just in case you have a few thousand extra dollars to spend and are itching to go hiking in exotic locales, the new york times travel section points you towards a few destinations that should fit the bill. i enjoyed this article because we hiked one of of the spots that they recommend - the gran paradiso park in northeast italy, and it truly was one of the more magnificent trips i've been on. the article ain't shitting you when it says the landscape is about as sound of music-ish as one can get.

the times recommends you do this with a group that'll run you $1,500, but i suggest following our model:

1. take train, bus, and walk your ass off for several hours to get to random italian alpine town.
2. kind of start off without any idea of where you're going; pick up trail off street behind dumpster.
3. walk for several hours amongst the most beautiful scenery you've ever scene; nearly die because you are hauling ass behind your eagle-scout-boyfriend and rabidly determined psycho hiker friend.
4. reach a crest that looks exactly like the photo from the nytimes article:

5. check in at the awesome rifugio tuckett that looks like part of the mountain; eat best alpine meal of your life (think huge glasses of beer, massive bowls of stew, delicious grilled austrian sausages, all while adorable random kittens, apparently owned by the dude who takes care of the rifugio, come visit you); look out over beautiful scenery; think this is best day of life, etc.
6. go to sleep with half a dozen of your closest friends in cute little bunkbed-ed room. could this day have been any better?
7. realize one of your half a dozen closest friends is n., who is the loveliest person alive, but who is also NOISIEST SNORER IN THE WORLD
8. two hours later, throw wadded up socks at n.'s face. no response.
9. consider killing n. and throwing her body over the mountain crest. whisper this to other people in room. all agree.
10. do not kill n. due to weak human nature. spend rest of night sleepless in semi-psychotic state. hate mountains. hate nature. hate hiking. worst idea ever. consider finding previously mentioned cute kitten and stuffing it up n.'s nose.
11. watch sunlight start streaming in room; realize there IS NO SHOWER AT RIFUGIO TUCKETT; realize you have four more hours of hiking, a three hour bus ride and two hour train ride home; consider rolling around in alpine snow outside to get semi-clean and get out of sleepless zombie mindframe.
12. leave rifugio tuckett in thorougly rabid state.
13. hike home different way than you came; see most beautiful series of waterfalls in the entire world, many more alpine fields dotted with flowers, snowcapped mountains, etc; fall on butt while crossing stream and don't even care because everything around you in so lovely and you want to go leaping through the fields singing "the hills are alive" at the top of your voice.
14. take 17 million hours to get back home to milan. airconditionless train gets stuck right outside of stazione centrale while you wilt and die and sweat and stink for 45 minutes.
15. can't wait to do it again.