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- Written by: Active Traveller Staff
Try these new hotels:
Chesa Marchetta, Sils Maria, Switzerland
Just a short drive the über-upmarket St. Moritz, the small village of Sils Maria offers a quieter access point to some of Switzerland’s most gorgeous mountainscapes. Opened in January 2026, the boutique Chesa Marchetta is a tasteful modern makeover of a 16th century farmhouse. Its 13 bedrooms are furnished in traditional style, antiques mixing seamlessly with pieces by local artists and craftspeople. The rustic restaurant is worth the entry price alone.
Ytri Island Retreat, Norway
“Norway’s remotest island retreat” is located on a windswept archipelago 60km off the coast, offering an oasis of warmth and comfort in a beautiful, but bleak-looking, landscape. Opened in April 2026, the hotel is built around a series of brightly-coloured huts inspired by traditional fishermen’s houses. The Traena archipelago is spectacular, with incredible bird-watching, walking and all manner of seaborne pursuits. You could also come here just for the seafood, the saunas, and the stunning views too.
Maxa Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana
Opened in March 2025, the Maxa Camp is one of the newest in the Kaza Transfrontier Park—a vast protected area which links up 520,000 sq. km of National Parks across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Located on the lagoon of the same name, the camp sleeps just 12 guests in luxurious, permanent safari tents. There are daily dugout or jeep excursions, and a treetop wildlife watching platform which gives amazing views over the lagoon, and the animals that come to drink every evening.
Watch these outdoor / adventure films:
Retro: An Undiscovered World (Brian Hall & Jess James, 2025)
This whimsical short film (which AT recently caught at the world’s oldest mountain movie festival, the Trento Film Festival in Italy) is an exploration of the simple art of walking backwards. Featuring archive footage and interviews with a whole array of record breakers, world champions and one-off eccentrics (most of whom, inevitably, are British) it offers a fascinating glimpse into a strange corner of the hiking world.
Screening at film festivals summer 2026
Deeper (Madman Films, 2025)
“At that depth, there’s no chance of a rescue,” explains Dr. Richard Harris, matter-of-factly, in this nail-biting film about diving in one of the world’s deepest caves. “If you panic, you die.” Harris played a crucial role in rescuing the 12 Thai boys trapped underground in 2018. This new movie looks at what makes him and his fellow cave-divers tick: how they handle such risky environments, and why they do it for fun, as they set a new depth record in the unexplored reaches of New Zealand’s Pearse Resurgence.
Streaming now on Netflix
Girl Climber (Louder than 11 films, 2025)
If you can look past the terrible title (which apparently even the film’s star, Emily Harrington, wasn’t convinced by) this is actually a really great film. It tells the story of Harrington’s life and glittering career as one of the world’s best-respected climbers. The focus is her record-setting climb of El Capitan’s Golden Gate route in 2020, but the film ranges wider than that. It shows her relationships with fellow climbers like her friend Alex Honnold, and the extra obstacles she’s faced as a woman in a male-dominated discipline.
Streaming now on Amazon
Go to these adventure festivals:
Kendal Mountain Festival, Nov 19-22, Cumbria
The UK’s best-known outdoor festival returns for its 46th edition, with the usual jam-packed schedule of 300+ speakers, over 150 films, and 60 activities. These include the famous 10km run (well-known as a way to blow out the cobwebs after a night on the ales) a 50km ultra, guided swims, bike rides and climbing sessions. Around 28,000 adventure enthusiasts are expected to attend, making it the biggest gathering of its kind in the UK.
Dartmoor Outdoors, Aug 28-Sept 4
A week-long celebration of one of England’s most dramatic national parks, the Dartmoor Outdoor Festival packs its programme with guided walks, climbing sessions, film screenings, navigation workshops and live music. Princetown serves as the festival hub, but events take place across the moor. Previously known as the Dartmoor Walking Festival, the event was rebranded to reflect the wider variety of activities now on offer, from gorge walking to forest tai chi.
Fort William Mountain Festival, February 12-14, 2027, Lochaber
Nestled at the foot of Ben Nevis in the heart of Lochaber, Fort William bills itself as the Outdoor Capital of the UK, with the Nevis Range, Glen Coe and the Great Glen all within easy reach. This festival, which has taken place every February for the past few years, is packed with inspirational films, speakers, workshops and exhibitions. It’s entirely organised and run by a team of committed volunteers, giving it a warm, community feel that reflects Fort William’s character as one of the most welcoming mountain towns anywhere.
Read these travel & adventure books:
Thundery at Times, Katie Carr, 2026
The Shipping Forecast has a peculiar hold over the British imagination—those sonorous place names, Rockall, Dogger, Biscay, have inspired poets from Carol Ann Duffy to Damon Albarn, conjuring wild and watery edges that most of us will never visit. Katie Carr had no intention of visiting them either, until her brother died tragically young in 2022. He’d been on a self-appointed mission to paddle his sea kayak in all 31 of the forecast areas—a mission Katie, despite having no previous sea-kayaking experience, took upon herself to complete. In part, she wanted to pay tribute to his memory. But she was also looking for the kind of adventure that would help her feel alive in the face of such enormous loss.
Is a River Alive? Robert Macfarlane, 2025
Is a river alive? It sounds like the kind of question a child might ask. And indeed, early on in the latest book by celebrated nature writer Robert Macfarlane, a child both asks and answers it. “Well duh, that’s going to be a short book then, Dad, because the answer is yes!” one of his young sons tells him. Macfarlane however, is not so sure—at least to begin with. Cue three long journeys, through Ecuador, southern India and the wilds of northeastern Quebec in search of an answer. The animating idea, whether rivers should have rights, is both very current (see: the Rights of Nature movement) and incredibly ancient. Macfarlane, a Professor of Literature at Cambridge by day, explores this and the rivers themselves in his trademark lush, thought-provoking prose.
Peak Bagging Wales Will Renwick, 2026
Will Renwick, editor of our sister publication Outdoors Magic, is already a legend of the Welsh hillwalking and running scene. He’s the former president of the Welsh Ramblers’ Association, has walked every national trail in the country, and in 2021 became the first person to run up all of Wales’ 188 mountains in a single, solo, 885km push. As such, he’s arguably the best-placed person to write this: the definitive guidebook to walking and running in the Welsh mountains. He’s handpicked routes to avoid the biggest tourist traps, including maps, turn-by-turn directions, and downloadable GPX tracks. The book is full of the kind of insider knowledge that only a lifelong afficiando can provide.
The Corridor, Iain Peters, 2025
In 2015, the climber Iain Peters walked into a police station in Devon and revealed a secret he’d kept hidden for 50 years. In the 1960s, while he was a boy at boarding school in Okehampton, he’d been abused by his teacher, John Earle. Earle, who had gone onto a career presenting shows like Jackanory at the BBC, was arrested, confessed and convicted in 2017. The case made the news at the time, but it wasn’t until last year that Peters told the full story. In this quietly-devastating memoir of living with trauma, he tells how rock climbing provided focus, community, and ultimately salvation. It deservedly won the 2025 Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature.
