Adventure Athletes Share Their Dream Destinations

When your job already takes you to some of the most remote and beautiful places on the planet, where exactly do you go when booking your own personal trip? That’s the question that the National Geographic Adventure Blog recently put to some of the top adventure athletes in the world and their picks for their dream destinations were often surprising.

For example, rock climber Alex Honnold says he would enjoy hiking the 2600-mile Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, while professional snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler wants to seek personal growth and wisdom while visiting an ashram in India. Kayaker Ben Stookesberry has dreams of exploring the solitude of the wilderness in Yosemite and mountaineer Ed Viesturs hopes to take his wife and kids to the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal, a place that he knows all too well.

Many of the men and women who were surveyed for this article live lives of adventure on a regular basis and yet some of them still couldn’t seem to avoid it in their off time as well. For instance, you would think that polar explorer Sarah McNair-Landry would list a warm, tropical beach destination as her dream trip, but instead she says that she would prefer to sail and ski around the world instead. Likewise for ice climber Will Gadd, who dreams of piloting his paraglider down the entire length of the Great Rift Valley in Africa.

Of course, you had to expect that some of these adventurers would come up with something a little out of this world. Long distance hiker Andrew Skurka and climber Ueli Steck took that quite literally, as both indicated that they would love to go into space. Skurka, who has hiked just about every major trail on Earth, says he wants to trek across the moon, while Steck is quite content with simply going into orbit and taking in the view.

There are more dream destinations revealed in the article, which you can read in its entirety by clicking here. Who knows, you may even find a few new items to add to your bucket list as well.