5 ways to explore Italy’s great outdoors

The Sundarban

This article turned into produced by National Geographic Traveller (UK).

Even supposing its residents are famously proponents of la dolce vita, a factual life needn’t imply an sluggish one — Italy offers gargantuan opportunities for adrenaline-seekers, whether it’s the entire reason of your outing, or the interval to a extra behind itinerary. Inspiring pure backdrops and an skilled local operators abound, and there are alternate suggestions for every season and stage of skill.

1. Kayak the Conero Riviera

Its gleaming blue waters and ivory seashores backdropped by lush green scrubland, here is the little-identified Le Marche plot’s answer to the Caribbean. A pair of of the extra remote stretches of this Adriatic fringe may per chance also be hectic to secure admission to by land, but slightly still waters invent kayaks the final word scheme to secure spherical. Local operator Conerostyle runs daylight hours, sunrise and sunset guided excursions to wild strands savor Mezzavalle, taking in hidden coves and hovering rock sculptures along the blueprint in which.
Guide it: 90-minute kayaking tour, from Portonovo €30 (£26) per particular person.

2. Swim Sardinia’s Emerald Wing

Most of us expertise the jewel-savor waters off Sardinia’s north east from the icing sugar sands of its shore, but you’ll secure a special standpoint — and a worthy quieter one — whenever you e-book onto SwimTrek’s new tour. Days are spent front-crawling between islands savor Budelli, Santa Maria and Razzoli, convalescing with a behind lunch on the deck of your community’s non-public boat. Among the many hidden coves and otherworldly seashores you’ll converse over with is Cala Brandinchi, identified as ‘Miniature Tahiti’ for reasons that are at once glaring.
Guide it: Six nights from €1,794 (£1,520) per particular person, together with guiding, B&B accommodation and lunches.

(Previous Costa Smeralda: why it’s possible you’ll per chance agree with to still converse over with Gallura, Sardinia’s hidden nook.)

3. Cycle spherical Lake Garda

Surrounded by huge, light and undulating roads, Lake Garda is significant territory for a pedal-powered outing. Circumnavigating Italy’s ultimate physique of water will grow to be extra easy when the Ciclovia del Garda, a gradual cycle track, opens in 2026, however the present routes will wind you past slightly towns, freshwater seashores and Roman ruins. Headwater offer e-bikes to reduction with the extra sturdy stretches of their six-night, self-guided biking break, whether you’re powering thru vineyards on the blueprint in which to a Valpolicella wine-tasting or gliding past Mantua’s 15th-century Basilica Sant’Andrea.
Guide it: Six nights from €1,192 (£1,029) per particular person, together with B&B accommodation and e-bike hire.

(Extra to enact spherical Lake Garda: mountain ice climbing, rock ice climbing and scaling through ferratas.)

4. Dive off Elba

Gleaming corals and backbone-tingling shipwrecks, magical grottos and a 2d World War plane smash — the waters spherical this Tuscan island offer a cascade of adventures that appear lifted from a kids’s storybook. A pair of of basically the most attention-grabbing internet sites are clumped offshore shut to Campo nell’Elba, in the south west, the put kaleidoscopic faculties of fish swirl spherical a submerged Madonna sculpture, and barracuda teem by boulder formations. There are a great deal of PADI-popular centres on the island offering excursions and accreditation classes. With Sottolonda, that prospects are you’ll also even study how to dive at night.
Guide it: From €46 (£39) for one dive.

5. Ski inaccurate-nation in the Dolomites

Most frequently referred to as the ‘Queen of the Dolomites’, the ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo will seemingly be thrust centre-stage when it co-hosts the Winter Olympics in February 2026 — but there’s still time to expertise it sooner than the crowds topple. A cluster of wood chalets encircled by the craggy ‘pale mountains’, the town has extra than 200 inaccurate-nation trails within inserting distance — besides to an enticing apres-ski scene. Highlights of the Dolomites Mountains guided tour encompass the snow-dusted pines and frozen lakes along the used Cortina-Dobbiaco railway line, now a remodeled ski poke.
Guide it: Seven days from €4,260 (£3,675) per particular person, together with guiding, half of-board accommodation and ski circulation.

(Take a ski safari all the blueprint in which thru the Dolomites sooner than the 2026 Winter Olympics.)

Published in the September 2025 dispute of National Geographic Traveller (UK).

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