Outside Magazine

The 28 Best Trips of 2016
From epic skiing in Antarctica to a lazy beer-fueled canoe trip in North Carolina, these are the best places to visit this year

Each year, we send our editors and writers on a mission to find the destinations on the vanguard of the travel. The major takeaway from our 28 favorites of 2016? The entire world is getting more adventurous. Travelers are pushing boundaries, from seeking out newly accessible Cuban bars to touring North Carolina breweries—by canoe. In years past, a cruise around the Antarctic involved lots of gawking at icebergs. Today, the same cruise has you booting up and ripping untouched snow with mountaineers Andrew McLean and Chris Davenport.

But don’t think for a second that this trend is limited to far-flung and expensive trips: small towns like Bentonville, Arkansas, are investing in world-class mountain bike trails—maintained by professional crews!—and innovative, hard, and fun-as-hell races like Quincy, California’s Grinduro are popping up just about everywhere. There’s never been a better time to get out there—and this is the definitive guide to a year well traveled.

Ladder Ranch, Gila Mountains, New Mexico

From left: New Mexico’s Gila Mountains; The gate at Ladder Ranch.   Photo: Kevin Garrett; Courtesy of Ted Turner Expeditions

Media mogul Ted Turner has impeccable taste in real estate. Take Ladder Ranch, a remote five-bedroom home that opened to guests in September and sits on 160,000 acres of Turner’s private land on the edge of the Gila Mountains and the Chiricahua Desert. Guests spend days mountain-biking, spotting bighorn sheep and elk, and visiting ancient petroglyphs. $6,000 for four people, all-inclusive. —Kate Siber

Click here for the full list.