South America
	Patagonia
	Inca Trail, Peru

Patagonia

Patagonia is the land beyond: beauty beyond measure, wildness beyond the reach of civilization's taming hand. Though European colonists drove out the region's native inhabitants, the land never took too kindly to further settlement attempts, and today vast swaths of this watery, mountainous wonderland are entirely unpeopled. Except, of course, by the intrepid trekkers with a taste for truly extreme sports. Travelers in Patagonia will face notoriously harsh winds, incessant rain, and terrain that will quickly separate real survivors from the made-for-TV variety. In exchange, you'll visit places seen by only a handful of human beings since the origin of the species. If you've been saving up the karma, you might also glimpse a cloud of pink flamingos rise up from the emerald waters where they feed. The best-known spots are the frigid Tierra del Fuego and the Torres del Paine dreamscape. But keep in mind that Patagonia covers a third of the total land within Argentina and Chile's borders. Find your own Patagonia and find out what you're made of.

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Inca Trail, Peru

The trails are steep, the air is thin, there's no place to buy food—no wonder it's such a popular trail. Despite the many hardships you must endure to reach ancient Machu Picchu, the Inca Trail is somewhat overburdened by visitors. Still, no list of the world's top treks is complete without it. Cloud forests, ruins, and a rich, tragic history imbue a melancholy mystique over these Andean highlands. Along the way, you'll meet the ghosts of Spanish conquistadores and vanquished Incan warriors in Sayacmarca, the"secret city," and Phuyupatamarca, the "town above the clouds," which, for better or worse, has been restored. There's also a host of snowy peaks that have watched in stately silence as empires rise and fall. The Incas were justly famous for their roads, and the path to Machu Picchu is not hard to follow. The walking is strenuous, however, which makes horsepacking an appealing option for many trekkers.

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