Travelers Are Forgoing Luxury for Nature-focused Trips That Push Their Physical (and Emotional) Limits — Here's Why

Last Fourth of July weekend, while most people were scarfing hot dogs and knocking back beers, I was embarking on a 46-mile trek through Denmark, weighed down by a 25-pound backpack and the emotional fallout of a pandemic divorce. I’d signed up for a three-day endurance-hiking event known as the Fjällräven Classic Denmark, which is held every summer on the island of Funen, a couple hours west of Copenhagen. By the end of day one, I’d covered 18 miles (most of them in torrential rain), grunting my way through barley fields, along seaweed-strewn coastline, and up challenging hills. 

By the time I collapsed into my tent that night I was exhausted, and so grungy I wondered if a hot shower would even help — not that one was available. What I didn’t ask was, Why am I putting myself through this?

Lately, I’ve discovered a different way of traveling, one that satisfies not only my desire to see new destinations but also a newfound yearning to push my physical (and often emotional) limits. Prior to 2020, my trips revolved around beachfront resorts and butler service. But my priorities have since changed — and, it turns out, I’m in good company.

“We see travelers seeking out activities that require more mental and physical exertion,” says Misty Belles, vice president of global public relations for Virtuoso, a network of luxury travel advisors. “C-suite clients in particular want experiences that go beyond their comfort zone. Executives at the highest levels are willing to push boundaries, and they like to test themselves.”

Among them is Steve Orens, the president of the agency Plaza Travel and a member of Travel + Leisure’s Travel Advisory Board. He started taking challenging hiking trips in 2020, and his first, a four-day trek in Washington’s North Cascades National Park, was an eye-opener.

“I’m used to butler service and five-star hotels and wonderfully crafted meals,” Orens says, speaking to me from his suite aboard the Regent Seven Seas Explorer while sailing around Japan. “I woke up in a tent the width of my body,” he recalls, “and when you had to go in the morning, you took a shovel and you found a place to dig a hole.”

But being off the grid and in nature, Orens found, yielded rewards. “You check out for a little while, and then you come back with renewed energy,” he says. “You’re more inspired.”

Since his first such journey, he’s completed multi-day hikes in the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park and Alaska’s Talkeetna Mountains, and he’s promised himself that he’ll do a rigorous group hike at least once a year. “There’s something that puts you back in touch with yourself when you don’t have all those creature comforts,” Orens says.

My own path toward hard-core adventures began the year before my Denmark trip, in 2022, when I impulsively signed up to hike 75 miles through the Arctic for the Fjällräven Classic Sweden. Next, I spent a week in the mountains of British Columbia at the hiking and “health reset” retreat Mountain Trek. Both were difficult at times, but each adventure taught me something new about myself: the Sarah who started the hike was never the same as the Sarah who finished.

For all the positives, I’m still learning my own limits. This summer I hope to complete the Walker’s Haute Route, which unspools for nearly 140 miles from Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland, skirting 10 of the Alps’ highest peaks. Outfitters such as Denver-based Macs Adventure coordinate self-guided, two-week trips on the trail. When I go, I’ll expect to log as many as 12 miles a day at altitudes as high as 10,000 feet, no doubt feeling the effort in my limbs, feet, and lungs.

But, at the end of each day on this “hut-to-hut” hike, I won’t be pitching a tent and reconstituting “dinner” from a pouch. Instead, my daily mileage will conclude at a lodge, where I’ll enjoy my rightful rewards: a hot meal, a comfortable bed, and that most essential of luxuries, a steaming-hot shower.

A version of this story first appeared in the March 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Back to Basics.”