Get lost on these awe-inspiring hiking trails from across the globe

Paths are formed by continual treading. When you follow a trail you’re contributing to the preservation of history; echoing the human urge to journey, to explore, and to look.

Between juggling the many pressures of modern life and navigating career paths, taking to the tracks is a powerful tool in breaking life down to its simplest form of orientation. Placing one foot in front of the other puts you, the walker, firmly in control of your chosen destiny.

Photo by Sanne Boertien and Herbert Schröer

Spiritual value does not lie in the destination, but in the experience of the journey itself. Deciding to walk is the antithesis to spending dead time in traffic or suffering a stuffy underground commute, allowing us to carve a route to mindfulness and stay conscious to sensations of the outdoors.

In Wanderlust: Hiking on Legendary Trails, published by Gestalten, contributors capture the diversity of the world’s landscapes, following routes that span from the traditional trade routes of China to mule paths, frozen rivers and dirt roads.

Photo by Quing Yu

Photo by Abhimanyu Bose

“The true beauty of trails is that they do not only exist in the world’s most spectacularly scenic places, the places fit for large-format glossy books of photography; they exist everywhere,” suggests Robert Moor, author of On Trails: An Exploration in this book’s foreword.

While Wanderlust includes helpful tips and route maps for those looking to sleep under the stars, Moor also sees the book as “a compendium of dream walks, some to be walked in our waking life, others to be walked only in the imagination.”

Whether you choose to live vicariously through these global portraits, or your crampons are waiting by the door, everyone can serve to be reminded to connect to the world around them.

Photo by Viktor Posnov

Photo by Jakub Polomski

Photo by Ashley Hill

Photo by Howard Brown

Photo by Jessica Craven

Photo by Karin Eibenberger

Wanderlust: Hiking on Legendary Trails is published by Gestalten. 

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