Recommendations for a solo holiday with nice walks in Europe

[WH50]

I'm planning on a solo trip in September and want to go somewhere with a nice variety of walks of, say, 2 or 3 hours. Any recommendations?

We did Mac’s Adventures Cinque Terre which was wonderful. Highly recommend it.

Tuscany? Could tie in with a more city break day or two in Florence

Austrian Alps - Zell am See, Saalbach-Hinterglemm or Kitzbuhel - with a stop off at Salzburg for a day or two on the way in or out.

The Basque country is gorgeous. Orio is a lovely little town and the tourist office can give you walks books and leaflets.

You can also get to San Sebastian or Bilbao if you want a break from countryside.

This is based on recommendations from others, but I’d say the interior of Menorca, or Malaga.

Have a look at H F holidays. Even if you don’t want to use them as a company you can borrow their walk itineraries.

Thanks all for the great ideas. I did a group walking holiday earlier this year and although I enjoyed it, I found it hard making small talk all day hiking and then again in the evening! So I'll look into some of these.

Many of the tourist offices in Austria organise local daily hikes of varying degrees of length and exertion, and these guided hikes are often free of charge. For example, in Saalbach > Events in Saalbach Hinterglemm

Had a wonderful walking in La Palma - not be confused with Las Palmas. Very different vibes!

www.jet2holidays.com/destinations/canary-islands/la-palma

Yes, I'm leaning towards Zell am See - and would go with a couple of guided walks that I see they do

Definitely Austria, or Italian Lakes.

I went solo hiking to Luxembourg via Eurostar in Spring 2025. Luxembourg has national free public transport which made exploring easy. It was like interailing, it's set something out the window jump off train take a look then get back on. I had seen a trail on Instagram and went to do that specific hike from Echternach, there were lots of trails though which were all really well marked. I would go back and do more

Slovenia is beautiful. Very easy and cheap to travel around by train or bus, and lots of beautiful walks to do.

Madeira has some wonderful well marked walks (although you now have to book) and the weather is usually pretty much guaranteed (min 20s). Really easy to get around using Bolt.. I traveled solo in January and loved it. Stayed in Funchal.

I’d agree with this but I wonder if it would still be super busy in September. I just came back from there, and the popular levada hikes were packed...

Salzburgerland is gorgeous. Spent a week in Salzburg and Zell with my better half in March and then stayed out an extra week in Bischofshofen to go snowboarding at 6 different ski areas near there. Loved it!

One of the best things about it was the Guest Mobility Ticket:
https://www.guestmobilityticket.at/en/

Available at all formal accommodation in Salzburgerland and covers all public transport in the region. You can generally pre-register with accommodation so you can use it to get to them on arrival.

There's actually a bus that goes direct from Salzburg Flughafen to Zell-am-See once per hour (Postbus 260 - we got that from the town centre after staying there for a couple of nights). Briefly passes into Germany and goes through at least one pleasant small town with a ski area (Lofer) that I assume would have some lovely walks (and a gondola to get you up the mountain to walk down if that's your thing).

Made getting bus out to Kaprun and Saalbach-Hinterglemm really easy and train & bus to various other places. App or paper based and just needs scanning as you jump on bus or asked for ticket on train.

This sounds interesting. What did you do for accommodation?

I stayed in bed and breakfasts, never been to Luxembourg before. This was the area with trail

https://www.mullerthal-trail.lu/en

Menorca. Fabulous. I went solo there a few years ago. Oh and Malta.

100% agree.

Slovakia and Croatia and other parts of the Western Balkan's have equally beautiful walks and are very cheap and relatively safe.

Vienna is a hiker's paradise. There are lots of walks into the vineyards or around Vienna (for some ideas see here) and it's very easy to reach hikes slightly further away by excellent public transport that you could do during the way and still leave plenty of time to go to the opera in the evening.

This sounds great, as do all the suggestions so far. Thanks everyone.

Please don’t go hiking / walking in Malaga or Palma in September, unless you have the experience of doing physical activity in those climates. Every year there are reports of holidaymakers, usually from more northern countries, having heatstrokes or going missing because they don’t understand how the heat and humidity work in these parts of the world. It is an easy way to end up in hospital if you’re not taking the correct precautions.