Most people choose a destination from a photo. Understandable, but rarely the best way. What makes an expedition hard or easy is not the view, but the terrain, the season and how far you are from infrastructure.
This guide sets out those three, so you can see faster which destination suits you and when to go.
Four types of terrain
Almost every expedition falls into one of these four categories. Each asks something different of your body and your gear.
Forest and wilderness
What it asks: navigation without trails, bivouac skills, dealing with damp. Distances are modest but the terrain is unpredictable.
Who for: the Untamed Adventure Weekend (level 2) is the introduction, for anyone sleeping outdoors for a few days for the first time. The Carpathians are a step up: nine days at level 4, with bivouac and navigation in late winter conditions.
Mountains
What it asks: endurance over long days, and above all a clothing system that handles four kinds of weather in one day. Altitude starts to count from around three thousand metres.
Who for: anyone after a physical challenge with changing conditions and big landscapes.
See Kyrgyzstan, Patagonia, the Atlas with Toubkal, and the Highlands.
Desert and steppe
What it asks: coping with heat by day and cold at night, discipline in managing water, protection from sun and sand.
Who for: anyone looking for silence and space, and willing to feel the gap between thirty degrees and zero on the same day.
Ice and snow
What it asks: the sharpest end. Here gear is not about comfort but safety, and every routine around staying dry counts.
Who for: anyone who has already slept out several nights and wants to know how they function when it gets genuinely uncomfortable.
See Escape The Arctic en Xtreme Patagonia.
When do you go?
The season often decides more than the destination itself. The same mountain range is a different experience in August than in March.
December to March
The southern hemisphere is in full season while it is dark here. This is the window for Patagonia and for the volcanoes of Ecuador. It is also the only period when the Arctic delivers what you came for.
March to May
The season for shorter trips closer to home. The Ardennes and the Carpathians are at their best, with long light and few people. The Scottish Highlands fall in the same window.
August and September
The best window for the high ranges of Central Asia. In Kyrgyzstan the passes are clear of snow and the nomads are still moving through the valleys with their herds.
October and November
Too hot in summer, too cold in winter: the desert regions have a narrow window, and it falls in autumn. That applies to Oman and to the Moroccan desert.
The exact dates and the current price are always on the product page itself. That page is what counts, because departure dates sometimes shift.
How hard do you want it?
Alongside terrain and season there is a third axis: intensity. We work with five levels, from an introduction with everything provided to full self reliance with no safety net.
What those levels mean in practice, and how to judge where you sit, is covered in Discover the adventurer in yourself. The short version: almost everyone starts at level 1 or 2 and moves up. Starting straight at level 4 without ever having slept outdoors rarely ends well.
A useful rule of thumb
Choose your first destination on what you can already do, not on the best photo. You choose the second on what you missed. That is almost always either more silence or more challenge.
Further reading by destination
- Why Kyrgyzstan is a paradise for outdoor lovers, on nomadic culture, packrafting and the Tian Shan range.
- A snow cave as a tent?, on sleeping in the snow and why it is warmer than you think.
- Altitude training at home, for anyone heading to a destination above three thousand metres.
- The impact of sleeping outside, on what a week without a roof does to your rhythm.
- Expedition packing list, once the destination is settled.
Not sure yet?
You do not have to be. Most people who call us know what they are looking for, but not where it fits best. That is what the discovery call is for: an honest conversation about your fitness, your calendar and what you want out of it, and only then a destination.