Poland · PL

Bieszczady National Park

In the far south-eastern corner of Poland, where the country narrows against Slovakia and Ukraine, Bieszczady National Park guards the wildest and emptiest mountains in the land. It protects the highest part of the Bieszczady range, crowned by long, bare, grassy ridges called połoniny, and the high-mountain vegetation found here—characteristic of the Eastern Carpathians—has no equivalent anywhere else in the Polish mountains. Beech forest rises to a fringe of crooked, wind-shaped trees and then stops, handing the summits over to meadows that turn russet, gold and crimson each autumn. This is the kind of place Poles dream of when they talk about dropping everything and heading for the Bieszczady: a landscape of sweeping ridge walks, dark skies thick with stars, and a full assembly of large mammals—brown bears, wolves, lynx and free-roaming European bison—roaming among the ghost-villages of a vanished highland culture. If you love long day-hikes, big open views and a real sense of remoteness, the park rewards three unhurried days and more.