| 12 New Global Treks |
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Overlanding 
Flickr/welsh boy
Machu Picchu, Peru Route: Mollepata to Machu Picchu Miles: 22 Duration: Five days trekking Difficulty: • • • • • The ancient, mist-veiled ruins of Machu Picchu are as impressive as ever, but the backpacker-riddled Inca Trail is decidedly not. The new Salkantay Route, a 22-mile trek along forgotten Inca footpaths, is the far less traveled way to the enigmatic city, offering solitude, explorations of isolated ruins, and seldom-seen views of Machu Picchu from an ancient watchtower to the southwest. Days The four days of walking at up to 14,800 feet are strenuous but not laborious. Credit the merits of distraction—such as tidy, organic coffee plantations; avocado and passion fruit orchards; thatched-hut villages; and glimpses of the rare Andean condor. The star attraction, of course, is the view of the Vilcabamba Range, soaring some 20,000 feet into the crisp sky. Nights The four stone, wood, and adobe-brick lodges along the route, run by Mountain Lodges of Peru, are marked by local flavor. Indigenous textiles and musical instruments, plus black-and-white photographs of villages and peaks, adorn the walls. But the lodges are also attuned to the discriminating trekker: Think goose-down beds and a nutritionist-designed menu, which features hearty organic soups and dishes like grilled local trout with herbed organic quinoa. Best moment A bracing swim in a glacial lake, followed by a soak in the Jacuzzi, pisco sour in hand, at the Salkantay Lodge. $2,500 for a guided seven-day itinerary from Cuzco; mountainlodgesofperu.com 
Flickr/Allerina & Glen MacLarty
Amalfi Coast, Italy Route: Capri to Ravello Miles: 25–30 Duration: Five days trekking Difficulty: • • • • • Studded with lemon and olive orchards, blessed by a downright docile climate, and wrapped by towering cliffs, the Amalfi Coast’s charms are hardly in short supply. To savor them in solitude, however, walk to the more subtle attractions (like the lush gardens of ancient villas and tiny 18th-century churches tucked in remote villages) on an east-moving journey from Capri to Ravello. Days A private tour of Emperor Tiberius’s summer palace by a spirited local historian and an amble through the lemon groves and ancient terraces along the Path of the Gods with an Amalfitano naturalist are only a couple of the highlights of Butterfield & Robinson’s Amalfi walking itinerary. In the Italian tradition, walks tend to be more like strolls, leaving plenty of time for poking around a historic paper mill in the tiny village of Scala or lingering over lunch in the village of Pontone. (Have the lemon linguine.) Nights The God’s-eye views of the coast at the 48-room Hotel Caruso in Ravello, your abode for a couple of nights, have attracted literary luminaries such as Virginia Woolf and Gore Vidal. Le Sirenuse Hotel rivals the Caruso, with oil paintings by the masters, rare tropical plants, handmade-tile floors, and private balconies ideal for pondering the myth of the sirens thought to dwell offshore. Best moment Catching the improv vibe during a private concert by Neapolitan musicians, who enliven their traditional Tamburiata tunes with jazz riffs and plenty of Southern Italian brio. $8,195 for a seven-day itinerary; butterfield.com |
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