Travel and Tourism in Lebanon

Outdoor and Adventure

Lebanon's small size and dramatic topography, Mediterranean coast, mountain ridges, and valley plains within a few hours of one another, make it an extraordinarily varied outdoor destination for its area. The combination of environments accessible within a single day's drive is genuinely unusual: coastal swimming, mountain hiking, skiing, cycling, river kayaking, spelunking, and paragliding can all be experienced within Lebanon's modest boundaries.

The Lebanon Mountain Trail is a 470-kilometer national walking trail that runs the full length of the country from Andqet in the far north, near the Syrian border, to Marjayoun in the south. Developed over a decade of community consultations and trail-building by the Lebanon Mountain Trail Association, the LMT passes through approximately 75 villages and multiple protected areas, covering 27 stages of between 8 and 24 kilometers each. The trail traverses all of Lebanon's major mountain ecosystems: cedar forests, apple orchards, oak woodland, high limestone plateau, river gorges. It passes ancient churches, mosques, Crusader ruins, Phoenician sites, Ottoman khans, and the living villages of Druze, Maronite, Shia, Sunni, and Greek Orthodox communities. Walking the full trail takes approximately 27 days. The trail is waymarked with red-and-white paint marks and an associated guidebook provides detailed route descriptions and information about the villages and cultural sites along the way. Sections of the trail can be walked individually as day hikes, particularly the sections through the Qadisha Valley, the Shouf Cedar Reserve, and the northern mountain areas around Tannourine and Laqlouq. For anyone wishing to understand the full geographic and cultural diversity of Lebanon, there is no better way than walking the Lebanon Mountain Trail.

Jabal Moussa, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in the Kesruan mountains north of Beirut, offers rock climbing on high limestone cliffs above the Mediterranean. The site has attracted Lebanese and regional climbers for several decades and has developed a network of fixed routes suitable for intermediate to advanced climbers. The views from the upper climbing sections, the Mediterranean directly below, the Beirut peninsula visible in the distance, are extraordinary.

Paragliding has developed as an adventure tourism activity in Lebanon, with launching sites above several mountain towns offering tandem flights over the coast and valleys. Laqlouq, Ehden, and the Laklouk plateau are among the most popular paragliding sites, the latter being considered one of the better cross-country paragliding sites in the region for experienced pilots. Rafting on the Assi River, which rises in the Bekaa Valley and flows north through Syria to Turkey, one of the few Middle Eastern rivers to flow northward, is another adventure option in the spring months when snowmelt raises water levels. Mountain biking has also developed substantially, with several tour operators offering guided routes through the mountain landscapes.