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Nature & wildlife expert recommendations
+44 (0)1653 617001
Nature & wildlife expert recommendations
+44 (0)1653 617001

Nature and wildlife-focused walking holidays

Our carefully planned routes lead you through the UK and Europe’s nature-rich national parks, meadows, and mountain valleys where you’ll be ideally placed for spotting the myriads of birds and wildlife that call these landscapes home; whether it’s spotting puffins off Runde Island in Norway or catching sight of the illusive ibex and chamois while traversing Alpine valleys. 

Watch Travel Expert Rebecca sharing her passion for walking holidays that take in nature and wildlife.

Our expert's view


"On an Inntravel holiday, nature is all around you. Our hand-picked trails guide you through quieter corners where wildlife and wildflowers thrive – with time to pause, notice, and enjoy the peace of the landscape at your own pace."

- Rebecca Bruce, Travel Expert
Explore the Swiss Alps

Your natural environment

Natural sights | Whether it’s a chance sighting of ibex on a rocky ridge, orchids in Puglia, or dolphins and whales off Madeira's coast
Carefully chosen trails | We’ve walked every step, selecting paths that highlight the best of each region.
Hotels with difference | At the end of each day, you’ll return to independent - often family-run - accommodation that reflects the surroundings and heritage.
Seasonal beauty | Our holiday notes highlight what you might see and when so you don’t miss a thing.

Natural encounters

  • The Azores are not only remarkable for their haunting volcanic landscapes, complete with ancient cones, crater lakes and hot springs, but also for the fact that 20 different species of cetaceans – some quite common, others much rarer – can be spotted off the islands’ shores. Common and bottlenose dolphins are resident species and can be seen at any time of year. Come in early spring, though, and it is possible that you may sight a mighty blue whale, while in summer you may encounter sperm, sei and bearded whales, as well as spotted dolphins, on our included boat trip.


    The Azores
  • The serenity of the landscape, the feeling of being far removed from the everyday world, the walk through a frozen canyon past huge icicles and frozen waterfalls, and the joy of learning to cross-country ski are just some of the reasons why a winter holiday in Hindsæter is so memorable. With any luck, another unforgettable experience is the snowshoe excursion in search of the wild elk which roam through the forest close to your comfortable hotel. Keep your eyes peeled at all times!


    Norway winter break
  • If you are planning a walking holiday in the Alps, you’ll need to learn how to distinguish ibex and chamois so that you know which you’re looking at if you come across one. The chamois’ distinctive feature is the dark stripe down its face, while the (male) ibex can be identified by its thick, backwards-curving horns which can eventually grow up to a metre in length. Both are excellent climbers which live above the treeline, so you’ll have to choose a holiday that takes you pretty high (such as the aptly named High Route in Switzerland) to have a chance of seeing one.



    Walk in the Alps
  • For a very different sort of ‘natural encounter’, choose a Northern Lights break to the Norwegian city of Tromsø and, with luck, you will witness ribbons of green, pink, yellow and blue light swirling across the night sky. The aurora borealis is unpredictable, but this just makes seeing it in all its glory all the more thrilling. Occupying the same latitude as Alaska, this island city affords some of the best opportunities to see them anywhere in mainland Europe, but that's not the only reason to travel there – by day you can visit its small but fascinating museums, join a dog-sledding or ice-fishing excursion, or explore on snowshoes or cross-country skis.


    Tromsø Northern Lights Break
     
  • Roaming the hills of Northern Portugal’s Peneda-Gerês National Park are the Cachena cows, notable for their long, lyre-shaped horns and small, stocky build. They’re native to northern Portugal and Galicia, and you’ll see them freely wandering around the park. The rare, wild Garrano horses are also native to the park, and have been roaming the land for over 20,000 years.

     
    Walk the High Paths of Northern Portugal
  • The distinctive calls of marmots can be heard across Switzerland’s Bernese Oberland, its meadows and high alpine pastures home to burrows full of marmot families. Adam, Inntravel destination expert, recalls a moment from his recent trip to the Bernese Oberland: “My favourite moment was definitely taking a detour to the peak of Stübleni on the walk from Lenk to Lauenen to watch a family of Alpine Marmots playing in the crags – unforgettable.”

    Bernese Oberland
  • Walking in Bavaria’s Berchtesgaden National Park you’re likely to spot golden eagles soaring in the skies above. Travel expert, Rebecca Bruce, says it’s made all the more magical a sight during the winter months. And from December to April, red deer can be seen feeding in the forest.
     
     
    The Bavarian Alps
  • The Cairngorms National Park is a particularly good place to spot red deer, especially in the early morning or evening. They’re Britain’s largest mammal, and make quite the sight on the horizon of Scotland’s atmospheric moorland and mountain tops.

     
    Explore the Scottish Highlands
  • Andalucía’s black pigs roam the wooded hills of the Aracena Sierra, feeding on acorns amongst cork oak and chestnut forests. The pigs form part of the dehesa – a traditional woodland ecosystem that’s unique to the Iberian Peninsula.


    Aracena Sierra

Top picks for nature & wildlife holidays

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Time to immerse in nature

Our self-guided format means you set the pace. Pause to watch a deer dart through the trees, or linger by a meadow filled with wildflowers. And, as always, our carefully researched notes highlight what to look out for, and when, so you can enjoy each walk to the full.
  • For anyone who loves spending time in nature, be it walking through mountain valleys or stopping to spot migrating birds.

    You don't need to be an expert in nature and wildlife - our detailed notes tell you all about what you can expect to see and when.

     
  • On an Inntravel walking holiday, nature is not something you have to seek out – it’s all around you. From the moment you step onto the trail, you’ll find yourself surrounded by wild beauty: forests alive with birdsong, meadows splashed with seasonal colour, and mountains where eagles circle overhead. Because our holidays often follow lesser-known paths, you’ll experience these landscapes at their most tranquil – with nothing but you, your companions, and the natural world.

    Lakes Bled, Bohinj & the Julian Alps, Slovenia – In Triglav National Park, Slovenia’s wild heart reveals itself in every step: mirrored lakes edged with forest, the thunder of Slap Slavika waterfall, and high pastures where wildflowers thrive. Keep watch for golden eagles above, and enjoy tranquil evenings at Vila Bled, overlooking the famous lake itself.

    Puglia’s Gargano Peninsula, Italy – A hidden corner of coastal Italy, this is a place where nature feels untamed. The ancient Foresta Umbra shelters wild boar, deer, and countless bird species, while spring brings one of Europe’s highest concentrations of orchids. Follow old pilgrim trails through timeless landscapes before relaxing at a stylish seaside hotel.

    Waterways, Flowers & Levada Walks of Madeira, Portugal – Madeira’s landscapes are alive with variety – laurel forests cloaked in mist, dramatic sea cliffs where seabirds wheel, and levadas lined with year-round blossoms. The São Lourenço Peninsula feels almost otherworldly, with volcanic rock formations contrasting with the deep blues of the Atlantic. Botanical gardens in Funchal add another flourish of colour to your journey.

    Wild Connemara & Galway, Ireland – Connemara’s rugged coast and the foothills of the Maamturks are a haven for wildlife – from seabirds on the cliffs to otters in sheltered inlets. Inishbofin island offers a taste of authentic island life, where tranquillity reigns and natural charm abounds. The tour of Kylemore Abbey and its gardens provides a more cultivated but equally inspiring encounter with nature.

    Wherever you choose, you can expect:
    • Carefully planned, self-guided route notes.
    • Comfortable, characterful accommodation where the welcome is warm.
    • Meals prepared with local ingredients and regional recipes.
    • Luggage transfers all sorted.
  • Nature can’t be guaranteed, but our routes are chosen to pass through habitats where wildlife is commonly seen – from birds of prey and deer to wildflowers and rare plants.
  • Not at all. Many Inntravellers are keen walkers who love being outdoors. Our notes highlight seasonal points of interest so you can spot things more easily.
  • Spring is superb for spotting wildflowers, butterflies, and birds, while summer and autumn often bring migratory species, ripe fruits, and brilliant colours in the forests.
  • Yes. Many of our nature-focused routes are deliberately chosen to be off the beaten track, so you can experience landscapes at their most tranquil.

Floral delights

  • ‘Blooming marvellous’ nicely sums the botanical gardens of Mainau; thousands of flowers are in bloom here throughout spring and summer. It’s no wonder, then, that the Blumeninsel (‘flower island’) is one of the highlights of our easy-going walking holiday on the shores of Lake Constance, regardless of whether or not you’re a keen horticulturalist. April brings the narcissi, tulips and hyacinths, followed by swathes of azaleas and rhododendrons in May. Early summer is the best time for the roses, which are followed by 200 varieties of dahlia. This sounds an incredible number until you learn that the hot houses contain some 6,000 species of orchid. As if the gardeners didn’t have enough work, the displays vary annually according to that year’s chosen theme. 
  • In the secret mountains of Alicante, one-thousand-metre-plus limestone peaks, dramatic ravines and panoramic ridges combine to offer fantastic walking. This is a region best enjoyed ‘out of season’ (July and August are too hot), the most special time being spring, which arrives early in these mountains, heralded by the almond blossom in February and continuing with spectacular displays of lime-loving plants – Spanish foxgloves, vivid yellow Phlomis lychnitis, and orchids such as the showy violet limodore Limodorum abortivum – that last until June.
  • There are many things you may expect to see in Northumberland: from an unspoiled coastline of vast sandy beaches to spectacular castles, soaring seabirds and pretty seaside villages where delicious, freshly caught fish and seafood are on display. What you may not be expecting to stumble across, however, is a fabulously sinister Poison Garden that is home to some of the world's most fascinating – and deadliest – plants. Situated within the beautiful Alnwick Garden, this locked enclave is available to view by guided tour only, and to step inside is to be enthralled and educated in equal measure.
  • Head to western Algarve and you will find pretty villages immersed in silent hills, quiet beaches backed by honey-coloured cliffs, and dramatic Cape St Vincent. The diversity of walks is astonishing, as is the wealth of flowers that can be found in late March and April: common mallow, yellow sea aster, Barbary nut, tassel hyacinth, hollow leaved asphodel, cistus, spurge, pitch trefoil, Dove’s foot cranesbill, mirror and naked man orchids, and many more. The even wilder Costa Vicentina is also a haven for flora, with around 750 species, many of them endemic.
  • Beautiful paths wind through the limestone landscapes of the Grazalema Sierra, linking one of Andalucía’s best-known features, its white towns. Linger on the footpaths and you’ll discover a less well-known feature: the rich flora which thrives in this unusually (for southern Spain, at any rate) green and fertile area. Orchids, scillas, lilies, saxifrage and wild peonies are among the hundreds of species that arrive with spring. The star of the show is the pinsapo fir, a relict of the forest that cloaked the mountains of southern Spain and Morocco in the Tertiary Age.
  • Madeira is remarkable for two reasons: the levadas carved into the slopes which make navigation so easy (leaving you to focus on the views!) and the abundance of flora. There is a curious mixture of the familiar, the clearly-related-to-familiar, and the exotic, some of them deliberately planted by the levadas. Depending on the month, you could see storksbill, Nile lily, violets, fuchsias, Madeiran cranesbill and the beautiful Pride of Madeira. Adding to the exoticism are the pockets of native evergreen Laurissilva forest, luxuriant ferns and botanical gardens with plants from across the globe.
  • Nothing beats the thrill of walking in the Pyrenees. As well as panoramic high passes, timeless stone villages, and inspirational views of the chain from Puigmal to Mount Canigou, you will come across a variety of flowers, from Monkshoods to Martagon lilies with tall stems and maroon spots, and from Pyrenean gentians to Pasque flowers, as well as burnt orchids, bog asphodel, wild daffodils, alpine toadflax and many more. Don’t spend all your time scanning the ground, however, as you’ll miss out not only on the views, but also on sightings of buzzards and other raptors.
  • Many surprises lie in store for the first-time visitor to Cyprus: the soaring, pine-clad mountains; the numerous tiny, frescoed churches; the wealth of archaeological sites; the warm hospitality extended by everyone you meet; and, if you travel in March, the riot of colour provided by the anemones, cyclamen, iris, gladioli, tulips and crown daisies on the Akamas Peninsula. Nearby, you can visit the Baths of Aphrodite, where she is said to have bathed after her trysts – the cult surrounding the goddess of beauty and love adds yet another fascinating dimension to this captivating island.
  • Iconic peaks such as the Eiger and Matterhorn in Switzerland, the Dachstein in Austria, the Watzmann in Bavaria, and the Sciliar in Italy’s Dolomites lend romance to the scenery in any season. Travel in early summer, however, and the views are enhanced by the blues, purples and yellows of the flowers – different types of gentians, crocuses, narcissi, Pasque flowers, anemones, oxlips, snowbells, cranesbills, bellflowers and Alpine sea holly, to name but a few. The higher into the mountains you go, the further you seem to travel back into spring, the cooler temperatures resulting in later flowering.
  • It is hard not to be impressed by the stand (the largest in Europe) of gigantic, 300-year-old holly trees that survives in Sicily’s Madonie Natural Park; by the last few examples of the endemic Nebrodi fir that has survived unchanged here for 10,000 years; or by the displays of anemones, peonies, narcissus and rare wild tulip between mid-April and mid-May. Besides the flora, what makes this holiday so special is the real sense of getting away from it all – the sense of space and the absolute tranquillity, broken only by the occasional cry of a royal eagle, are striking.
  • Travel to the far north of Portugal, to the little-known Minho region, and you will find Ponte de Lima – a place with many accolades to its name. It is Portugal’s oldest town, with its iconic Roman bridge hinting at its venerable origins. It is also known as one of the country’s prettiest spots, as well as being its ‘garden capital’, with no fewer than 17 parks and gardens and an International Garden Festival held yearly between late May and the end of October. We offer a hotel-to-hotel walking holiday in the Minho, as well as a self-guided Minho cycling holiday – both of which give you the opportunity to visit the town and to tour its many green spaces.
  • Although the Loire is rightly famed for its magnificent châteaux, in one corner of the region, at least, the gardens take centre stage. Choose our Loire cycling holiday and our detailed route notes will lead you to Villandry – a château which was constructed during the 16th century and laid out at the same time with magnificent formal gardens. As the years rolled by, the gardens were altered to suit different styles and tastes, but they have now been restored to their full Renaissance glory. They include a water garden, ornamental flower gardens and a delightful kitchen garden.
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Buzzards to bee-eaters

  • The fact that the region’s name derives from the Roman word aviarium, meaning ‘gathering place of birds’, hints heavily at the bird-watching opportunities as you cycle leisurely past the lagoons and salt flats of this northern section of Portugal’s coastline. Look out for kites, swifts, warblers, little bitterns, Eurasian marsh harriers, Iberian yellow wagtails and more.
  • Virgin coastlines such as Portugal’s Costa Vicentina are not just great for walking, but great for wildlife-spotting too. The headline act here are the storks. If the nests you’ve seen built elsewhere on chimneys and church steeples have seemed precarious, the gravity-defying ones that they build here on precipitous sea stacks beggar belief. Their bravado is all the more special to witness given that this is the only place in the world where you’ll see storks nesting above the sea (you’ll need to come in spring, of course). Peregrine falcons also breed on the cliffs here, and you should look out, too, for Bonelli’s eagles and even, if you are lucky, ospreys.
  • Our holiday in the Basque Pyrenees promises thrilling walking and gradually changing scenery as you descend to the coast through a unique corner of France characterised by whitewashed villages and a distinctive culture and cuisine. Travel in late summer and you’ll also witness the migration of hundreds of thousands of raptors as they fly south – a fantastic sight, even for non-bird-watchers. The spectacle starts in mid-August, with black kites and honey buzzards, followed by black storks, ospreys, hobbies and marsh harriers in September, then red kites, buzzards and sparrowhawks in October.
  • The island of Runde, accessible from Ålesund on the northern fringes of the Norwegian fjords, is home to the greatest number of bird species in Scandinavia. The puffin colony alone numbers some 100,000. Need we say more?
  • Andalucía is synonymous with white towns, beaches, flamenco and sherry. Our holidays in the Grazalema Sierra west of Ronda promise plenty of the first (in which there are bars serving the latter!) combined with one of Andalucía’s lesser-known features: its diverse wildlife. As you follow the inviting paths through this surprisingly verdant sierra, you may well spot griffon vultures gliding above the jagged limestone peaks – 200 pairs nest here. Keep your eyes peeled, too, for Bonelli’s, golden, booted and short-toed eagles – as well as the 130 or so other bird species found here.
  • To explore the Lofoten archipelago is to discover a land of stark beauty, where jagged mountains rise steeply above beaches of silver sand. Amid these untamed landscapes, all the more special when bathed in the Midnight Sun, you feel very close to nature. Along the coast, the air is filled with the cries of seabirds – eider ducks, common scoters, red breasted mergansers, goosanders and marauding seagulls which like nothing more than mobbing a sea eagle in the hope that it will drop its catch. Inland, the calls of ptarmigan, curlews, bluethroats and redwings echo across the moors.
  • The holidays above aren’t the only ones with a strong emphasis on birds. In Spain, listen for nightingales in the mountains of Alicante, which are also home to eagles, hoopoes, warblers and more; join your host on a bird-watching walk on our holiday in Green Spain; sight birds ranging from blue rock thrushes to buzzards in the Catalan Pyrenees; and keep your eyes peeled for black-winged stilts, Kentish plovers and black-necked grebes on the island of Formentera. In Norfolk (which you can explore on foot), there are seabirds and waders aplenty, while Sicily's Madonie Mountains shelter peregrine falcons, jays, golden and Bonelli’s eagles.

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