Adventure travel company Untamed Borders is launching a pioneering new trekking trip in the Hadramout region of Yemen. The first of the new hiking tours will begin in January 2025, in the east of the country, with sections of the route running in and out of the region’s date palm lined wadis and across its desert landscapes. The routes were checked thoroughly by one of Untamed Borders’ international trekking guides – alongside its Yemeni team – in the winter of 2024.

The new Yemeni route is part of a growing trend of trekkers seeking out new routes in the Middle East. New trail networks have been created in recent years in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdistan in Northern Iraq, and the Sinai Peninsula. All part of a larger project called the Abraham Path.

Untamed Borders’ new Yemeni trek follows in the footsteps of renowned British-Italian explorer Freya Stark, who travelled through the region in the 1930s and documented her adventure in A Winter In Arabia – A Journey Through Yemen.

Although Yemen has suffered from instability and conflict in recent years, the trailblazing trekking trips will take place in the east of the nation, far away from the flash points in the Houthi-controlled west around Sana’a. The company began offering cultural tours to mainland Yemen back in 2019 and has been returning ever since, including earlier this year.

Untamed Borders also offers excursions to the Yemeni island of Socotra, known as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean, due to its immense biodiversity. Untamed Borders already runs adventurous trekking trips to the Wakhan Corridor in Afghanistan, the Pamir Mountain Lakes region of Tajikistan and the wilds of Kyrgyzstan.

The first Yemeni trek will take place between 28 January and 6 February 2025.

Further information – untamedborders.com