After a gruelling journey from the UK, arriving at Alpe di Siusi during golden hour felt like stepping into a dream. Farmers turned hay in some of Europe’s highest alpine meadows, framed by jagged Dolomite peaks glowing in soft evening light. We can recommend staying at the Hotel Schmung, a family-run gem with delicious northern Italian food and direct access to scenic hikes. Rifugios provide great lunch stops along the trails. The peaceful setting, breathtaking views and freedom to explore on foot without needing a car make this a perfect base for the Dolomites. Louise
Panoramic meals in eastern France
The Vosges mountains in Alsace. Photograph: Andrew Wilson/Alamy
The Vosges mountains in Alsace offer relatively gentle walking with fantastic way-marking (shown on IGN maps, the French equivalent of the Ordnance Survey Explorer maps). Panoramic views punctuate the walking through a mixture of pine woods and open pastures. Most Brits seem to keep to the valleys and the beautiful villages and towns but among my highlights of the area is the opportunity to compare the fare at the various fermes auberges that are scattered over the hills. Sharing a table with French and German visitors and locals, the short menus offer food that has to be mainly grown by the farmer/owner. Glasborn-Linge in Soultzeren has a four-course hearty lunch at just €27. Tony Eginton
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Donkey trails up Corsica’s highest peak
Climbers ascend rocky pinnacles on Mount Cinto. Photograph: Only France/Alamy
A spectacular train ride from Corsica’s seaport of Bastia to the small mountain town of Ponte Leccia provides access to the island’s highest peak, 2,706-metre (8,878ft) Mount Cinto. It can be approached from the dramatic Asco Gorge. For hikers, a network of donkey trails reveals arresting views, river pools and lost worlds, such as the abandoned village of Sepula. There are a couple of remote campsites off the gorge. There’s a ski resort halfway up Mount Cinto where the more challenging cross-island GR20 mountain hiking path can be joined. Late spring is the most enchanting time to visit. Didier
A perfect chalet in heavenly Montenegro
A mountainside path in Durmitor national park. Photograph: Ljubomir Stalevic/Getty Images
We spent a heavenly week in Gornja Brezna, Montenegro, a peaceful village 1,000 metres above sea level, surrounded by mountains and with a turquoise river canyon (the Piva) to explore. Days were warm and nights cool. We pootled about on rusty bikes, got coffee at the Etno village restaurant, befriended local dogs, went on herb walks and ran about naked in the birch woods, as well as making bigger excursions to Durmitor national park. We stayed at Nikola’s beautiful Brezan Lug chalet, in its own private woodland, with hot tub, barbecue, fire pit and all mod cons. Beth
High campiing in northern Albania
Our tipster Alex took a ferry on Lake Koman. Photograph: Hugh Mitton/Alamy
My partner and I had a magical time in the northern Albanian mountains. From Shkodër, we made our way to the Valbona valley national park via a two-night stay on (and boat across) Lake Koman. Once in Valbona, we camped with permission on the grounds of Hotel Rilindja, where the owner offered a wealth of hiking tips. From our base, we embarked on a series of spectacular hikes, including a three-day circular to Çerem. The first two days we saw no one apart from shepherds (and a few vipers, which were given a wide berth) before hitting a slightly more travelled section, where we encountered a handful of fellow hikers. The views were breathtaking; the hospitality, affordable and welcoming; and the experience, incomparable. Alex
Mountain cabins on Sweden’s King’s trail
The mountains of Nallo. Photograph: Alena Vishina/Alamy
The mountains and glaciers surrounding the mountain hut at Nallo in north-west Sweden were so spectacular last year that I’m returning to stay for longer in July. It’s roughly seven miles off the popular Kungsleden trail (King’s trail) that winds its way through Lapland. There’s no mobile phone reception, or food, so bring your own supplies. These can be bought at the trailheads, three days’ walk away, or at other mountain huts along the way. What you find at Nallo is a welcoming cabin with a host (£32 for a bunk bed), cozy bunk beds and peace. Catherine
The model of Saturn in the Swiss Alps near Tignousa. Photograph: Bryan Conway
This exhilarating four-mile stroll across our solar system starts, appropriately, at an enormous sundial next to the Observatoire François-Xavier Bagnoud at Tignousa in the Val d’Anniviers. As you walk away from the sundial, the planets are revealed sequentially in large metal sculptures, informative panels and a hand-cranked audio track. Each one appears at its proportionate distance and size from the sun, so Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter are soon ticked off on a shallow climb. Twenty minutes later, a striking silver-ringed Saturn overlooks magnificent views of the valley and down to the Rhône a kilometre below. Uranus presages a refreshing paddle in a mountain stream, good preparation for a steeper, but manageable, 30-minute scramble to Neptune and lunch at 2,300 metres, distracted by panoramic views of the Swiss Alps from the deck of the 19th-century Hotel Weisshorn. Bryan Conway
Rare flowers high in Italy’s Apennines
Alpine asters in Abruzzo. Photograph: Nature Picture Library/Alamy
I hiked through the Maiella national park in Abruzzo, just two hours east of Rome, where marsican brown bears, Abruzzo chamois and wolves roam while griffon vultures soar above. The drought-tolerant vegetation and steep-sided valleys conceal caves that were once inhabited by hermits – it was amazing to imagine what it must have been like living there. Flowering plants galore, with rarities such as the Apennine edelweiss, Apennine gentian, Alpine aster and dryas (a glacial relic) on the high peaks. Exploring ancient pathways and clambering up rocky slopes rewarded me with far-reaching views over the Adriatic Sea. Monique Gadella
Risqué mountain, Germany
A viewing platform on Mount Wank. Photograph: myLAM/Alamy
Rather than ascend the expensive and crowded Zugspitze (Germany’s highest mountain at 2,962 metres), during a summer visit to Garmisch-Partenkirchen we instead opted for a cable car up the magnificently named Mount Wank (1,780 metres). We were rewarded with lush mountain meadows, superb views of the valley below and peace and quiet. A cold beer on the sun terrace at the Sonnenalm restaurant is a must. If you have the energy, you can walk the well-marked trail back to the town or head down on the Wankbahn. Travis Roberts
Winning tip: Going with the flow in Spain’s Sierra Nevada
The acequia (irrigation channels) of the Alpujarras in Andalucía make for great walking routes. Photograph: geogphotos/Alamy
Walking the acequias of the Alpujarras in the southern Sierra Nevada, following 1,200-year-old irrigation systems built by the Moors while the snow-capped peaks above soar to almost 3,500 metres. Acequia Baja from the forest track above Capileira, curves round into the Poqueira valley, into a basin below the three highest peaks in mainland Spain while booted eagles ride the thermals. There are views across the Mediterranean to the Rif mountains in Morocco in clear conditions, framed by the deep valleys funnelling year-round snowmelt waters down steep gorges, yet the walk along the acequia is quite easy-going given the altitude. Jeremy
Travel influencers Sarah Woodard. Photo: Instagram/@sarahwoodard
Solo traveller Sarah Woodard, who has visited 102 countries, often shares details about her trips on social media. In a recent post, the American listed five countries where she felt unsafe. India too is included in Sarah’s list of unsafe countries. Sarah was bothered by the constant staring on the streets of India. Besides, she was scared to see stray animals roaming around everywhere. However, she noted that she enjoyed visiting these countries and would surely visit again. Sarah has also stated that she doesn’t believe her experiences in these countries are uncommon or rare. These are the five unsafe countries in the world according to Sarah Woodard.
Namibia Sarah had one of the scariest experiences in Namibia. A tour guide had tried to cheat her out of hundreds of dollars. She also felt that the local residents had troubled her when she was travelling through Namibia.
India India ranks second in Sarah’s list of unsafe countries. Sarah had initially planned to visit India as part of a group tour. However, she later decided to visit the country independently. She also hired a private driver for safety. Sarah says she always felt she was constantly being observed while travelling in North India. The driver used to urge her to get inside the car whenever people stared at her. Sarah states that she was scared even to take out her phone and felt afraid whenever she was alone.
Turkey Sarah felt safe for the most part during her six-week trip to Turkey. However, last week, she received a travel advisory that Americans were being abducted from a particular region. Sarah says that she was bothered by such advisories while travelling solo through Turkey.
United States of America Sarah states that women might feel unsafe at some point in the United States, mainly due to unwarranted attention given by men. She had an unpleasant experience while walking alone with her luggage on the subway. A man had constantly tried to talk to her. He then started getting angry and even demanded sexual favours from her.
Tanzania Sarah visited Tanzania in 2020 when she was financially broke. A stranger who kept staring at her followed her up to the hotel. He continued to stare at her until the hotel authorities intervened. Besides, strangers demanded money from her. Sarah says that she was made to wait alone at the border for completing paperwork that wasn’t required for others.
As Vice President of Global Public Relations at luxury travel company Virtuoso, Misty Belles has spent most of her career shaping how—and where—discerning travelers should explore. With 26 years at the company, she’s no stranger to the ever-evolving rhythms of travel and the ins and outs of the industry. Belles recently sat with our editorial director Pilar Guzmán to chat about all things travel this season: why more women are opting to go at it alone, the magic of a girl’s-only trip, and some trends to look forward to.
What are some travel highlights from this past year? What has stuck with you the most?
My first big trip this year was back in May, to Europe, then shortly thereafter, I went to Banff for the 2025 Virtuoso Impact Summit. That’s an area I hadn’t been to since I was maybe five years old, and it made such an imprint on me. I grew up in a small town in Texas; my parents used to load us into a car and we would drive from south Texas to Canada. I give them mad props for being in a car with two little kids for that long.
I went to my soul city, Paris, this last New Year’s with my own kids, and we traveled in a totally different way. It was their first time there. It’s quite extraordinary during the holidays. But I also took my twelve-year-old daughter to see Taylor Swift—twice—and it was the time of my life. Once was in Miami; we did a long weekend together, staying at Aqualina, which culminated in the show. The other time was in Vancouver for the end of The Eras Tour. We did it on a whim, actually. I planned the whole thing in 24 hours. We drove from Seattle and stayed in the middle of nowhere. And it was just magical. If I could bottle that feeling, that excitement, I would be in heaven.
Let’s talk about solo travel. What has changed in the last decade?
I’m someone who has traveled by herself quite a bit, and there was always a stigma of loneliness—but solo travelers are not lonely travelers. They just want to go out and explore the world on their own terms, not on somebody else’s. Nowadays, companies aren’t penalizing solo travelers anymore. There’s also more attention on women-specific travel, where you have a community baked into the trip (highly recommend checking out Intrepid and G Adventures). While you’re still traveling on your own terms, you’re doing it with the safety, security, and support system of knowing that someone has organized it for you. Women tend to backburner their own needs, so giving yourself permission to move at the pace that’s comfortable for you is a great gift.
Looking at our data, there was an increase in solo travel for the three main categories of cruises: Expedition, ocean, and river. That was super interesting—I always think of cruising as a couples or family experience. But on the other hand, it does make sense, because you’re as social or as not social as you want to be on a cruise. We’re also seeing trips to more “exotic” destinations, where, as a solo traveler (especially a woman!), you might be more intimidated on your own. For example, I have friends who have done a women-only trip to Saudi Arabia, and a colleague who just did the same in India—I’ve not been to either, and as a first-time destination, I might be more reluctant to do so. But going with another group of women, where the focus is on meeting and interacting with other women, opens up your world in a completely new way. It’s exciting, and it’s so transformative: You realize how similar someone else’s life is on the other side of the world. You think about the same things. You want your family to be happy. You want to be fulfilled. It’s a very eye-opening experience.
Girl trips are also having a bit of a renaissance. Why do you think they’re so important? What has evolved there?
Women are giving themselves permission to enjoy and to prioritize their female friendships. When you travel with your family, you feel personally responsible for everybody’s happiness: everybody has to have a good time, everybody has to do what’s on their list, everybody has to have a meal that they enjoy. But if you’re traveling with others where you don’t feel like you have to take care of them all the time, that’s a vacation for yourself. It can feel self-indulgent when you’re used to taking care of everyone else. But there are so many benefits. It’s not just the fact that you maintain close relationships, which gets harder to do in adulthood, but you also come back recharged. I always feel like I’m a better mom, wife, and worker when I come back from a trip that has fed my soul.
For a long time, for women, the only way to decompress and to enjoy each other was through the destination spa. For those who enjoy it, awesome. But that’s not everybody’s idea of a good time, or even of decompressing. Really, it’s key to find someone with a similar travel style, to align with them well, whether you’re go-go-go or more relaxed. I also find that the older I get, the more important it is to know people who knew you when you’re young—people who have seen your evolution throughout the different iterations of your life, who are still friends and want to be friends. To me, that’s the best path to walk with somebody.
What’s the summer travel outlook? Any surprise destinations breaking through?
Europe is still very strong, with the usual suspects on top—Greece, Portugal, Italy (I’ve been here for 26 years and Italy has always been the number one outbound destination for us!). US domestic travel is also huge—it’s actually our number one this year—and we’re starting to see a couple other destinations, like Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries, crack the top 10.
Our summer bookings are up 23% year over year and our sales up 26%. When those two numbers are right on par with each other, prices aren’t going up exponentially—which means the rates are finally leveling off. That spells good news for travelers.
Any sense of where some of the wellness trends are netting out?
We’re hearing a lot about the evolution of wellness into wellbeing. To me, wellness feels like a snapshot in time; a feeling of I went here, and I feel better because of it, but now I’m back to my life. But wellbeing is a reset: you learn to care for yourself differently and can integrate that into your life when you get back.
Wellbeing used to be focused just on diet and exercise—both of which are still important, of course. But there’s a deeper question now of how to tackle those ideas along with the things that are important specifically to you, whether it’s longevity, sleep, brain health. It’s not just enough to have these traditional spa services—your facials, massages, hot stones, et cetera—there has to be a kind of medical rigor. A lot of this is because people are making big health changes to their lives back home. They’re looking to accommodate and accelerate those changes when they’re going to these spas.
Pilar Guzmán is the Editorial Director of Oprah Daily, overseeing content strategy across the brand’s platforms.
Toasted ham baguettes in hand, we cheered as the new-generation Nightjet drew into Vienna Hauptbahnhof. It was a little before 7pm, and as the carriages hummed past I felt a rush of joy, like celebrity trainspotter Francis Bourgeois, but without the GoPro on my forehead. For more than three years I’ve been documenting the renaissance of sleeper trains, and I’d wondered if I might one day tire of them. But the thrill seems only to intensify each time I embark on another nocturnal adventure, this time with my two daughters – aged eight and five – who were already arguing over the top berth. The first four carriages were designated for travellers to the Italian port city of La Spezia, the other seven carrying on to Roma Tiburtina, where we would alight at 10am. Once in Rome we had 24 hours to eat classic carbonara, dark chocolate gelato, and bike around the Villa Borghese before taking a train to Florence.
Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB) has played the lead role in resuscitating Europe’s night trains. Towards the end of 2016, ÖBB launched its Nightjet network on 14 routes, using old rolling stock it bought from Deutsche Bahn. Then, to the delight of train nerds like me, it launched a brand-new fleet at the end of 2023, and now operates 20 routes across Europe. We were now on board this high-spec service, which smelled of freshly unpacked furniture, the carpets soft underfoot, the lighting adjustable to disco hues of neon blue and punk pink.
We were booked into a couchette carriage, which mostly comprisesd mini cabins designed for solo travellers preferring privacy. Placing shoes and small bags in lockers, passengers can open a metal door with a keycard and crawl into their single berth, drawing the door closed around them, and not have to look at another human until morning. Last year I had trialled the mini cabins from Vienna to Hamburg alongside a tall friend who had likened the experience to sleeping inside a bread bin, though I hadn’t found it as claustrophobic as I’d feared, just a bit hard, chilly, and with a pillow as flat as a postage stamp. So I was curious to see how the carriage’s four-person private compartments, for families and groups, would differ.
New generation Nightjet train in Austria. Photograph: Christian Blumenstein
Normally happy to share with strangers, I’d booked a whole compartment for the three of us: more to protect other hapless travellers from my children, who were now swinging off the berths like members of Cirque du Soleil, their sweaty socks strewn under the seats. With raised sides, the upper berths were safe for the girls to sleep in without rolling out, and I set about tucking in their sheets while they settled down to finish their baguettes. There is no dining car on the Nightjet, so we’d bought food from the station, which was now moving backwards as the train sailed out of the Austrian capital in silence, smoothly curving south-west.
Two days earlier we’d arrived in Vienna by train from London, via Paris, and had checked into the Superbude Wien Prater, a curious hotel that appeared part art-installation, part hostel, with gen Zs slouched around worn leather sofas on MacBooks. With four-bed family cabins overlooking the Prater amusement park, it was a great location from which to explore the city, then finish the evening with a terrifying rollercoaster and a spicy Bitzinger wurst. A friend had described Vienna to me as a grand and beautiful “retirement village”, but, on the contrary, its green spaces, playgrounds and museums made it an easy stop for 48 hours with kids.
Hopping off the Nightjet from Paris, we’d gone straight to my favourite restaurant, Edelgreisslerei Opocensky – an unassuming nook serving homely dishes such as stuffed gnocchi, and goulash with dumplings – before whiling away an afternoon at the Children’s Museum at Schönbrunn Palace.
Dressing up like young Habsburgs, the girls had swanned around in wigs and musty gowns, laying tables for banquets and begging not to leave – a far cry from our usual museum experiences. Before boarding this train we’d had one last run around the interactive Technical Museum, where the human-sized hamster wheels, peg games and slides had so worn out the children that my five-year-old was asleep as the train plunged into the Semmering mountain pass.
It was still light as we swept around the Alps, my eight-year-old kneeling at the window and asking where local people shopped, so few and far between were signs of human life. Horses grazed in paddocks, cows nuzzled, and the occasional hamlet emerged from round a bend as though the chalets were shaken like dice and tossed into the slopes. In the blue-grey twilight we watched streams gleam like strips of metal, and spotted a single stag poised at the edge of a wood, before the train made a long stop at the Styrian city of Leoben, at which point we turned in.
Monisha Rajesh and her daughters disembark the night train. Photograph: Monisha Rajesh
Like the mini cabins, the compartment was still too cold, the pillow still too flat, but the berths were wider and the huge window a blessing compared with the single berths’ portholes – this one allowed for wistful gazing.
Shoving a rolled-up jumper under my head, I fell asleep, waking at 7am to rumpled clouds and a golden flare on the horizon. Most night trains terminate soon after passengers have woken up, but this one was perfect, allowing us to enjoy a leisurely breakfast of hot chocolate and jam rolls while watching the Tuscan dawn breaking into song, and Umbrian lakes and cornfields running parallel before we finally drew into Rome – on time.
When travelling alone I relish arriving with the entire day at my disposal, but with children it’s hard work waiting until 3pm to check in to accommodation, so I default to staying at a Hoxton hotel if one is available. Its Flexy Time policy allows guests to choose what time they check in and out for free, and by 11am we had checked in, showered and set off to toss coins in the Trevi fountain, finding thick whorls of eggy carbonara at nearby trattoria Maccheroni, and gelato at Don Nino. To avoid the crowds and heat, we waited until 6pm to hire an electric pedal car from Bici Pincio at the Villa Borghese and drove around the landscaped, leafy grounds, relishing the quietness of the evening ride. Excited about the next adventure in Florence, the girls had only one complaint: that they couldn’t ride there on the night train.
Monisha Rajesh is the author of Moonlight Express: Around the World by Night Train (Bloomsbury, £22), published on 28 August and available on pre-order at guardianbookshop.com
Omio provided travel in a four-person private compartment in a couchette carriage from Vienna to Rome (from £357). Accommodation was provided by Superbude Wien Prater in Vienna (doubles from €89 room-only); and The Hoxton in Rome (doubles from €189 room-only)
