walking holiday | GlobalSalsa: travel writer Belinda Jackson

Feb

Peru’s high trails & the latest from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast: The World Awaits

It’s one of the world’s greatest tourist destinations, and Machu Picchu totally lives up to the hype as one of the great walks in Peru, and the world.

On this episode of our travel podcast The World Awaits, my guest is Sol Campos de Parry, Peru trade commissioner to Australia, who talks about the joy of hiking to the Inca City’s Sun Gate. But if you miss out on a hiking permit up the Inca Trail, or are keen to explore other trails in Peru, Sol also takes us to other great walking destinations in the Amazon and Ancash’s classic Laguna 69 trek in Huascarán National Park. Beware – Laguna 69 is at over 4600m, so she also shares some tips on adapting to high altitudes, some of which were new to me.

I’ve always had to take my time acclimatising to heights, most notably in Mt Toubkal (4,167 m) in Morocco and the Caucasus in southern Russia (the highest peak is Elbrus, at 5,642 m, but I climbed only to the last accommodation, because the snow piled in and I didn’t have a guide and sometimes you just need to check yourself and the reason why you’re climbing this mountain). If you tune into the podcast, you might find out why it takes me so long to acclimatise 🙂

Jump on via Apple Podcasts
Spotify
or click on via our website https://theworldawaits.au

Also this week, all the news of new hotels, restaurants and adventures on Australia’s Sunshine Coast. See visitsunshinecoast.com

And hello to all the lovers out there – co-host Kirstie and I have rounded up a few gifts for the travel lover in your life, guaranteed to make you swoon!

This episode is sponsored by Explore Worldwide, which offers small-group adventures with local tour leaders. Click here for adventure travel inspiration from our friends at Explore Worldwide. Don’t Just Travel, Explore.

Those links again:

Apple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep-81-walking-perus-high-trails-sunshine-coast-update/id1689931283?i=1000691520061

Spotify https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iryDbM68hGkD3etdjbOxd?si=0fb6e2d965cd4a95

The World Awaits website https://theworldawaits.au

Dec

Australia’s newest ‘Great Walk’ goes to Flinders Island, Tasmania

The warm turquoise waters are so clear that every ridge in the white sand floor is visible. Tea trees line the shore for a distinctively Australian look. Is this the Whitsundays? Maybe Rottnest Island? The dead giveaway is the orange lichen garnishing the granite boulders. Yep, it’s Tasmania. And that’s me, swimming in Bass Strait – the strip of treacherous water between mainland Australia and Tasmania. Flinders Island is not so cold, not so barren.

An hour into my week-long walking holiday, Flinders Island has kicked the stereotype of the Bass Strait islands being cold and barren.

“It’s the jewel of Tasmania,” the pilot shouts as our eight-seater Airvan chugs noisily away from Bridport, on the state’s north-eastern coastline. Below us stretch the low islands of the Furneaux Group, remnants of the mostly submerged plain that once linked Tasmania and Victoria.

On the west coast of Flinders Island, my guide Matt describes the land as “the Bay of Fires on steroids”. On this trip, we climb Mt Killiecrankie (fun to say, almost as much fun to climb) and I swim every day bar one, in spectacularly turquoise seas, making this a walk-swim-walk expedition.

https://www.smh.com.au/traveller/inspiration/australia-s-newest-great-walk-truly-lives-up-to-the-name-20241129-p5kunw.html

Sep

Healthy hiking holidays: from Patagonia to Tasmania and Spain’s classic Camino

Last month, I found myself hiking along a section of Chilean Patagonia’s most famous walking route, the W.

The route curls around the Paine Massif, a majestic family of jagged peaks, whose tops were shrouded in cloud and cloaked in snow. Condors hunted between their teeth, and the air jolted to the sound of avalanches, hundreds of meters above me.

It all taps into the recent story I wrote for Prevention magazine, a women’s health publication, about five great hiking holidays. In it, I included the W, but also Tasmania’s new Three Capes Walk and the Larapinta Trail in Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as the Kumano Kodo in Japan and the Spanish classic ultra-long walk, the Camino de Santiago.

Why do we walk? To get fit? To slow down? To go on pilgrimage?

The benefits include better health and spending time in nature, while some walks, like the Kumano Kodo and the Camino, were very deliberately designed to create time to clear your head and sift and sort through the bigger problems in life, says Di Westaway, founder of Wild Women On Top.

“Finishing a trek that takes you outside your comfort zone is a confidence-building exercise. It might be really arduous at high altitude, with plenty of “OMG, what was I thinking?” moments, but that exhilaration and achievement afterwards is a huge personal lift,” Diane adds.

You can read the story online, or you can just pull your hiking boots on now…

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Peru’s high trails & the latest from Queensland’s Sunshine Coast: The World Awaits

Australia’s newest ‘Great Walk’ goes to Flinders Island, Tasmania

Healthy hiking holidays: from Patagonia to Tasmania and Spain’s classic Camino