By Michael Lanza
Are you looking for great trip ideas for your personal “bucket list?” Well, you’ve clicked to the right place. This freshly updated list spotlights 10 of the best backpacking and hiking trips in the U.S. and around the world—from Grand Teton, Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Canyonlands national parks to Canadian Rockies hikes that belong on any list of the world’s great treks, plus some adventures that may not be on your radar—all of them worthy of your bucket list.
All of them are also trips that you should—or must—start planning now to take them in 2024.
The 10 trips described below all stand out in personal memory among the countless trips I’ve enjoyed over the past three-plus decades, including the 10 years I spent as Northwest Editor of Backpacker magazine and even longer running this blog. Each writeup below links to a full story about that trip at The Big Outside with many more images and info, including details on obtaining permits and my expert tips on planning and taking each trip. (Those stories require a paid subscription to The Big Outside to read in full.)
Hi, I’m Michael Lanza, creator of The Big Outside. Click here to sign up for my FREE email newsletter. Join The Big Outside to get full access to all of my blog’s stories. Click here for my e-books to classic backpacking trips. Click here to learn how I can help you plan your next trip.
I update this list regularly to feed you fresh and timely ideas—and to help make your bucket list, like mine, continually get longer rather than shorter.
I can help you plan any of these trips—see my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can do that for you and to read scores of comments from people like you whom I’ve helped plan an unforgettable adventure. See also my E-Books page for my expert e-books to many of America’s best backpacking trips, and my “10 Tips For Getting a Hard-to-Get National Park Backcountry Permit.”
I’d love to read any thoughts, personal experiences, or suggestions you want to share in the comments section at the bottom of this story. I try to respond to all comments.
Backpack the Teton Crest Trail
I’ve had the good fortune of taking many of the best backpacking trips in America. But of them all, the Teton Crest Trail is the one I’ve returned to the most times—most recently on this trip, when it seemed just as beautiful and inspiring as the first time I backpacked it more than 30 years ago. That’s because this traverse of Grand Teton National Park has everything: incredible views almost every step of the way, wildflowers, killer campsites, a good chance of wildlife sightings, and even, at times, a measure of solitude.
It’s challenging but not severely difficult (we took our kids when they were in grade school) and delivers a five-star adventure in one of America’s most spectacular mountain ranges.
This is an enormously popular trip, so plan on applying for a backcountry permit reservation the minute the park starts accepting them, traditionally on a Wednesday in early January starting at 8 a.m. Mountain Time (the date usually gets announced by late November). Popular backcountry camping zones, like those along the the Teton Crest Trail, get booked up very quickly after the park starts accepting reservations—often literally within minutes. The park allows one-third of available permits to be reserved in advance, so two-thirds are available first-come, for walk-in backpackers, no more than one day before your trip begins.
See my stories “A Wonderful Obsession: Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail,” “5 Reasons You Must Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack the Teton Crest Trail,” “The 5 Best Backpacking Trips in Grand Teton National Park,” and all stories about backpacking the Teton Crest Trail at The Big Outside.
I’ve helped many readers plan a Teton Crest Trail backpacking trip. See my Custom Trip Planning page.
Dying to backpack in the Tetons? See my e-books to the Teton Crest Trail
and the best short backpacking trip there.
Discover the Best of Yosemite
Half Dome, the John Muir Trail, the Mist Trail, Yosemite Falls, Tuolumne Meadows, Tenaya Lake, Mount Hoffmann, Cathedral Peak—these names are nearly as famous as the park that harbors them: Yosemite.
But in numerous trips backpacking, dayhiking, and climbing there over the years, I’ve discovered that other corners of Yosemite are equally spectacular if not as well known, including the Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River, Clouds Rest, Red Peak Pass, Ten Lakes Basin, Yosemite Valley’s North Rim, Matterhorn Peak and Matterhorn Canyon, Burro Pass, Mule Pass, and Benson Lake, among many.
This flagship park’s finest backpacking trips and dayhikes offer a variety of experiences that will awe you no matter how much time you have or how many times you’ve been there. For backpacking, plan to submit a Yosemite wilderness permit application 24 weeks (168 days) in advance of the date you want to start hiking—which for prime summer dates is not far off.
See “Backpacking Yosemite: What You Need to Know,” “The 10 Best Backpacking Trips in Yosemite” and all of this blog’s stories about backpacking in Yosemite, plus my expert e-books to three stellar, multi-day hikes in Yosemite, including “The Best First Backpacking Trip in Yosemite.”
See also “The 10 Best Dayhikes in Yosemite,” “The Magic of Hiking to Yosemite’s Waterfalls,” and all stories about Yosemite National Park at The Big Outside.
I know Yosemite’s unique wilderness permit system very well, and I’ve helped many readers plan a backpacking trip in Yosemite—including helping some obtain a permit after they had failed applying on their own. Go to my Custom Trip Planning page to see how I can do that for you.
You want to backpack in Yosemite?
See my e-books to three amazing multi-day hikes there.
Dive Deep Into the Grand Canyon
I think it’s fair to say that you cannot call yourself an accomplished backpacker or dayhiker until you’ve gone down into the Grand Canyon—and arguably multiple times—simply because it’s so unique, challenging, and mind-bogglingly beautiful and vast. Every hike there has only fueled my appetite to explore more of the 1.2 million acres in America’s fourth-largest national park outside Alaska.
I’ve explored the canyon on numerous backpacking trips and rim-to-rim-to-rim ultra-runs and hikes, including seeing the surprisingly lush oases on the rugged and stunning Thunder River-Deer Creek Loop off the North Rim; enjoying an adventure with repeated surprises on one of the canyon’s hardest multi-day hikes, the Royal Arch Loop; discovering unmatched solitude even in the midst of the peak spring season on the canyon’s Gems Route; and backpacking from the South Kaibab to Lipan Point—including the Escalante Route, which has hands-down one of the best overlooks I’ve ever seen in the canyon. Afterward, I understood why a longtime backcountry ranger had told me beforehand that that traverse is “the best backpacking trip in the Grand Canyon.”
The Grand Canyon can get addictive—but in a good way.
Apply for a popular Grand Canyon backpacking permit by the first of the month four months prior to the month in which you want to start a trip—for example, by Dec. 1 for a trip in April or June 1 for a trip in October.
See my many stories about backpacking in the Grand Canyon at The Big Outside, including “9 Epic Grand Canyon Backpacking Trips You Must Do,” “The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon,” “How to Get a Permit to Backpack in the Grand Canyon,” and “Fit to Be Tired: Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim in a Day.”
Do your Grand Canyon hike right with these expert e-books:
“The Best First Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Best Backpacking Trip in the Grand Canyon”
“The Complete Guide to Hiking the Grand Canyon Rim to Rim.”
Hike ‘America’s Most Beautiful Trail,’ the John Muir Trail
Are you ready to thru-hike the John Muir Trail? For many serious backpackers, “America’s Most Beautiful Trail” represents a sort of holy grail. Traversing the High Sierra, the JMT spans 211 miles from Yosemite Valley to the 14,505-foot summit of Mount Whitney (where you still must hike over 10 miles downhill to finish the trip.) Definitely one of America’s 10 best backpacking trips, it crosses three national parks—Yosemite, Kings Canyon, and Sequoia—and two wilderness areas, the Ansel Adams and John Muir within the Inyo and Sierra national forests.
My memories of thru-hiking the JMT are of an endless parade of stunning alpine lakes and lofty mountain passes where the entire High Sierra seemed to sprawl out before us.
A JMT permit, obtained from the agency where you choose begin the trip—for a complete, end-to-end thru-hike, that’s either Yosemite National Park or the Inyo National Forest—ranks among the most sought-after wilderness permits in the country. You must plan months in advance because the application timing is up to 24 weeks in advance of your preferred start date for Yosemite or between Feb. 1 and March 15 to start at Whitney Portal. Dates from July through September receive the greatest demand.
See all stories about backpacking the JMT at The Big Outside, including “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: What You Need to Know,” “The Best Backpacking Gear for the John Muir Trail,” and “Thru-Hiking the John Muir Trail: The Ultimate, 10-Day, Ultralight Plan.”
I can give you personalized, custom trip planning for the JMT. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn more.
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Experience the Magic of Paria Canyon
Paria Canyon has rightly earned fame as one of the best backpacking trips in the Southwest—arguably top five if not top three—for its towering walls painted wildly with desert varnish, massive red rock amphitheaters and arches, hanging gardens where the few springs in the canyon gush from rock, and sandy benches for camping, shaded by cottonwood trees.
For much of the first three days of this typically five-day descent, you pass through the Paria’s twisting narrows, where walls of searing, orange-red sandstone shoot up for hundreds of feet. The walls press in so close at times that you can cross the canyon in a dozen strides. Sunshine ignites the upper walls and reflects warm light downward, painting every wave of rock in a subtly different hue. You’re often walking in the shallow river, and pockets of quicksand add an adventurous element to this trek.
It’s done alone or combined with its 15-mile-long tributary slot canyon, Buckskin Gulch—which gets so tight that you have to take off your pack and squeeze through sideways.
This is a popular hike, so apply for a permit reservation as soon as they become available, which is after 12 p.m. on the first of the month, three months in advance, for example, on Jan. 1 for a trip anytime in April.
See my story “The Quicksand Chronicles: Backpacking Paria Canyon.”
Get my help planning any trip on this list.
Click here for expert advice you won’t get anywhere else.
Backpack in the Canadian Rockies
Imagine a pristine mountain landscape nearly as vast as Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Everglades national parks combined that resembles the Alps—but lies right next door. That’s the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site, which spans more than 5.8 million acres (over 9,100 square miles or 23,600 square kilometers) and encompasses four national parks (Banff, Jasper, Yoho, and Kootenay) and three provincial parks (Mount Robson, Mount Assiniboine, and Hamber).
On a two-family trip in summer 2023, we backpacked a pair of three-day hikes, starting with the Skyline Trail in Jasper, a 27.3-mile/44-kilometer traverse that follows the crest of a continuous ridge with constant panoramas of massive walls of rock rising in every direction. That was followed by the Nigel, Cataract, and Cline Passes Route, where we hiked over those three passes, up the stunning valley of the emerald-green Brazeau River, and spent two nights in an alpine basin ringed by rocky, glaciated peaks in the White Goat Wilderness.
I’ve also backpacked with my family the Rockwall Trail in Kootenay, a 34-mile/54-kilometer route that, for more than half its distance, follows the base of a limestone escarpment plastered with glaciers and towering up to 3,000 feet/900 meters tall. We crossed four passes, saw mountain goats, and walked below one of the tallest waterfalls in the Rocky Mountains.
Well known among Canadian backpackers but less so among Americans and international trekkers, the Skyline and Rockwall deserve a place on any list of the world’s greatest treks. Parks Canada announces the opening dates for reserving backcountry permits annually; in 2024, that announcement came in January and the dates to make reservations for the Canadian Rockies parks were late January and early February.
See my stories “Hiking and Backpacking the Canadian Rockies—A Photo Gallery,” “Backpacking the Skyline Trail in Jasper National Park,” “Backpacking the Canadian Rockies: Nigel and Cataract Passes,” and “Best of the Canadian Rockies: Backpacking the Rockwall Trail.”
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Wade Into Aravaipa Canyon
Well, you won’t be wading into southern Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon—more like splashing through its clear and lively, perennial creek, which generally flows around ankle-deep and rarely reaches knee-deep during the peak backpacking seasons of spring and fall. In early April, four friends and I hiked into Aravaipa for three days—the max visit permitted in the tiny, 19,410-acre Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness—setting up a base camp and dayhiking to explore this lushly forested, 12-mile-long desert oasis between redrock walls that rise up to 600 feet tall.
Flowing strongly year-round, Aravaipa Creek waters tall cottonwood, ash, sycamore, and willow trees in the canyon bottom, while countless thousands of saguaro cacti populate the rims overhead. With easy, nearly flat hiking often in the shallow creek, abundant shade, the low elevation and southern Arizona climate, and none of the concerns about water scarcity that are common on Southwest desert backpacking trips, Aravaipa offers a relatively casual and uncommonly beautiful adventure—and fall adds brightly colored foliage to the canyon’s palette.
Aravaipa permits can be reserved up to 13 weeks (91 days) in advance of your chosen entry date—for example, apply on Jan. 3 to start a trip on April 4.
See my story “Backpacking the Desert Oasis of Aravaipa Canyon.”
Planning your next big adventure? See “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips”
and “Tent Flap With a View: 25 Favorite Backcountry Campsites.”
Yea, You Really Gotta See Yellowstone
I could fill a story with a list of Yellowstone National Park’s unique features and reasons why everyone American should visit the park as a requirement of citizenship. (In fact, I have written those stories.) But just take my word on this: go there. I’ve been numerous times, at all times of year, and it’s always enchanting and beautiful.
We first took our kids when they were too young to even remember it. Many of Yellowstone’s thermal features—like my favorite, the park’s biggest hot spring, Grand Prismatic Spring in Midway Geyser Basin—are reached on short, easy walks, making Yellowstone an ideal vacation for families with young children or anyone looking for an easy adventure.
But the less-busy off-seasons of fall and winter are, in my opinion, the best times to see Yellowstone. Autumn offers frequently gorgeous weather without the traffic levels of summer. It’s also the best season for the outstanding (and sometimes challenging) backpacking trip on the Bechler River Trail. And of the many trips I’ve taken in America, I still consider cross-country skiing in Yellowstone one of the most special, for the wildlife viewing, the fascinating natural features like erupting geysers, the relatively low bar for skill level (it’s very family-friendly—and you can snowshoe instead of skiing, too), and how winter completely transforms the landscape.
Yes, you will probably encounter traffic in Yellowstone. But just go there—and start planning months in advance to secure needed reservations for camping and lodging. For backpacking, enter the Early Access Lottery for backcountry permits, which runs from 8 a.m. Mountain Time on March 1 through March 20.
See my stories “In Hot (and Cold) Water: Backpacking Yellowstone’s Bechler Canyon,” “The Ultimate Family Tour of Yellowstone,” “The 10 Best Hikes in Yellowstone,” and “Cross-Country Skiing Yellowstone,” and all stories about Yellowstone National Park at The Big Outside.
Trips go better with the right gear. See “The 10 Best Backpacking Packs”
and “The 10 Best Backpacking Tents.”
Explore Arches and Canyonlands National Parks
At a slickrock pass between two canyons in The Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, we soaked up a view that would make Dr. Seuss smile. Stratified cliffs extended in three directions. Stone towers 200 to 300 feet tall, with bulbous crowns bigger around than the column on which they sat, seemed ever at the verge of toppling over. And this Seussian vista stretched for many miles, as far as we could see.
Days later, we hiked through sprawling gardens of sandstone arches in Arches National Park, admiring the largest from below, scrambling up into some of them, even discovering quiet corners of the park where we could enjoy a more-remote arch or a small side canyon to ourselves.
And a few years ago in March, three friends and I backpacked for five days into the remote Maze District of Canyonlands, following primitive trails and routes that snake through a truly unique landscape of canyons, mesas, and a labyrinth of chasms, and enjoying an unusual degree of solitude.
Arches has grown increasingly busy, but still retains its magic, especially when you walk at least a few miles out a trail. Arrange any camping or lodging and apply for a permit reservation soon for a trip next spring and apply for a Canyonlands backcountry permit at 8 a.m. Mountain Time on Nov. 10 for a trip beginning between March 10 and June 9.
See my stories “No Straight Lines: Backpacking and Hiking in Canyonlands and Arches National Parks,” “Farther Than It Looks—Backpacking the Canyonlands Maze,” “Still Waters Run Deep: Tackling America’s Best Easy Multi-Day Float Trip on the Green River,” and a menu of all stories about hiking and backpacking in southern Utah at The Big Outside.
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Trek the Tour du Mont Blanc
Think about this for a moment: You will spend a week or more hiking a trail around “The Monarch of the Alps,” 15,771-foot Mont Blanc, through three Alpine nations—France, Italy, and Switzerland. You will spend your nights in high mountain huts with knock-your-socks-off views of crack-riddled glaciers pouring off rocky peaks or in comfortable lodging in iconic mountain towns like Chamonix and Courmayeur and quiet, post-card mountain villages. Not to mention eating some of the best food of your life and washing it down with regional wine and beer.
Widely considered one of the world’s great treks, the Tour du Mont Blanc is as much a rich cultural experience as a one-of-a-kind scenic hike. Before I trekked it with 12 family and friends of varying abilities—including my 80-year-old mother—I mapped out in advance a flexible daily itinerary that allowed some in our group to use local public transportation to avoid hard sections or bad weather.
The result? Everyone had a wonderful experience that was perfect for them.
No permit is required to trek the Tour du Mont Blanc, but mountain huts and lodging along the trail get booked up months in advance.
See my story “Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc at an 80-Year-Old Snail’s Pace.”
My e-book “The Perfect, Flexible Plan for Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc” describes the daily TMB itinerary I created for our group. It provides detailed advice on day-to-day options for customizing a flexible TMB hiking itinerary on the first nine of the TMB’s 11 stages, including how and where to take public transportation or shuttle services to shorten or avoid difficult sections or bad weather; how to plan and prepare for a TMB trek; and gear and safety tips. It also recommends shorter sections of the TMB to trek if your time is more limited.
Find more ideas and inspiration in my All Trips List, which has a menu of all stories at this blog, and in “America’s Top 10 Best Backpacking Trips” and “The 10 Best Family Outdoor Adventure Trips.”
Great list Michael. Inspired by your book and website we have hiked across the Grand Canyon, paddled the Everglades, and hope to do the Teton Crest Trail soon. One of my favorite backpacking trips, though, is one you’ve described in your book: the hike from Oil City to Third Beach on the Olympic coast. My wife and I did that trip this summer with our 4 kids (6/11/15/18). It was an amazing feeling having lunch at the foot of the rope ladder leading up to Hoh Head, and looking back over the beach knowing the tide had now closed the crossing at Diamond Rocks and there would be no one else following for the rest of the day—it was just us and an eagle on a nearby seastack (the next day was similar, just replace nearby eagle with otters). We also were lucky with stunning sunsets. It was an awesome backpacking trip and our kids had an amazing time.
Hi Mike,
Good to hear from you and see that your family has been busy knocking off some of America’s best backpacking trips and family adventures! You should also check out my picks for “The Top 10 Family Outdoor Adventures.”
If you’re thinking about the Teton Crest Trail next year, note that the date to apply for a permit is coming up in early January; see this story and my e-guide “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” or my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan that.
I appreciate your comments, Mike. Good luck with your next family adventure.
Very good article. How much do you charge to lead a Teton Crest hike for one person?
Thanks, Frank. I don’t lead or guide hikes but I can give you a personalized trip plan for the Teton Crest Trail. See my Custom Trip Planning page to learn how I can help you plan your trip. Or if you prefer to do it yourself, my e-guide “The Complete Guide to Backpacking the Teton Crest Trail in Grand Teton National Park” will help you do that.
Get in touch with me anytime.