dunes on the planet—a slice of the Sahara in the midst of Canada’s boreal forest. But unlike the Sahara, Athabasca, which is flanked by a large lake and dissected by three rivers, has plenty of fresh water.

You can only reach the dunes by float plane or boat, and there are no services within the park. No roads, no cell service, no rangers or structures, so be prepared to take care of yourself in a wilderness setting. Head to the William River Dune field, where the longest, largest dunes are. Land on the shore of Thomson Bay and hike west across the smaller Thomson Bay Dune Field for four miles to the Williams River. If the water’s low enough, you can wade over to explore the largest dunes in the park. You can within the park from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

How to Get There: Stony Rapids, on the eastern edge of Lake Athabasca, is the closest gateway town, though 90 miles east of the dunes. It has a float-plane base, making chartering a plane easy (but not cheap). Fly to Thomson Bay and start hiking west. offers a guided six-day backpacking adventure that includes the flight into the park from Fort McMurray ($3,900 per person).

11. Remote Mountain Peak

Mount Khuiten, Mongolia

A trip up Mount Khuiten (14,350 feet), the tallest peak in Mongolia, presents experiences in both solitude and culture. Khuiten sits in the heart of Altai Tavan Bogd National Park, which preserves 6,362 square miles of lakes, glaciers, and snow-capped mountains in western Mongolia. Altai is one of those places where you want to have a good map and a local guide, because if you get lost here, you could end up in either China or Russia (the park shares a border with both countries). This is a dream trip but a demanding one, so be experienced and prepared, and arrive fit and with top-flight warm gear. See below for intel on finding a guide.

The park encompasses groupings of petroglyphs and burial sites that illustrate the development of Mongolian nomadic culture over a 12,000-year time period, earning the area status. You have the chance to see some of these petroglyphs on the multi-day journey to the summit of Khuiten. You’ll also see modern-day nomadic culture, as the road into the park passes communities in traditional yurts.

As for the approach, the 10-mile trek from the edge of the park to basecamp ends at the 8.5-mile-wide Potanin Glacier, with camels to carry your gear. Most people climb the smaller sister mountain, Malchin Peak, to acclimatize to the altitude before navigating the crevasses of Potanin Glacier to High Camp on the edge of Khuiten. The final push to the top of Mount Khuiten is 3,000 feet up steep, snow-covered slopes requiring crampons, ice axes, and ropework. The view from the snow-capped summit encompasses all of the Altai Mountains as you gaze down on three countries: Mongolia, China, and Russia.

How to Get There: Fly into UlaanBaatar, Mongolia, and take a domestic puddle jumper to the village of Olgii, on the edge of the park. From there, it’s a six-hour drive over rough roads to the ranger station just inside the park. Next you’re on foot for days, depending on how much you want to acclimate, before your summit bid. The trek requires mountaineering skills and local knowledge, so hire a guide. is a trekking company owned by locals that offers a variety of expeditions on and around Khuiten (from $2,600 per person).

How to Be a Conscientious Visitor

Keep in mind some basic rules when you’re traveling to these far-flung locales. Follow Leave No Trace principles, taking everything you brought to the destination back home when you leave. Respect local cultures and customs, and learn about whose land you’re on. Whenever possible, stay in a lodge where the money goes directly to local entrepreneurs, and use local guides and services. Buy something if you can afford it. Always protect the wildlife and natural environment, which means keeping your distance and minimizing your impact.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. If he has to choose between a remote beach and a remote mountaintop, it’s going to be sand and surf every time.

For more by Graham Averill, see:

7 Most Adventurous Ways to See the Total EclipseÌęof 2024

The 6 Most Adventurous Train Trips in North America

The Best Budget Airlines—and șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Locales They Go To

The post 11 Remote Destinations That Are Definitely Worth the Effort to Visit appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

The Ford F-150 Lightning, the electric version of Ford’s super-popular pickup truck that came out last year, is my fantasy. I have a standard gas F-150 but with the Lightning, I could save hundreds of dollars’ worth of gas every month. The only thing holding me back from purchasing this particular electric vehicle? Something known as range anxiety. I travel a lot and I’m not sure the Lightning’s reported 320-mile battery range can handle the long miles I demand from my truck.

But the road-trip landscape is getting exponentially more EV-friendly every year. Several years ago, the average max range of an EV per charge was around 100 miles. Today that has more than doubled to 216 miles, according to the non-profit .

Even better news, the network of public charging stations is about to boom, with more than 51,000 already operating in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy. The federal government has allocated $7.5 billion to building more public EV chargers over the next several years to boost that number tenfold to 500,000 across the country by 2030.

In other words, it’s getting easier all the time to take an EV road trip. Just ask Liv and Patrick Leigh, veterans of multiple 1,000+ mile adventures in their Ford Mustang Mach-E, documented on their blog, “We had a lot of anxiety heading out on our first EV road trip,” Liv says. “But after several long trips and seeing friends crisscross the country in EVs, we know it can be done.”

The key to a successful EV road trip, according to the Leighs, is to plan ahead, using apps like or , which offer maps of every public charging station in the country and update you on their status, so you’ll know in advance if one is broken or busy. That advice is worth repeating: Download an app with real-time data.

There are plenty of EV-friendly road trip options out there, and most major car rental agencies now offer electric vehicles you can try out if you’re curious. In addition to gas savings and a lessened environmental impact, it’s possible that EVs actually make the Great American Road Trip even better than ever.

“We’ve learned to enjoy road trips even more now that we are taking an EV,” Patrick Leigh says. “Previously, in our gas car, road trips were all about getting to our destination as quickly as possible. 
 Now the EV gives us an excuse to stop, stretch our legs, talk to people, and enjoy the journey.”

I’ve mapped out seven scenic and adventurous road trips that you can pull off in an electric vehicle. Each starts from a large city, so you can rent an EV if you don’t have one, and all of them make the most of the burgeoning public charging network, which I’ve noted for each below. Maybe someday you’ll see me out there in that Lightning.

1. The Classic Desert Road Trip: Las Vegas to Grand Canyon National Park

Length: 350 miles

Driving from Vegas to the Grand Canyon is about as iconic a road trip as you can get. With copious DC Fast Chargers along the southern route, including a brand-new one installed by Electrify America near the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, this classic route is an ideal option for EVs.

Day 1: Las Vegas to Flagstaff, Arizona

253 miles

This is a big-mileage day to get you out of Vegas and closer to the Grand Canyon, but there are some potential adventure stops along the way. Las Vegas is loaded with DC fast chargers, so juice up here. Then head south on Highway 93, crossing over the Colorado River below Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam as you enter Arizona. If it’s hot and you feel like taking a dip, head to , on the Arizona side of Lake Mead. Or keep heading south and hike the easy trail to , which is just a quick detour away. There’s a fast charger at the Kroger grocery store in the town of Kingman, about 100 miles into the trip, if you want to top off.

Your destination for the night is Flagstaff, Arizona, where has a mix of inn rooms and cottages surrounding communal outdoor space with fire pits, tables, and lawn games, also a sauna and plunge pool (from $114 a night). You can charge your car at the DC Fast charger at the Walmart off Route 66.

Day 2: Flagstaff to Grand Canyon National Park

80 miles

Head north from Flagstaff for 80 miles on Highway 180 and Highway 64 to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. There’s a hyper fast DC charger at the Grand Canyon Visitor Center in the Grand Canyon Village. If it’s your first time visiting the Grand Canyon, you’re obligated to hike the , which descends from the lip of the canyon to the Colorado River in 9.5 miles of switchbacks, dropping 4,500 feet in elevation. Most people don’t hike the whole trail, though, so consider an 11-mile out-and-back to Plateau Point, passing through wild gardens and petroglyphs before ending at the outcropping that gives the hike its name, with impressive views of the Colorado River and sandstone canyon walls.

2. The Island-Hopping Road Trip: Miami to Key West

170 miles

Much of the South is an EV-charging-station desert, but Florida is an outlier, with more than 2,500 public charging stations, the third-most of any state in the country. A lot of those stations are located in South Florida, making this fun, beach-centric road trip from Miami to the southern tip of America an EV breeze.

Tesla drivers in particular will find plenty of super chargers throughout the islands, but there are Electrify America Fast Chargers in Miami, Key Largo, and Key West. Many of the hotels and resorts also have chargers for guests, so consider an overnight at EV-friendly lodging.

Day One: Miami to Key Largo

70 miles

While still in Miami, hop on the daily paddle of Jones Lagoon, inside Biscayne Bay National Park, with the . The half-day adventure has you paddling a SUP through narrow channels between mangroves looking for turtles and baby sharks in the shallow, clear water ($99 per person).

From the park, head south 70 miles on Highway 1 to Key Largo, where you can snorkel on Molasses Reef, inside the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The live barrier reef is several miles off the coast, but sits in just 10 feet of water, making it an ideal spot for viewing. offers two afternoon trips to the reef daily ($70 per person).

Fuel up at the ElectrifyAmerica fast charging station at the Tradewinds shopping center in the middle of the island. has charging stations for guests, and its own private beach (from $412 a night).

Day Two: Key Largo to Key West

100 miles

Moving south through the Middle Keys, take time to kayak the half mile from Islamorada to an 11-acre island and park only accessible by small boat (entrance fee is $2.50 per person). Here you can hike through the ruins of a 19^th-century town that existed solely to salvage items from ships run aground on nearby reefs, or paddle the healthy seagrass that surrounds the island.

Returning to the road, you can visit the Monroe County Public Library on Marathon Key, which has a free public Level 2 charger. Your next destination is ($8 parking fee), which has one of the prettiest beaches in the entire country. Then continue south to Key West, where you can rent a bike to cruise the eight-square-mile island ( rents bikes of all kinds from $14 a day), and hit , a public beach lined with palm trees and easy, shallow-water snorkeling.

A number of hotels have slower Level 1 chargers that guests can plug into overnight, including the , which is located on the waterfront of Old Town Key West, putting you within walking distance of popular destinations like Mallory Square and Duval Street (from $360 a night). But there’s also an ElectrifyAmerica ultra-fast charger at the Bank of America on Key West, so you’ll be able to recharge wherever you stay.

3. The Perfect Western Road Trip: Denver to Moab

360 miles

This is one of my all-time favorite road trips. Even though the majority of this drive is on the much-maligned I-70, the pit stops along the way are bucket-list worthy, and the final destination is highlighted by two of the most stunning national parks in the West. The I-70 corridor, loaded with DC fast chargers established by a number of different companies, is one of the most EV-friendly roads in the Rockies.

Day One: Denver to Glenwood Springs

75 miles

Get your junk miles out of the way as you head west on I-70 for 75 miles to Frisco, where your detours will be determined by the season. If it’s winter, you’re skiing at Breckenridge or Keystone. If you’re here during summer or shoulder seasons, take your mountain bike for a spin in the , which is free and has dedicated uphill and downhill trails designated by difficulty. The place has dirt jumps and a massive pump track, but don’t overdo it: there’s more mountain biking ahead.

Refuel at the DC fast charger at the Frisco Walmart, and drive past Vail (potential for fly fishing in the summer and powder in the winter) as you make your way to Glenwood Springs, where relaxation will be your priority.

Check out the , which are essentially natural steam rooms, and consider getting a room at the , so you can have immediate access to their hot springs-fed pool (from $199 a night). You have two options for refueling in Glenwood Springs, a ChargePoint fast charger at Starbucks or an ElectrifyAmerica at Target.

Day Two: Glenwood Springs to Palisade

75 miles

There are enough charging stations to get you all the way to Moab, but please—spend a day or so in Palisade, one of Colorado’s hidden gems and one of my favorite towns. If you’re here in ski season, gets 250 inches of snow a year, on 600 acres. If it’s bike weather, get a shuttle from and ride the 32-mile Palisade Plunge, a pedal-heavy downhill trail with plenty of technical bits and cliffy exposure (shuttle rides from $34 a person, available seasonally).

Day Three: Palisade to Moab, Utah

124 miles

There’s a DC fast charger at the Stop n Save in Grand Junction, just west of Palisade that you should hit on your way out of town, but also a fast charger at the city offices in the town of Fruita, near the border of Utah. In the way that people have long known to fill up on gas here, charge up before heading out into the desert.

OK, now you’re taking I-70 west to Highway 191 south into Moab, where you can choose from hiking in Arches National Park or Canyonlands National Park, or mountain biking in Dead Horse Point State Park. If I had to choose just one adventure, it would be the 7.6-mile traverse of the area inside Arches, which also takes in the postcard-worthy Landscape Arch.

Get a room at , in Moab, which has a fast charger and an outdoor pool and hot tub. There’s another charger for Teslas on Main Street. Be sure you charge your vehicle fully in town if you plan on exploring the desert, and keep an eye on your battery life, as there are currently no public chargers in the outlying areas.

4. The Vermont Ski Road Trip: Burlington to Killington

200 miles

Cold will reduce your EV battery life by about 25 percent (in below-freezing temps), according to a study by . That jumps to 50 percent if you’re running the heater. The good news? This particular road trip is low on total mileage with super chargers along the way and chargers at each resort. Recharge while you ski!

Day One: Burlington to Jay Peak, 70 miles

The town of Burlington has 80 Level 2 chargers, including a handful of plugs at Burton Snowboards that are open to the public on weekends and weekday evenings. There’s also a ChargePoint fast charger at Burlington’s Electric Department. After fueling up, head north 70 miles to only five miles south of the Canadian border, which enjoys some of the best snow east of the Rockies (more than 300 inches most seasons) over its 385 acres of terrain (lift ticket prices still TBD). The glades hold the best snow on this windy mountain. You’ll find good tree runs off every lift, but Beaver Pond Glade has beautifully spaced trees with countless options for lines. Not into skiing? Jay Peak grooms more than 20 miles of fat-bike trails.

Jay Peak Resort has 14 Tesla chargers, and at the base of the resort has Level 2 chargers as well as Tesla connectors (average rate is $400 a night).

Day Two: Jay Peak to Stowe Mountain Resort

Wake early and head an hour south (60 miles) to , where almost 500 acres of skiable terrain is split across two mountains (lift tickets from $143 a day). The terrain is notoriously steep, with the famous Front Four trails (Goat, Liftline, National, and Starr) offering double-fall line, double-black pitches. For something less intimidating, check out Main Street, a long intermediate cruiser with views of the surrounding Green Mountains.

The has ski in/ski out digs (from $400 a night).

Stowe operates a handful of throughout the picturesque downtown, but you can also head straight to the and get some of the best IPAs in the Northeast while filling up at their DC Fast charger.

Day Three: Stowe to Killington

If you have an extra day, continue south for 85 miles to Killington Mountain Resort, but make sure you stop at the Ben and Jerry’s Factory, in Waterbury, where you can get a scoop from this iconic ice-cream brand and recharge at their DC fast charger. Killington Resort itself has a full assortment of chargers throughout the base area, so again you can As for the terrain, Killington, dubbed “the Beast of the East,” has 1,500 acres to choose from. The most iconic line on the mountain is Outer Limits, which offers 1,200 vertical feet of bumps. Park rats should check out The Stash, a hidden park developed in partnership with Burton with features scattered throughout the trees.

5. The Classic California Road Trip: Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Big Sur

150 miles

California has more than 73,000 public charging stations, roughly a third of all such stations in the country, so if you suffer from range anxiety, consider any road trip in the Golden State the perfect option. This particular route is a mega classic, following the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Big Sur, hitting state beaches and inland forests.

Day One: San Francisco to Santa Cruz

80 miles

As you head south from San Francisco, stop at Pacifica, a beachfront town with good surf, a walkable pier, and dramatic coastline. Get the lay of the land by exploring Mori Point, a 110-acre swath of beach and bluffs that is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. You can peruse the black sand of Sharp Park Beach, or hike a through wildflower meadows that culminates with a bluff-top view of the Pacific.

Your next stop is the town of Half Moon Bay, where you can watch big wave legends surf Mavericks Beach, and top off at the DC fast charger at the Bank of America on Main Street. As you move below Half Moon Bay, you’ll pass a series of State Park-managed beaches, most with dramatic landscapes where the cliffs meet the water, so you can’t go wrong with any detour. But has a mile of soft sand, an ever-evolving collection of driftwood art, and a very cool rock bridge jutting out of the sand ($8 parking fee). If you want to spot some wildlife, Reserve has a large population of breeding elephant seals that lounge on the beach during the winter ($10 entrance fee).

Hole up for the night in Santa Cruz, at , a funky but upscale inn in the center of town (from $156 a night) with an outdoor pool and fire pits. Charge your vehicle at the DC Fast Charger at the Whole Foods in the center of town.

Day Two: Santa Cruz to Big Sur

60 miles

If you’re itching to surf, head to Cowell’s Beach, a mellow break that’s protected from big swells and has a laid-back vibe that makes it beginner friendly ( has rentals from $30 a day). After testing the waters, continue south on Highway 1, hugging the coast and, if you like, hitting , which protects 1,000 acres of high dunes and pristine beach.

There are a couple of DC fast chargers as you approach Monterey, and an ElectrifyAmerica DC fast charger at the Target in Monterey proper. Juice up if you need to, and keep heading south toward Big Sur, with its awesome juxtaposition of cliffs, forest, and waves. You could spend a week in this nook of California and never get bored. Still, make time to explore Pfeiffer Beach, a day-use area in ($15 entry fee) which has cliffs, natural bridges, and purple sand. No kidding.

There’s no shortage of upscale digs in this lush corner of California, but it’s hard to beat the location of , which has renovated motor lodge rooms or cabins (from $385 a night) and its own hiking trail through towering redwoods where you’ll find swimming holes on the Big Sur River. EV drivers can also refuel overnight at the Level 1 charger at the lodge.

DC fast chargers are scarce in Big Sur (so are cell and internet service), but Tesla drivers can juice up at the Ventana Supercharger on the south end. And as long as you topped off in Monterey, you should have plenty of juice for the return trip north.

Keep in mind that road closures do pop up on Highway 1 in Big Sur because of rock slides. Check page for current status.

6. A Stunning Pacific Coast Road Trip: The Southern Cascade Loop Scenic Highway

205 miles

We’ve called the 440-mile Cascade Loop, which travels from the coast of Washington into the mountains and back, one of the prettiest drives in the country. It’s also one of the most EV friendly, and has been for almost a decade, thanks to Washington State’s emphasis on adding charging stations to its scenic byways. The northern portion of the highway is closed in the winter, but the southern part is open and awesome. You can see one itinerary in the link above, but below, we’ve detailed a 200-mile option along the southern corridor with winter in mind. Think: Bavarian villages and endless cross-country ski trails.

Day One: Everett to Leavenworth, 100 miles

Pick up the southern leg of the Cascade Loop in Everett, just north of Seattle, and take Highway 2 east towards Leavenworth. Follow the Skykomish River and climb 4,000 vertical feet to , an 1,125-acre resort that sits at the top of the Cascade Range and pulls down more than 450 inches of snow a year (lift tickets from $100). Advanced skiers should head straight for the 7^th Heaven Chair and aim for the steep chutes that collect great powder and offer big bumps. Stevens Pass also offers the rare treat of night skiing.

Then head further east to the town of Leavenworth, a Bavarian-themed village that goes all out in the winter; the entire town is decked out with holiday lights from Thanksgiving to Valentine’s Day. The town also operates a small ski hill (named appropriately, “Ski Hill”) with a tow rope and sledding run. In other seasons it is a center for hiking, boating, mountain biking, and climbing and bouldering.

There are a few DC fast chargers in Leavenworth, including one at City Hall and another at the Safeway grocery store. Grab a room at , a budget-friendly adventure inn in the heart of downtown with its own beer garden (from $109 a night).

Day Two: Leavenworth to the Methow Valley

Head down the east side of Stevens Pass on Highway 2 and take Highway 97 north into the Lake Chelan Valley, where more than 30 wineries dot the shores of Lake Chelan. Drop into the family-owned , where rows of grapes overlook the blue water of the lake and the tasting room is open daily. Show up in November and you can experience harvest season and taste wine straight from the barrel at certain events.

Continue north, taking Highway 153 directly into the heart of the Methow Valley, which boasts the largest network of groomed cross-country ski trails in the country. You’ll have 130 miles of trails to choose from. Grab a day pass ($30, rentals ($30) and lessons (starting at $50) if you need them at .

, in Winthrop, offers direct access to the Methow Valley Ski Trails, as well as 20km of trails on the property, and a charging ports for guests (from $207 a night).

7. A Lake Michigan Road Trip: Traverse City to Manistee

150 miles

Michigan has one of the most robust charging infrastructures in the Midwest, increasing the number of chargers in the state by more than 200 percent in the last three years. Considering the car as we know it was born in Michigan, we appreciate seeing the state evolve with the tech. This road trip is short, but delivers, as it follows Highway 22 around Leelanau Peninsula, a skinny spit of land jutting out into Lake Michigan. There are cherries, lighthouses, beaches and dunes. Hit it now, before the snow hits, or wait until late spring. You’ll begin and end in towns with DC fast chargers and have plenty of Level 2 options along the way.

Day One: Traverse City to Leland

60 miles

Juice up at the Hall Street Public Parking charger and head north on Highway 22 as it hugs the Grand Traverse Bay, offering countless views of Lake Michigan. When you hit Northport, head north of town to the tip of the peninsula to hike on the edge of Cat Head Bay. One of the oldest lighthouses in the Great Lakes Area sits on the edge of the park, and you can hike the 4.6-mile which will lead you by a small, interior lake and a sandy beach on Lake Michigan.

Moving south, take a pitstop at Hallstedt Homestead Cherries, a u-pick farm.

You’ll pass which protects 1,700 acres of forest and sandy bluffs that’s popular with nesting eagles, aiming for the small town of Leland, which sits on an isthmus between Lake Michigan and Lake Leelanau, home to “Fishtown,” a collection of historic fishing shacks. It’s a supremely walkable town with easy access to public beaches and boat launches. puts you in the heart of the action, with rooms overlooking the Leland Dam (from $179 a night). You can walk to Van’s Beach to catch the sunset, then peruse town for some fish sausage. Yes, that’s a thing.

Day Two: Leland to Manistee

Continue south on Highway 22 and drive directly to ($25 entrance fee per car), home to massive sand dunes that rise 450 feet above Lake Michigan. Spend some time here climbing the dunes (yes, it’s allowed) and relaxing at the Platte River Point, where the river of the same name flows into the lake.

Heading further south, grab a beer at in Frankfort and end the day in Manistee, where you’ll want to catch another sunset at Fifth Avenue Beach, and stroll the pier to the Manistee North Pierhead Lighthouse. The , in Manistee, will put you on the water and it has a Level 2 charger for EVs (rooms from $171 a night). The Marathon Gas Station has a DC fast charger where you can refuel.

Graham Averill is șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű magazine’s national parks columnist. He’s been an avid road-tripper ever since becoming obsessed with the Beat poets as a teenager. An electric road trip is enticing to Graham because he likes the idea of taking a nap while his car charges mid-trip.

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and mass coral bleaching off of Mexico, Central America, and North America is terrifying stuff. In June, when I warned that 2023’s impending El Niño might be the beginning of a massive die-off, I didn’t imagine quite how extreme it would be. It’s even more of a reason to get in the water and see these reefs first-hand—doomscrolling doesn’t do our warming oceans justice.

Choosing your first kit is daunting, whether you’re already hooked, or considering your first dive trip for a better perspective on what’s happening below the surface. Scuba gear can be expensive, and much of the equipment is overkill for casual divers. At the same time, you’re better off avoiding some rental equipment. Buying these five pieces of diving gear first is the smartest way to get into the sport.

Dive Mask

There’s nothing more personal than your dive mask. The “perfect fit” is totally subjective, based on your face shape, facial hair, and visibility preferences. I wear a , which is technically a spearfishing mask, but it works perfectly for my needs; it fits my face shape, blocks out peripheral light, and takes just a small huff through the nose to clear, thanks to its low volume. To find your best mask, go into a dive shop and try several on in-person. Move the strap aside, press the mask against your face, and gently suck in through your nose; if it stays put without you holding it in place, you’re good to go. Not only is a leaky mask super distracting during a dive, but it’s also one of the germiest pieces of equipment you’ll rent. Snorkels are a nice added bonus for beginners, but as you’ll learn, most divers don’t bother to pack them.

Wetsuit

Wetsuits don’t necessarily require the same level of attention to detail as some other equipment—a little extra gap in a rental suit won’t give you hypothermia. They are, however, the grossest piece of equipment to rent from a dive shop. Without question, almost every rental suit has been peed in. And while most shops do a thorough job of cleaning equipment between uses, there’s no guarantee that you’re not stepping into a soiled, skintight leotard. A 5-millimeter thickness wetsuit is a solid choice for many U.S.-accessible dive locations, unless you run particularly warm or are headed to the Maldives. I’ve used a cheap everywhere from Hawaii to Bermuda and never been chilled or overheated.

Dive Computer

Why buy a dive computer if you’ll have one attached to your rented regulator setup? Familiarity. You want to be able to look at your wrist and know exactly what your depth, dive time, and decompression limits are at a glance. And while higher-end computers can be exorbitantly expensive, entry-level options are abundant and relatively bullet-proof. I use an old , which retails for roughly $300 and tells me everything I need to know in a large, high-contrast font. Folks who use the Apple Watch Ultra can simply download the Oceanic+ app to transform their smartwatch into a user-friendly dive computer for around $10 a month—a pretty sweet deal if you dive infrequently.ÌęÌę

Drybag

Unless you’re exclusively doing shore dives, a drybag is a must. All of your essentials—phone, wallet, keys, dry clothes—will likely get soaked wherever the boat is headed. On all my dive trips during the last year, I’ve been using —a 420-denier laminated roll-top sack with a shoulder strap. A small 20-liter bag is all you need to safely carry a fresh towel and personal belongings for the ride.

Fins

Fins are another very subjective purchase, although I typically advise divers who travel lightly to buy them last. Why? They’re too big, in many cases, to fit in carry-on luggage. That said, cramping and blisters are a major bummer on a highly-anticipated dive trip. Depending on how cold the water is at your dive destination, you might opt for closed-heeled fins, which saves you from packing booties. Beyond the closed vs open heel decision, your ideal fins will vary depending on your preferred swimming style, and whether or not you love diving in confined spaces like wrecks and caves. I rock a pair of , which have a bungee heel for easy on-off, are small enough and lightweight enough to jam into a carry-on bag, and feel agile during wreck dives.

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