ADVENTURE need not be the preserve of hard-core explorers only. With a little imagination, some of the world’s most exciting travel experiences are accessible to all.

1. Take a Californian coastal road trip

California’s Big Sur is fringed by what is possibly the world’s most distinguished ribbon of tarmac. Coastal State Route 1 has inspired film-makers and writers, been name-checked in platinum records, and still makes most drivers feel like they are starring in a cinematic car chase. It’s easy to see why: the road bends gracefully from one location-shot panorama to the next, the thundering waves of the Pacific down below providing a rousing score. Driving from one end to the other takes only two or three hours, but there are lots of reasons to pull over. Heading south from the town of Carmel, the road runs past the beaches and coves of Point Lobos State Reserve, where sea lions sunbathe beside churning seas. The view from Bixby Creek Bridge demands a stop. The road then continues through a landscape of cliffs, redwood forests, waterfalls and lonely lighthouses. Hearst Castle, the 1920s hilltop home of news tycoon William Randolph Hearst, makes for a grand finale. It provided inspiration for Big Sur homeowner Orson Welles’ landmark movie, Citizen Kane.

Make it happen

The Big Sur stretches south from Monterey, about 180km south of San Francisco, and ends near Gorda.

Tourist ride camels through a Jordan desert in the Middle East.

2.Camel trek in Jordan’s deserts

Ever since Lawrence of Arabia stomped through the deserts of Jordan nearly a century ago, Wadi Rum has fired the imaginations of would-be adventurers. A series of valleys carved through soaring sandstone and granite formations, Wadi Rum has a vast, natural beauty that is utterly spellbinding. The best way to experience it is as the local nomadic Bedouin do on a camel. A trek might consist of a few hours’ amble on camelback, stopping to share tea with a local as a fiery sunset turns the desert orange, or a more ambitious multi-day expedition, worthy of a proper bona fide explorer, sleeping in a traditional goat-hair tent beneath a starry sky just as Lawrence himself did almost 100 years ago.

Make it happen

Bedouins of Wadi Rum is among the companies that can arrange camel-trekking itineraries. Explore runs a nine-day Lawrence’s Arabia tour including Wadi Rum, Petra and more.

Make it happen

Wadi Rum is four hours’ drive on sealed roads from Jordan’s capital Amman.

Women working in tea plantations, Nuwara Eliya.

3. Wander in Sri Lankan tea field s

Slurping tea is a veritable art form in Sri Lanka’s Hill Country – a high-altitude region in the heart of the nation, home to mountains draped in mist and lakes so flat that they look like mirrors. Expat tea planters made their homes here in the 19th century, and echoes of the British Empire remain even now, with period polo grounds, golf clubs and lavish bungalows in abundance. Their legacy on the landscape is even more pronounced: terraced hillsides carpeted with bright emerald tea bushes. Tea pickers in colourful saris move among them, plucking leaves with an almost hypnotic rhythm. To better understand their craft and its heritage, take a tour of the 1930s-era Norwood factory. After visiting the roasting, rolling and drying rooms, groups are given a tea-tasting session smelling, swirling and sipping their way through different local brews. Your afternoon cuppa will never taste the same again.

Make it happen

Stay at Ceylon Tea Trails, a bungalow resort spread out close to the town of Hatton. A tea factory tour is included in the price. From Colombo it’s a five-hour drive to the resort. Ceylon Tea Trails can arrange transfers.

Mature female diver has a close encounter with a southern stingray.

4. Catch some rays in the Caribbean

Watching a dozen metre-wide sea monsters each armed with a venomous barbed sting gliding towards you is one of the more electrifying experiences you can enjoy in 3m-deep water. A sort of submarine dinner party takes place daily at Stingray City: a popular rallying point for rays in Grand Cayman’s North Sound. Legend has it their gatherings are a legacy of local fisherfolk who cleaned their catch in these calm waters, attracting peckish fish.

Today the fishermen have gone, but the rays still shimmy in for snacks. Kit up and prepare to feel the strange sucking kiss of these graceful creatures – just resist the temptation to touch them in return, to avoid interfering with their protective coating. Though you are asked to shuffle rather than walk along the seabed so as not to step on a ray, the creatures are very docile.

Make it happen

Stingray City is best dived in the afternoon, after the cruise ships have left. Red Sail Sports offers a Stingray City scuba dive, taking two hours.

The Big Cattle Drive in Montana.

5. Be a cowboy in Montana

If Westerns are to be believed, the key competencies for successful cowboyhood are gun-slinging, rootin’ tootin’ and the ability to turn a raucous bar dead silent by taking one small step through the front door. In the real world, a cowboy does much as his name suggests – herds cattle. There are few places better to master the skills than the prairies of Montana. Dude ranches abound in this empty state. Perhaps the best named is Lonesome Spur ranch, a working cattle operation in Gallatin National Forest.

Holing up in log cabins, apprentice cowboys spend days helping out on the ranch: fixing fences and honing their lassoing technique, maybe also perfecting the classic cowboy-style, misty-eyed squint into the middle distance. After long days chasing misbehaving cows around the pastures, guests get to savour the poetic justice of prime Montana beef served for dinner.

Make it happen

Rates at the Lonesome Spur include meals. Transfers from Billings airport can be arranged. United flies to Billings airport in Montana.

Tourism jump headfirst into the ocean as they sail the Dalmatian Coast in Croatia.

6. Sail Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast

Local legend tells that Marco Polo was born on the Dalmatian island of Korcula but you don’t need to be a world-changing adventurer to discover Croatia s Adriatic shores. With reliable wind, abundant uncrowded anchorages and near-endless summer sun, the Dalmatian coast is one of the world’s most easily navigated sailing destinations. Add to that the Dalmatian Coast region’s long and varied history, and you have the makings of the perfect maritime adventure.

Island hopping off Dalmatia is as much about time on land as time at sea. Cruise your yacht among the 147 (mostly uninhabited) Kornati islands, where impossibly clear waters fringe sculpted cliffs and caves. Try Mljet island as well, with its pine-forested national park.

Or simply see where the wind takes you; there are countless stretches of sand and secret coves only a sailor can reach.

Make it happen

Sunsail is among the companies offering sailing courses, with a five-day program based near Trogir.

May, June, September and October are the seasons preferred by experienced sailors in Croatia: though winds may be more challenging, there’s more solitude to be had on the water. Split airport is closest to Trogir.

Hot air ballon over plains in Namibia, NamibRand Nature Reserve.

7. Drift through Namibian skies

The first passengers to travel in a hot-air balloon were not aeronautical engineers – they weren’t even human.

In 1783, under the gaze of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, French inventors elevated a duck, a rooster and a sheep on a flight that lasted a full eight minutes.

Today, you might hope to stay aloft for a little longer, but the basics of lighter-than-air aviation haven’t changed that much.

Balloons 7 drift through Namibian skies that still need large open areas in which to land, which is one reason why the Namib desert in southwestern Africa is one of the best places to do it, with about 130,000sq km of predominantly empty space. But the main reason to ascend here is simply because it’s so utterly astonishing: the dunes of Sossusvlei create sensuous billows of orange sand, crafted by the breeze into endless and ever-changing crests and swirls features that can only be appreciated by creatures who soar high in the air above them.

Make it happen

Namib Sky Adventures runs balloon trips over Sossusvlei. The precise departure location is dependent on wind conditions, with lift-off happening just before sunrise. The company offers pick-ups from several local lodges (including a champagne breakfast). From the Namibian capital Windhoek it’s a six-hour drive southwest to Sossusvlei and you’ll need private transport, hired at the airport.

A 4WD takes a drive through the Australian Outback.

8. Drive through the Outback

Travelling around Oz in a Kombi van isn’t a mere holiday: it s a rite of passage for Australians, the modern-day equivalent of an ancient Homeric odyssey. Something about the scale of Australia entices travellers to stock up their Eskies (coolers) and hit the road in classic Volkswagen campervans – vehicles that have long been a part of Aussie highway folklore. Whether you head north to the Queensland coast from Sydney, west from Adelaide, or do a circuit of the whole mainland, there are certain givens. You’ll have a near-miss with a suicidal wallaby. You’ll have a panic about petrol in the back of beyond. You’ll also develop an obsession with kitsch, oversized roadside objects from humongous fibreglass dinosaurs to giant guitars, big things are a big part of highway culture Down Under. You are also guaranteed to have the time of your life.

Make it happen

Go Kombi offers modern and restored campervans to rent in Rockingham in Western Australia, while Hire a Kombi rents classic vehicles from Melbourne. Any big Australian road trip requires careful planning: be sure to take spare tyres and plenty of water.

A man trekking through Corsica’s on the GR20 Trail.

9. Trek Corsica’s GR20 Trail

Corsica’s Grande Randonnee (meaning, very literally, great walk) is a challenge to make the mouth and, on some stretches the eyes, water. Following ancient shepherds’ tracks, the 177km GR20 path weaves through the mountainous interior of this rugged Mediterranean island.

It is one of Europe’s toughest long-distance walks. All the same, while the going can be tough, the payoff is huge: expect alpine lakes, forests of chestnut and oak, and ospreys wheeling about over the crags.

Make it happen

UTracks offers a guided five-day walking tour over the somewhat easier southern part of the trail, overnighting in simple mountain refuges.

The Great Bear Lodge, Great Bear Rainforest, British Columbia.

10. Seek the wild in Canada

Who doesn’t love a good wilderness lodge? At their best, they represent a chunk of paradise that allows the guest to leave the world and all of its woes behind. Great Bear Lodge may well be that paradise. Floating on an estuary in British Columbia and only accessible by seaplane, it’s set deep in the Great Bear Rainforest, one of the largest tracts of temperate rainforest in the world . Wildlife encounters are central to the experience and in particular the chance to see bears in the wild. Grizzlies, black bears and rare white spirit bears roam the woods. Take a boat trip to see them mating in spring and fishing for salmon after the romance has faded and tummies are rumbling in the autumn. Wolves, too, can sometimes be heard howling behind the wall of spruces and cedars behind the lodge, while whales and dolphins have been known to break the still waters outside. The greatest pleasure, however, is simply spending time at the lodge: lazing on the timber deck by day, and by night dining on fresh salmon plucked from the surrounding waters, just like the bears do.

Make it happen

The Great Bear Lodge has just eight bedrooms, and is 80km north of Port Hardy. Rates include seaplane transfers from Port Hardy, all food and drink on board and bear-watching excursions. The nearest big airport is Vancouver.

Whale watch Kaikoura is based on the east coast of New Zealand’s south islands.

Drive the Trollstigen mountain road in Norway.

11. Watch whales in New Zealand

Hop on a catamaran in Kaikoura on the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island and you’re likely to have an experience you’ll never forget.

Chugging out from the coast, the boat is soon dwarfed by the snowtipped mountains that loom over the water. To the bow, the ocean stretches out to the horizon. Birds float in the breeze above.

Then, in the distance, the water breaks as if it is boiling, and the nose of a sperm whale lifts into the air with a spray and splutter; its colossal body follows, before smacking back into the deep fathoms of the Pacific, exiting with a wave of its Y-shaped tail.

The only thing that will top the sight is seeing another emerge a few seconds later.

Make it happen

Whale Watch Kaikoura has a 95 per cent success rate of spotting whales on its tours. Allow a few days’ flexibility for weather. Buses run from Christchurch in three hours.

Air New Zealand flies to Christchurch.

An african elephant wanders through the Savannah.

12. Get the bends in Norway

You needn’t head to distant continents to drive one of the world s most exciting roads. Norway’s Trollstigen is an audacious 8km sliver of asphalt that takes in a 1:12 gradient and 11 hairpin bends. It’s not called the Troll’s Road for nothing – there’s a certain mythic beauty to the mountain road and the Trollstigen Valley from which it rises. Such is the drama of the journey, the road might also be the approach to Asgard, the legendary realm of the Norse gods.

It’s only open to vehicles from May or June to October or November depending on the snowfall in the mountains and, perhaps, the whim of the gods.

Make it happen

Trollstigen is roughly a six-hour drive from the capital Oslo, and four hours from Trondheim. For more ideas of what to do in the area, see visitnorway.com. Be sure to view the road from its viewing platform. Norwegian flies to Trondheim from London Gatwick. Car hire is available at the airport.

13. Sleep in the Savannah

To truly experience the African wilderness, you need to sleep in it. On a tented safari, you drift into slumber to the sounds of the savannah – the racket of baboons running through the camp or the roar of a distant lion knowing that just canvas separates you from that herd of wildebeest or elephants ambling nearby. Mornings start with a mug of coffee in a folding chair while a line of gazelles bounds past. Kenya offers tented safaris for all sizes of wallet even the cheapest come with creature comforts such as hot showers and hot meals. One of the best budget options is Aruba-Mara Camp, which has simple but elegant safari tents on a shaded patch of land by Talek Gate in the Masai Mara National Reserve.

Make it happen

In addition to its own spacious safari tents, Aruba-Mara Camp has room for guests bringing their own tents. From Nairobi it’s a five-hour drive west to Talek.

The camp can suggest good taxi services, which should work out cheaper than driving there yourself in a 4×4 hire car. Kenya Airways also flies from Nairobi to Olkiombo airstrip, near the camp.

Tourists kayak through Halong Bay in Vietnam.

14. Kayak in Vietnam

With thousands of craggy limestone peaks and islands lapped by blue waters, Halong Bay is one of Asia’s defining landscapes. The iconic way to experience it is on one of the many wooden junks that thread their way between the many islands, but these days it’s also become a favourite with kayakers seeking a more intimate look at its incredible rock features. Typical of most limestone landscapes, Halong Bay is studded with caves, arches and tall pillars whichever way you point the prow of your plastic boat, you’re guaranteed to find some extraordinary new highlight, and there are temples hidden away in the rock faces too.

Multi-day kayaking trips are usually staged from one of the venerable old junks, where guests tuck into Vietnamese food, fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves and wake to misty dawns. Don’t leave without mooring your kayak at least once at Titop island, a pyramid-shaped peak with great views over the landscape of Halong Bay, especially beautiful at sunset.

Make it happen

Handspan Travel Indochina offers a Halong Explorer and Kayak Discovery tour, with guests sleeping and eating on a traditional junk and visiting a floating village. Tours include transfers to and from Hanoi. Vietnam Airlines flies to Hanoi.

Scale Mount Snowdon in Wales .. Hiker celebrating on Crib Goch.

15. Scale Mt Snowdon

Wales’s highest mountain region is the next-best thing to climbing Everest. Well, sort of. It was here, after all, that members of the 1953 Everest expedition including Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay trained for their big moment, as did the team that climbed Kanchenjunga in 1955. Climbing headquarters is the Pen-y-Gwryd Hotel, set in the pass between the Snowdon and the Glyderau range, which has a collection of memorabilia from the expedition and a ceiling adorned with the signatures of expedition members. If all this inspires you to stage your own expedition, drop by the Plas y Brenin climbing centre a few minutes’ drive away.

It offers a range of guided treks through the sheep-dotted, slate-quarried Welsh landscapes, from leisurely ambles to high-octane scrambles to the peak of Mt Snowdon itself.

Make it happen

The Pen-y-Gwyrd Hotel is close to the town of Beddgelert. Plas y Brenin climbing centre is in the nearby village of Capel Curig. Its classic weekend walk includes accommodation, learning navigation skills and a crash course in understanding and reading mountain weather. The easiest way to reach Snowdonia is via the city of Bangor. Virgin Trains runs services from London Euston, Birmingham New Street and Chester. From here, local buses serve the walking centres of Betws-y-Coed, Beddgelert, Capel Curig and Llanberis.

Hike the West Highland Way in Scotland.

16. Hike the West Highland Way

Scotland’s most famous long-distance walk runs almost 160km through constantly changing Highland scenery – a mix of Munros (peaks above 915m), hauntingly barren moors and back-and-forth switchbacks up heather-strewn slopes. One of the highlights along the route is the view from Conic Hill, with the sparkling waters of Loch Lomond grabbing the attention below. It s no wonder the planners chose to run an entire section of the trail through the majestic valley of Glencoe, where the grand valley is shut in by wild and precipitous mountains. Crown your accomplishment at the northern trailhead by climbing Ben Nevis and looking south at the landscape that you’ve just conquered.

Make it happen

The West Highland Way runs 150km from Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow to Fort William, and takes seven to nine days to finish. Many companies offer guided and self-guided tours along the trail. Sherpa Expeditions’ self-guided packages include bag transfers, meals and accommodation. The trail is best walked northward with the wind at your back. Glasgow is served by trains from across Britain, including London Euston and Edinburgh. From Glasgow Central, it s a 25-minute ride on a suburban train to Milngavie.

Divers metres away from a Great white in South Africa.

17. Shark dive in South Africa

Fitness needed: basic. Dive experience: none. Nerves of steel: 100% essential. There’s nothing especially difficult about cage-diving with great white sharks. You don’t have to travel far offshore and the only skill required thereafter is the ability to dangle just under the water wearing a snorkel. But – and it’s a very large but – you need proper backbone to lurk inches from 1000-plus kilos of potentially thrashing, cold-eyed predator.

Great whites have a bad reputation, in no small part thanks to the movie Jaws; it’s impossible to see these creatures glide silently up without hearing John Williams’s terror-inducing score. They are found in many seas and oceans, but the waters off South Africa and, in particular, the fishing village of Gansbaai, are home to one of the largest concentrations of white sharks in the world. Here, a strip of ocean has been dubbed Shark Alley, the 60,000-strong resident colony of cape fur seals providing a constant buffet. It takes just 20 minutes to motor from the harbour to the big-fish feeding ground but the biggest thrill is descending into a steel cage(attached to the boat) to enter the shark’s realm.

Make it happen

Marine Dynamics Shark Tours offers cage dives in Gansbaai, a two-hour drive from Cape Town.

Man with his dog riding past Cuba mural.

18. Cycle in Cuba

Experiencing Cuba on two wheels may be the best way to see the Caribbean’s largest island. Days are spent drifting along country roads, past farmers in the fields and locals offering cold drinks from their front porches. Pedal from one end of the country to the other and you’ll cover more than 1200km, but there are easy chunks to enjoy. You might choose to take the bike lane along Havana’s seafront, passing fishermen and canoodling lovers, or pedal along the coast, with the bonus of discovering a beach around every bend. You could also slog up the island’s 1.2km thigh-shredding peak of La Gran Piedra. By travelling under your own steam, you’ll discover a Cuba out of bounds to the average bus-hopping tourist.

Make it happen

Intrepid’s 15-day Cycling Cuba itinerary begins and ends in Havana.

Walk along the great wall of China.

19. Walk the Great Wall

Here, history literally crunches beneath your feet. The protected lands of China are to the south; marauding hordes are to the north. At least, that’s how it was proposed when the Chinese first built this incredible structure more than two millennia ago.

The Great Wall of China once extended anything between 5000km and 20000km, so walking the whole thing is harder than it sounds. The wall is in disrepair in many areas, and finding its course can be a challenge.

Fortunately, lots of companies offer guided walks over surviving parts including the majestic stretch between Jinshanling and Simatai.

Make it happen

Exodus offers a 10-day Walking the Great Wall tour, including the Jinshanling to Simatai stretch. The tour begins and ends in Beijing.

A Royal Bengal Tiger takes a bath during a tiger safari in India.

20. Go on a tiger safari in India

A tiger inches forward, muscles taut beneath its fur. In a flash, the dust kicks up, and the big cat has struck before anyone can blink: its hapless target, a wild boar, barely has time to struggle before the kill is complete. This is an everyday scene at Pench National Park, the real-life setting for Kipling’s Jungle Book. In the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, the wildlife-rich retreat is home to an estimated 25 Bengal tigers, gaur (Indian bison), leopards and some 300 species of birds. By day, visitors patrol the forests in 4x4s in search of the creatures, setting out from the camp in the hazy dawn. By night there are certainly worse places to retreat to than Baghvan: a hunting lodge lit by hurricane lamps, deep in the forest, with treetop sleeping platforms adding to the romance.

Make it happen

Rates at Baghvan include 4×4 safaris and meals.

“Like” Escape.com.au on Facebook

Follow @Escape_team on Twitter