The Dolomites

The Dolomites get sold internationally as a scenic drive — the Great Dolomites Road, Passo Giau, Passo Falzarego — and that's a genuinely beautiful few days. But the region was built for walking long before it had roads through it: a network of rifugios (staffed mountain huts, most serving a hot meal and a bed) makes multi-day hut-to-hut hiking realistic for a reasonably fit traveller in a way it isn't in most mountain ranges. Clients who only drive the passes see the Dolomites from the outside; clients who walk even one hut-to-hut leg tend to say it's the best two days of the trip.

The other thing to plan around deliberately is that this is two seasons wearing one name. Ski season runs December to March, centred on Cortina d'Ampezzo and Val Gardena — Cortina co-hosted the 2026 Winter Olympics alongside Milan, which has pushed lift and lodging investment further into the area. Hiking season runs June to September, and the rifugios themselves dictate the calendar: most don't open until mid-June and close again in the first half of October, regardless of what the weather's doing.

If a client wants photos of the classic green meadows and jagged grey peaks together, that's a narrower window than people expect — the high alpine meadows are still patchy with snow into May some years, and by late October they're brown and the huts are shut. September is the month I steer people toward: the crowds of July and August have thinned, the weather is usually still stable, and the light is better for photography than the harsher midday summer sun.