When Sebastian Dollinger and his colleagues first drove into Yosemite National Park, they felt like they were entering the world at its finest — a prehistoric beauty of hulking rocks with every waterfall flowing in the valley.
It reminded Dollinger, who lives in Sweden, of the Swiss Alps in summer.
The moment didn’t last long.
As the group, in the park in early May for a fashion shoot for California luxury brand Robert Talbott, neared Mirror Lake in Yosemite Valley, Dollinger’s party felt like it had been overtaken by a massive swarm of bees as droves of other tourists buzzed around them, he said.
A tourist stands in front of an overlook near Yosemite Valley during a sunrise in mid-June in Yosemite National Park.
Tourists wait at the Yosemite Falls bus stop.
“I could have taken up climbing and gone up El Capitan just to escape the people,” Dollinger said, referencing Yosemite’s famous rock wall, “but I’m just a creative director.”
This summer, Yosemite is seeing a significant uptick in visitation, driven by the park’s internationally known splendor, its popularity on social media and a lack of its politicized reservation system. As droves of tourists flock to Yosemite, it raises the question: Is it still possible to have a fun time there despite the crowds?
Hopefully, yes, but that answer comes with a few heavy asterisks. Park-goers and local business owners say it’s crucial for those venturing into Yosemite this summer to plan their excursions outside peak times to avoid the worst of the crowds, and even then, pack their patience. The best-laid plans can still result in visitors facing significant lines at the park’s gate and restaurants, crowded hiking trails and a relentless search for parking.
By the end of June, Yosemite had seen at least 183,000 more visitors than last year, according to preliminary park visitor data. Just over 2 million people visited the park by the end of June, a 10% increase compared with last year’s visitation data.
Crowds pose for photos on the Mist Trail.
The increase in visitors is, in part, because the National Park Service is not using a timed-entry reservation system this year.
The National Park Service announced in February — after the agency under the Biden administration studiedextensively how to best implement a reservation system — that officials would instead use “targeted management.” This has included sending congestion alerts to visitors’ mobile phones and encouraging visitors to venture outside the valley, as it represents only a fraction of its almost 1,200 square miles of parkland.
When asked how the agency planned to address overcrowding in Yosemite this summer, a National Park Service spokesperson who declined to give their name to The Times said in an emailed statement that temporary traffic delays can occur during peak times but aren’t evidence of “operational failure.”
“They reflect the reality of managing one of the nation’s most visited national parks while keeping visitors safe and protecting park resources,” the spokesperson said. “Claims of widespread ‘overcrowding’ are not an accurate characterization of current park operations. Visitors have benefitted [sic] from expanded access for months now, and we are seeing operational efficiency from managing traffic only when and where necessary, rather than blanketing the park with restrictions for entire seasons.”
Dozens of tourists hike their way up the Mist Trail in mid-June, one of the more popular trails in Yosemite National Park.
Visitors like Dollinger say this new approach is not working.
“After we hiked for about three hours, we met a couple from Japan, and when I talked to them they were almost in tears,” said Dollinger, who has visited other state and national parks in California. “They saved for five years to do this trip, flew to San Francisco from Tokyo, stayed in San Francisco and hired a car, and went to the park for five days, which I can only describe as hell.”
Not every Yosemite visitor that The Times spoke to for this story had as bad of a time as Dollinger, but no one disputed crowds being an issue.
Chidumebi Ajaero, who lives in L.A., said he was “very concerned” when he and his friends left for their trip in mid-April over how crowded the park would be.
It was Ajaero’s first time to visit Yosemite after moving to California about 2½ years ago from Houston. He has been to other national parks and said he knows they can get “quite chaotic” when busy.
Tents set up in Upper Pines Campground on a June weekend in Yosemite National Park.
Ajaero and his friends arrived in Yosemite on a Friday afternoon and were surprised to find there was no line to enter the Big Oak Flat entrance.
They set their campsite up at Upper Pines, a campground in the valley, and headed out early on the Mist Trail, which takes hikers to Vernal and Nevada falls via its large stone steps. There were a considerable amount of people on the trail with them, he said.
“It’s not until you get to the waterfall itself and you have the steps, and everybody is taking pictures,” Ajaero said. “There’s actually a line to move up. You’re just waiting for your turn to step up” to capture the waterfall.
Ajaero said he’s glad he went before Memorial Day, when visitation started to increase more significantly.
But because of how curated Yosemite Valley is, with a grocery store, souvenir shops and restaurants, Ajaero said it felt more like an amusement park than his trips to Joshua Tree National Park, where visitors are far more on their own.
Hikers walk on a boardwalk designed to prevent erosion in sensitive meadows.
“I didn’t love it as much as the other because of the commercialized feeling of it, and just the fact it never felt you were alone in Yosemite,” he said. “I think there’s too much going on.”
How developed Yosemite should be for its visitors has been a debate since the park’s existence.
Michael W. Childers, author of “The Mountains Are Calling: Tourists and the Unmaking of Yosemite National Park” (Nebraska), said people often use the metaphor of not wanting to turn the park into Disneyland, but a more apt comparison is how closely Yosemite resembles a resort.
Concessionaires have been in Yosemite since its beginnings, as the federal government didn’t have the money to construct its own amenities in the 1850s, he said. Yosemite Hospitality, a subsidiary of hospitality giant Aramark, manages much of Yosemite’s lodging, dining and activities (including the park’s Starbucks inside the valley).
Childers, an associate professor of history at Colorado State University, said his concern is that, since the late 1970s, conservative intellectuals have pushed to privatize the park even further.
He said the chaos being created by the Trump administration through cutting park staff and ending the reservation system is “very intentional” in the quest to argue the only way to manage the park is to privatize Yosemite.
“If you privatize the entirety of a national park, that means that your only one measuring stick is profit, and arguably, national parks are not solely designed for profit,” said Childers, an environmental historian of the American West. “They’re for experience. They’re for democracy. They’re for preservation of natural resources.”
Vehicles stop to pay the fee at the El Portal entrance gate.
Vehicles line the road near El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
One of park officials’ most significant management challenges started when tourists began entering Yosemite by automobile. Since 1913, people could enter in a personal vehicle, but visitation numbers remained reasonable until 1926 when the “All Year Highway,” a segment of the 140 Highway, opened.
This new thoroughfare created an easy and direct route to reach the park by car that avoided steep mountain roads, according to park history. The road’s opening resulted in a near doubling of total cars visiting the park in just one year, park staff said in an Instagram post.
“The summer of 1927 has clearly demonstrated that parking is one of the most urgent, menacing problems of the entire Yosemite Valley,” said Don Tresidder, president of the Yosemite Park & Curry Co., that year, according to the park.
And has thus remained for 100 years.
The first attempt in recent years to get a handle on car traffic was the reservation system, implemented initially to spread guests out during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but rolled out in 2021, 2022 and 2024 as the park service tested how to best employ it to cut down on traffic and help more visitors enjoy the park.
“Over the past decade, many parks have seen significant increases in visitation and crowding in popular areas, especially during peak seasons,” the agency wrote in 2024 as it sought public comments on park management. “In some parks, the level of demand is exceeding the capacity for which infrastructure was designed or is outpacing the National Park Service’s ability to sustainably support visitation.”
The park service planned to use visitor feedback and research to guide how reservations would be rolled out in 2025. Environmental and park advocates argued for the reservation system, saying that it not only protected the wildlife and land, but also that it waspopular among guests.
But when Trump started his second term in office, not only did park management strategy change, so did the way the federal government viewed the park service. Hundreds of park workers were laid off, although some got their jobs back. Others took buyouts, and overall there was a 24% decline in permanent workers, according to the National Parks Conservation Assn.
One of the reservation system’s biggest critics is Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove), who said the system was decimating the economies of local gateway communities, the term used for the small mountain towns around Yosemite.
Parking lots are filled to capacity during peak hours, creating traffic congestion in Yosemite National Park.
“This is not to say that crowding in the valley hasn’t been a big problem, but the solution is better management and more capacity, not restricting access,” McClintock said on the House floor in June, noting the park had more parking, rooms and campsites before the 1997 flood destroyed infrastructure that he said wasn’t replaced.
Under the timed-entry system, visitors could still enter the park without a reservation if they arrived early — before 6 a.m. in 2021 and 2022 and 5 a.m. in 2024 — or after 4 p.m., and would be required to pay an entry fee for a three-day pass allowing them to reenter outside of peak hours.
But entering the park early or late in the day still wasn’t doable for everyone, including Ronny Shields, a father of two children from Ventura.
Shields, a lifelong Southern California resident, struggled to book a reservation when Yosemite implemented the system until he finally snagged one in 2024. His family had a great time and was eager to return.
In early June, Shields, his wife and kids, ages 4 and 7, made the trek back to Yosemite, staying outside the park at Tenaya at Yosemite in Fish Camp. Shields had researched and found information online suggesting the nearby southern entrance was less crowded.
His family arrived on a Saturday afternoon and entered the park without a wait. They found the valley was quieter than they’d ever seen it as people left.
Tourists stand in a meadow with a perfect view of Yosemite Falls.
For the rest of their trip, they entered the park before 8 a.m. or after 3 p.m., except for one day when they entered later in the morning and waited 40 minutes to enter. The other times, they found no wait.
Once inside the park before 8 a.m., their first stop was the Bridalveil Fall Trail, a short trek that takes visitors right to the base of the thundering cascade. When Shields and his family left the trail about 9:30 a.m., they noticed other guests couldn’t find parking.
They faced the same problem after they went to get food and then tried to park near the Lower Yosemite Falls trailhead. After 20 minutes, they found a spot — and joined the masses.
The trail “doesn’t feel like a hike — it feels like you’re in a crowded mall, but I think that’s the nature of the beast because it’s very short and very scenic,” Shields said.
Comparing his two visits to Yosemite, Shields said he preferred not having to deal with the reservation system, but that came with some caveats. He noticed far more visitors, although he’d expected even more. He saw more trash, several guests going off trail and trampling plant life, and far fewer park rangers to tell them to stop.
He said he didn’t see any park staff in the outdoor areas, and instead, he and his wife made sure to take their kids into the park’s buildings so they could speak to the rangers.
Tourists swim and play in the Merced River in Yosemite National Park.
“It’s nice for the kids to be able to ask questions and learn from people that love it,” Shields said. “Even I learned something.”
Jennifer Liu, a Moreno Valley resident, was at the park the same time frame as the Shields family and was able to mostly avoid the crowds on her backpacking trip through the park’s backcountry.
Liu meandered through the park using a few different trails, including the Sunrise Lakes route, to reach her ultimate destination: Half Dome on her birthday. She left her backcountry campsite about 4:30 a.m. to reach Half Dome by 6 a.m., catching the sunrise at 8,800-feet elevation from the granite monolith.
“I got lucky — the clouds cleared out and there was a nice sunrise,” she said.
Not in a hurry, Liu stayed at the top for four hours. Her fellow hikers sang her happy birthday, and she witnessed a couple get engaged.
Sunset over the Half Dome lookout in Yosemite National Park.
“By 10, when I headed back down, that’s when the crowd was starting to pick up,” Liu said, adding that she was grateful there was still space to navigate the dome’s cable system without being rushed by others.
As a means of crowd control, the National Park Service has attempted to funnel people out of the valley, where the majority of tourists spend their time and into its less frequented locations.
Park officials have tried to rebrand Hetch Hetchy, a massive reservoir surrounded by glacier-carved rock walls, by claiming that “many have compared Hetch Hetchy’s grandeur to the more well-known Yosemite Valley,” according to a recent update on the park’s website. (Previous versions of the Hetch Hetchy page made no such claim, according to archived versions of the website viewed through the Internet Archive.)
The park service doesn’t cite a source for such claims. California naturalist John Muir compared the two valleys’ beauties, but that was before Hetch Hetchy Valley was transformed by the O’Shaughnessy Dam into a massive reservoir.
“John Muir lost the fight over Hetch Hetchy, and the dam was built. And people who live in San Francisco today drink the water of Hetch Hetchy,” historian William Cronon said in the Ken Burns national parks documentary. “Muir died feeling that he’d been defeated by that, and that was a great tragedy at the end of his life.”
Still, Hetch Hetchy has long been whispered among Yosemite regulars as a place to find a little quiet.
That’s changed too.
An empty road under El Capitan in Yosemite Valley National Park.
“We used to have these secret spots we could tell people about,” said Elisabeth Barton, owner of Yosemite Basecamp in Groveland, which offers lodging, trips by local outfitters, gear and more. “‘Go to Hetch Hetchy,’ you’d say quietly and look over your shoulder. ‘Go to this waterfall’ or ‘Do this hike.’ … One of the things we’re noticing is, very quickly on a weekend, [the park] is sending out that alert that Hetch Hetchy is full or that Hetch Hetchy has ‘extreme visitation.’ It’s weird.”
Barton, whose company runs a visitor center in downtown Groveland, said there’s not much she and her team can recommend for people coming Thursday through Sunday into the park. It will be crowded regardless.
On a recent Saturday, Barton met a hiker who was devastated he couldn’t easily enter the valley without dealing with crowds. Barton let him in on a less popular trip that involved a great swimming hole, fish tacos at Whoa Nellie Deli, an adventure around Mono Lake and a drive through a stunning mountain pass. She recommended that he take a long way to reenter the park, enabling him to see the valley at a time he’d miss the crowds.
He called her a week later and told her to never recommend that to anyone ever again. He’d had a great day until he tried to reenter the park and instead waited four hours at the Tioga Pass in a line that stretched for miles. “You’re right, it was beautiful,” he told her, “but to what end?”
“I just wasn’t prepared for that,” Barton said. “It just broke me.”
Even sacred sites — with signage directing visitors away from the area — have been trampled by crowds.
The American Indian Council of Mariposa County, also known as the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, fought for decades to establish Wahhoga Village, which is an ancient village site and the last place that Indigenous people lived in Yosemite Valley before being driven out by the National Park Service.
Today, Wahhoga Village includes a traditional roundhouse, traditional cedar bark houses known as umachas and the only cabin that the park service didn’t burn when it evicted the remaining families from the site in 1969.
Wahhoga is not listed on Yosemite maps and is not intended to be used by those who aren’t either authorized or invited by the council to be there, said Deborah Tucker, a council member whose father advocated for years for Wahhoga.
But, Tucker said, in recent weeks, tourists have been found picnicking in the site. Hikers were tromping right through the middle of the village, led by a user-generated route on a popular outdoors adventure app, she said.
And while there, someone peed all over the village’s grinding stones, which are used for processing acorns into flour, along with other foods, said Tucker, whose father is Paiute and Shoshone and her mother was Choinumni, a branch of Yokut, tribes indigenous to the region.
Tourist beat the heat and float on tubes in a river in Yosemite National Park.
Under the current administration, “it’s a free-for-all,” Tucker said. “You can come up there and do what you want, park where you want and you’re disrupting not just sacred sites but other park sites that the park service has [established],” leading to littering and other pollution, noise that harms the birds and speeding cars that threaten the safety of bears and other wildlife.
Tucker said because the current administration seems fixated on money over conservation, she hopes that when people visit the park this summer, they will at least hold themselves accountable, showing respect for the land and its inhabitants.
“Clean up after yourself, maybe clean up after one another, and don’t take anything home with you that you didn’t bring,” Tucker said when asked what she’d say to the park’s visitors. “Enjoy that experience, and [you’re] welcome to come back again.”
The scheme was introduced in 2024 to try and combat overtourism in peak monthsCredit: GettyThose who do not buy a ticket can be hit with a €300 fineCredit: Getty
Under the current system, day-trippers who book less than four days before their visit pay €10, while those who reserve more than four days in advance pay €5.
Visitors entering before 8.30am or after 4pm are exempt, as are residents, people born in Venice, students and workers.
Tourists staying overnight in hotels or rental accommodation also do not have to pay.
Tickets are purchased online and checked at key entry points, including the railway station.
Those caught without one can face fines of up to €300.
The city is also expanding the scheme, increasing the number of chargeable days from 54 to 60 this year.
Opponents argue the scheme has done little to reduce visitor numbers.
Official figures show average daily visitor numbers fell only slightly during the summer, from 16,676 in 2024 to 13,046 in 2025.
Venturini insists the goal is not to put a cap on tourism altogether.
He said: “We need to keep an eye on the total number of visitors to Venice, but we do not want to put a maximum limit on tourists, so instead we can aim to get them to spread out and avoid coming on those days when we face the prospect of 80,000 visitors.
“That means getting the Italian parliament to approve higher prices, let’s say €30 or €50.
“That will cover the cost of services for tourists, including removing the growing amount of rubbish, but we could also offer ticket holders discounts for museums.”
The idea of charging visitors even more has provoked strong opposition.
Critics argue that if Venice is serious about reducing overcrowding, it should instead focus on limiting the number of properties being rented out through Airbnb.
Former mayor Massimo Cacciari said: “There is no other Italian or European city that you have to buy a ticket to enter, as if it were a museum.
“This is barbarous, uncivil and in my opinion anti-constitutional.”
Constitutional expert Ludovico Mazzarolli also told Corriere della Sera that a €50 entry fee could conflict with the Italian Constitution’s principle of free movement within the country.
Venice is not the only city trying to manage surging visitor numbers.
The Leeds winger’s 25 tries put him nine clear of the next best, Leigh’s Josh Charnley on 16.
In addition to leaving his mark on the game he left plenty on Warrington’s bruised defence, including Josh Thewlis who felt the full force of Sivo as the winger powered past him to score his second.
When Warrington took two points early in the piece, Ewan Irwin kicking the goal, it was presumably in the belief this could have been a tight affair.
But two tries in two minutes from Sivo and Brodie Croft, who has signed a three-year deal with Warrington starting next season, blew that plan out of the water and a third eight minutes later, Harry Newman gathering a high kick as Thewlis hesitated, really put the visitors in command.
Warrington were perhaps a touch unlucky that the Newman try stood with the Leeds centre looking a shade in front of the kicker when the ball went up but had that gone in their favour it would not have made much difference to the result.
Jake Connor kicked two of the conversions to give Leeds a 16-2 half-time lead and the direction of the game was set.
Miller, returning to the side after a three-match suspension was excellent, pulling the strings at full-back.
It was the Australian whose pass put in Chris Hankinson just three minutes after the restart and he then engineered a penalty when blocked by James Bentley two minutes later which Connor converted.
After Sivo secured his hat-trick shortly before the hour, Warrington staged a belated comeback in the final 20 minutes.
Matty Ashton finished off a nice move to give the home side their only try six minutes from time but it was too little too late and proved just a momentary pause in the Leeds celebrations.
From California Rock, 1,100 feet above Yosemite Valley, the crown jewel of America’s beloved national parks spreads out beneath you.
The jaw-dropping north face of 8,800-foot Half Dome towers to the east. The silky green ribbon of the Merced River meanders through the valley floor below, astonishingly lush during the spring snow melt. Even cars in the parking lots look fabulous, their roofs and windshields sparkling in the golden sunshine like so many tiny gems.
And then you realize those gems are everywhere — as far as the eye can see — because every single parking space in the valley is full.
On the way down from that vantage point, Upper Yosemite Falls Trail, which was practically empty at 9 a.m., had turned into a human conveyor belt by 11 a.m. Hundreds of people trudged up the steep switchbacks in single file.
People hike the Upper Yosemite Falls trail in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
That’s what’s giving parks enthusiasts heartburn this spring.
Even before the summer rush, which begins in earnest in a few days with Memorial Day weekend, California’s most visited national park is seeing enormous crowds. There have been more than 836,000 visits so far in 2026, according to National Park System data — about 100,000 more than this time last year.
The reason, according to parks advocates, is the Trump administration’s decision to abandon a reservation system implemented in 2020 to limit crowds during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system has been used on and off since then to help control the number of visitors and preserve a sense of natural tranquility.
On Saturday, there seemed to be an uneasy balance: The crowds were large but well-managed, with some visitors worried about the months ahead.
On the valley floor, as hundreds of people pressed together to gaze in awe at Lower Yosemite Falls, Jeff Wilson of Folsom said he was having flashbacks to 2023, the last time the park allowed entry without permits.
“It was just absolute bumper-to-bumper traffic all the way around the loop. Zero places to park, cars just circling all day, and people pulling off into just random spots,” Wilson said. “It was an absolute mess.”
People walk to the bottom of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
There were echoes of that everywhere on Saturday. Parking lots filled up fast — the lot at Curry Village was full by 8 a.m. — and cars were stashed in every unmarked flat spot their owners thought they could get away with.
Once people found somewhere to leave their cars, they didn’t dare move them. Most relied on the free shuttle that circles the valley floor. The big white buses were jammed to capacity by midday, as were the bus stops, where people often had to wait for several shuttles to pass before one arrived with room.
Still, the lines were reasonable to enter the park and pay the fee — $35 per car for U.S. residents and President Trump’s new $100 per person extra charge for foreigners. That means a family of four from abroad would have to pay $435.
People who arrived very early breezed through the toll booths, and even those who showed up after 9 a.m. said they waited only about 15 to 30 minutes. That was a dramatic improvement over recent weekends, when social media lit up with complaints of hour-and-a-half ordeals.
Traffic flowed slowly but smoothly on the main paved roads around the valley floor. There was the occasional outburst as angry drivers leaned heavily on their horns, filling the peaceful meadow with a sudden blast of urban agita, but in general, things remained calm.
“We thought it would be more crowded,” said Laura Yuen, from the Bay Area. “But it’s actually manageable. We’re on bikes, and people are making room and are courteous.”
Arriving early and stashing the car was key for Yuen and her companion.
“A couple of sights have been crowded — those were the really touristy spots. But other than that, it has been beautiful,” she said. “This is a great time of year to come.”
Whether the good times will last once the high season begins is the question.
People board a shuttle in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
Since Trump returned to office in 2025 and unleashed Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency on the federal work force, the National Park System has lost nearly a quarter of its employees to layoffs and buyouts, according to the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn.
And the Trump administration has proposed about 3,000 more job cuts — roughly another 25% — in the coming year. Trump has also proposed slashing nearly $800 million from the park system’s roughly $3-billion operating budget.
All of which risks tipping the delicate balance into chaos and gridlock, critics warn.
By 2 p.m., a flashing sign at the entrance to Curry Village advised that the parking lot was full and directed people to try their luck elsewhere.
Still, dozens of drivers crept around the lot, hoping to pounce if someone pulled out. It looked like an especially depressing way to spend an afternoon surrounded by some of the most celebrated natural wonders on Earth.
Kunal Khandwala of San José was among those searching for a spot until he gave up and pulled over, blocking a few cars but ready to move if their owners returned and needed to leave.
His friends had hopped out and joined the line at the Curry Village Pizza Deck, waiting to grab some food and go find a quiet spot for a picnic — far from the village.
The situation was “testing,” Khandwala said, but not intolerable if you relaxed and remained patient.
And anything was better than subjecting yourself to the shuttle, he joked.
People raft down the Merced River with Yosemite Falls in the background in Yosemite National Park on Saturday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“The waits are insane,” he said, pitying people who had only a day in the park and were hoping to hit all of the highlights by bus. “There’s no way. You’re not going to see everything you want if you rely on the shuttle.”
Parks officials were unable to provide the number of visitors who arrived on Saturday, or compare that to the crowds on recent weekends.
But with Memorial Day looming, this weekend felt like the calm before the storm.
Which is why Wilson, the frequent visitor from Folsom, said he is “very, very much pro-reservation. It is a hassle — you have to plan ahead — but it just makes it a better experience for everybody.”
He had also brought his bike, which seemed to be the best way to elude the masses.
“This is my favorite place in the world, no matter what the crowds are like,” he said before pedaling off. “As long as you can get in, come, have a good time, you’ll love it.”
This top destination combines a great European city break with stunning nature trails through parks, woodlands and historic districts
This city has hundreds of walking trails(Image: Getty)
Summer holidays are fast approaching, yet countless travellers return home feeling utterly drained, having crammed far too much into their getaway. If you’re weary of needing a break to recover from your break, perhaps it’s time to embrace the slow travel movement.
One of the finest ways to adopt slow travel is by selecting destinations that promote rest and reconnection with the natural world, making walking holidays a superb option.
Dave Mills, Chief Commercial Officer at Iglu Cruise said: “Walking holidays offer flexibility and adventure, teaching travellers to enjoy the present moment and savour their travel experiences. You can still see the sights, but a more leisurely pace can offer a more rewarding trip.”
To assist travellers in striking the ideal balance, travel specialists from Iglu have put together a list of the finest European city breaks that also feature genuinely stunning walking trails.
They examined data from the outdoor app AllTrails to pinpoint cities boasting the greatest number of walking routes within a 15-minute radius of the city centre.
One of the finest spots to immerse yourself in nature while still making the most of your city break is Vienna in Austria.
Celebrated for its natural splendour, the city offers 250 walking trails and 12 official hiking routes, all readily accessible via public transport.
These 12 paths are conveniently numbered, making them simple to locate. For those seeking stunning vistas and a relaxing glass of wine, City Hiking Trail 1 is ideal. Beginning in Kahlenberg, this seven-mile route offers sweeping views of the Danube River.
The path meanders through expansive vineyards — some of which feature pop-up stalls where visitors can sample a glass.
Another favourite is City Hiking Trail 9, which threads through verdant woodlands and meadows before leading walkers along the boulevard in Leopoldstadt, where numerous cafés offer the perfect spot for a delightful snack or meal.
City Hiking Trail 5 is also highly regarded, situated in Floridsdorf. This route is beloved by locals and lies away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre. Stretching six miles, it showcases open fields and abundant wildlife, including deer.
One visitor wrote on Tripadvisor: “We just returned from a week in Vienna. Absolutely magical city. It looks like a city of fairy tales. I think it’s more beautiful than Paris, and Prague. Gorgeous. It’s clean and well-kept, and there is an incredible amount of beautiful architecture and art. Trip of a lifetime.”
