Exploring the interior of Iceland's Tröll peninsula in late summer means trading fjord roads for steep, river‑cut valleys and high, weather‑cut passes.Rough tracks and hiking routes climb from quiet farms into bowls of moss, scree and late‑lying snow, where ptarmigan flush from underfoot and horses graze on distant saddles.Days stretch long enough to link ridgelines and plateaus above Ólafsfjörður or Siglufjörður, then descend to lone hot pools and turf‑roofed farms, with the sense that you are walking through Iceland’s working backcountry.

Early September in the Great Bear Rainforest feels like stepping into a living cathedral of rock, ice and rain-soaked cedar.Mornings lift you by helicopter to high alpine cirques, where you hike across glacier‑cut ridges and peer into blue crevasses before descending to emerald fjords. Later, you drift quietly by boat as humpbacks lunge‑feed and bears work the salmon‑choked river mouths.Evenings unfold in an open‑air spa and steam, followed by polished, coastal cuisine built around wild seafood and foraged forest flavours.

Perched on a cliff above a winding river gorge, an intimate private villa compound was dropped into the heart of the Kimberley.Days begin with breakfast on a wide veranda facing burnt‑orange escarpments, before guided walks into sandstone gorges, hot springs, and hidden waterholes fan out across a vast former cattle station.Afternoons might be spent cruising beneath sheer gorge walls or lifting off in a helicopter to watch waterfalls thread through the plateau. Evenings return to lawns, pool and open‑air terraces for long, multi‑course dinners and Australian wines under an enormous, ink‑black sky.

Late October in Namibia, the light feels sharper, the air cooler, and the desert quietly alive beneath the surface.Your journey begins in the Sossusvlei region, where mornings start long before sunrise, bumping across rippled sands toward the apricot curves of Big Daddy and Dune 45. Below, Deadvlei appears like another planet: a chalk‑white pan punctuated by the hardened silhouettes of camel‑thorn trees, black against a cobalt sky, their stillness amplifying every footstep.After dark, campfires crackle under some of the clearest skies on earth; the Milky Way arcs from dune to dune, and telescopes pull distant galaxies into view.

From here, the landscape tilts toward the Skeleton Coast. You cross by Land Rover Defender along lonely tracks where fog rolls inland, shipwreck ribs lean from the sand, and flamingos feed on mirrored lagoons.Finally, Etosha’s blinding salt pan stretches to the horizon. Here, desert‑adapted elephant, rhino, lion, and giraffe move like grey ghosts between scrub and waterholes, gathering at dusk as dust turns to rose‑gold haze and the last light burns along the pan’s edge.