Caregivers, join AARP Creative Refresh for free to get a daily text with a simple activity to help you make time for yourself. Sign up here

Content starts here

4 Scenic Section Hiking Vacations Around the World

Experience nature firsthand with these breathtaking trekking trips for a variety of experience levels

Berit Thorkelson,

AARP

Published September 15, 2026

Tackling small chunks of end-to-end thru hikes around the world provides the benefits of longer hikes, customized to your timeframe and ability. One U.S. option: The Ice Age Trail, shown running through Wisconsin’s Kettle Moraine State Forest.

Cameron Gillie

Key takeaways

Section hikes let travelers enjoy portions of long-distance trails without committing to a full thru-hike.
Interest in hiking adventures is growing among Gen Xers and boomers.
Featured routes range from Portugal’s coastal Fisherman’s Trail to California’s John Muir Trail, offering options for different abilities and travel styles.

Cheryl Strayed captivated legions of would-be hikers in the 2013 bestseller Wild, her first-person account of seeking peace by hiking the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). The movie version, starring Reese Witherspoon, followed.

It’s worth noting that Strayed, then in her 20s, didn’t hike the entire PCT, but rather a section of the greater thru-hike — 1,100 miles in 100 days. It’s a smart tactic that hikers can apply to any of the end-to-end hikes like the PCT, found all over the U.S. and around the world.

More Ways to Benefit

View All

Related Benefit 1
Related Benefit 2
Related Benefit 3
Related Benefit 4
Related Benefit 5

So-called section hikes can be customized to match your time frame and ability, often without the need for trail cooking or tent camping. And you still get access to key benefits of their longer versions like solitude, a sense of accomplishment and amazing scenery.

Multiday hikes are helping fuel growth among older adventure travelers, according to data from the travel platform 57Hours, which connects adventure travelers with guides. The company reports that 75 percent of inquiries for hiking adventures now come from Generation X and boomers.

Richard Campbell, 50, founder of the adventure tour company 10Adventures, has noticed the trend too. He says hiking’s health benefits — improved cardiovascular function, reduced risk of chronic diseases and enhanced immune function, according to a recent review in Frontiers in Public Health — and storytellers like Strayed are helping fuel it, as is the basic urge to explore.

“For a lot of people, they’re finally starting this adventurous lifestyle they always wanted. They didn’t have time or the money or the knowledge to do it earlier in their lives,” he says.

This selection of section hikes, from suitcase-free European ambles to trail-camping adventures, gives older travelers a sense of the adventures that await.

Paths worn by locals heading to prime fishing spots naturally afford coastal views, like this one of Praia do Zavial, along the Fisherman’s trail in Portugal.

Andrea Murrill

Fisherman’s Trail

Portugal

After booking a five-day yoga retreat in Portugal in May, Andrea Murrill, 56, decided to extend her stay to explore the country with her husband, Randy Lewandowski, 65. When researching how they might spend their time beyond the capital city of Lisbon, Murrill stumbled upon Fisherman’s Trail, a 141-mile, single-track, cliffside footpath worn over centuries by locals headed to their favorite fishing spots. It’s part of the greater Rota Vicentina, a network of trails along Portugal’s coastline.

“It seemed like a nice way to see the country, to get off the beaten path and into the smaller towns and have a unique experience,” says Murrill. She isolated a section between Lagos and Luz that they could tackle over three-and-a-half days.

Though there are companies that will plan the trek and transport luggage, the couple went the DIY route. They filled small backpacks with a change of clothes and snacks, stashed their suitcases at the retreat center and hopped a cheap bus to Lagos to begin walking.

Most Popular

They logged between 12 and 15 miles a day over terrain that was at times steep and vertigo-inducing, stopping to appreciate the Atlantic Ocean view and to chat with fellow trekkers. Most were in their 60s and older, Murrill says, including an 85-year-old. Fishing villages provided casual meals, grocery store snack stops and the lodging she’d reserved from afar.

“It just didn’t feel like a touristy thing but more of an opportunity to make your own traveling experience,” Murrill says.

The sun rises over a segment of Wisconsin’s Ice Age Trail in south-central Columbia County.

Courtesy Lori Broesch

Ice Age Trail

Wisconsin

Though the 1,200-mile Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin is one of the country’s 11 designated National Scenic Trails, in the company of the Appalachian Trail and the PCT, among others, it flies under the radar. Perhaps that’s because it’s far from any mountain range or ocean coast.

Wisconsin resident Melissa Pierick, 51, wondered about the bright yellow markers on the trail near her home when she started hiking in 2019. A little online research revealed that the markers designated it part of the Ice Age Trail, which snakes from west to east, connecting rural roads, paved multiuse paths and state rail trails on private and public land.

“I’d lived there for 14 years and never knew,” she says. “Then I started just becoming obsessed with it.”

Pierick began chipping away at various sections of the trail’s mileage on weekends, often with new friends she connected with on a trail-related Facebook group. They’ve hiked through the Northwoods region, across rolling hills blanketed in restored prairie and down one particularly stunning 2-mile stretch of Lake Michigan. She enjoys exploring the small trail towns, where she stays in an Airbnb or inexpensive mom-and-pop hotel at night.

Pierick is now the trail’s first director of marketing. She says that volunteer chapter coordinators along the trail answer questions and arrange shuttles for section and thru-hikers. “It’s very Wisconsin nice,” she says.

Richard and Lynn Campbell pose for a photo while hiking the Via Francigena Trail in Italy

Richard and Lynn Campbell captured one of the stunning views they witnessed while hiking a section of the Via Francigena Trail in Italy.

Courtesy Richard Campbell

Via Francigena Trail

England to Italy

Walking all 1,864 miles of the Via Francigena footpath, from Canterbury, England, to Rome, is an on-brand retirement dream for a couple that owns an adventure tour company. To tide them over until time allows, 10Adventures’ Campbell and his wife and cofounder Lynn, 49, decided to tackle the trail’s popular, hilly and roughly 250-mile section through Tuscany, between Lucca and Rome. Since 10Adventures didn’t offer a tour along the route, their 2024 trek qualified as research.

Days on the trail were fueled by Italian pastries and $1.50 cappuccinos. A rhythm developed: one-and-a-half to two hours of hiking, followed by a café pit stop in a charming village. Accommodations included an 18th-century bed-and-breakfast in the preserved medieval hilltop fortress town of Monteriggioni and a duke’s palace in Bolsena.

“It felt like we were in a movie,” Campbell said. “It was just stunning walking through these charming villages that are like the picture postcard you expect of Tuscany. And you have them all to yourself because most people aren’t spending 10 or 12 days walking through Tuscany. They just go see the same two or three things.”

John Muir Trail (a.k.a. Nüümü Poyo, or the People’s Trail)

Central California

A hip replacement waylaid 60-year-old Lea Appleton’s plans for a thru-hike, but not for long. The surgery was in 2024, and she’s since logged several 50-mile section hikes on California’s John Muir Trail, 211 miles through the High Sierra’s granite peaks, alpine lakes and wildflower meadows, in the hopes of tackling its entirety next year.

In July, she hiked it from Rush Creek Trail to Reds Meadows with a 55-year-old friend who’d never backpacked before. Appleton packed a 25-pound backpack with everything needed for five nights on the trail and advised her friend on how to do the same. The new hip and osteoporosis force Appleton to be extra careful about keeping her load light.

In-town overnights aren’t an option on protected, high-elevation trails like John Muir— it’s a day’s hike to even exit the trail. Appleton prefers it that way. “The draw for me is going away from the town, into the quiet, seeing the stars,” she says.

“Every day is beautiful. Or my idea of beauty. I sleep really well … food tastes amazing,” she continues. “I think it’s the heightened experience of just focusing on your next step and being outside and enjoying the quiet, the sky, the openness.”

If her body doesn’t cooperate with next year’s thru-hike plans, she says, that’ll be just fine. “I can keep doing section hikes because it gives me access to a really beautiful place,” she says. “I want to be able to keep doing this, so I’ll do it however I can.”

The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Berit Thorkelson is a travel writer and editor for aarp.org. She has also written for publications such as National Geographic Traveler, Better Homes & Gardens and The Minnesota Star Tribune’s travel section.

AARP Membership

Join AARP for only $15 per year with automatic renewal. Get instant access to members-only products and hundreds of benefits, a free second membership, and a subscription to AARP The Magazine.

Join