I Went on a Self-guided Tour of Corsica — and It Was an Adventure Lover's Dream

I clung to the face of the limestone cliff like a crab, my fingers turning white as they clawed the chalky rock. To my left, the sandy path where I stood narrowed, dropping away more than 200 feet to the sea below.

“Just keep walking,” my brother, Jared, yelled from farther up, where the track widened. “It’s easier if you go fast.” Jared and I had spent the past six days adventuring through Corsica, a French territory that, despite being the most mountainous island in the Mediterranean, is typically associated with dramatic seaside cliffs and white-sand beaches. For decades, visitors to the 114-mile-long île, which sits west of the Italian peninsula and north of Sardinia, have docked their yachts in the marinas and partied at the flashy beach resorts.

But not us. For one week in June, Jared and I woke up early each morning, pulled on Smartwool socks, and ate hearty breakfasts of cured meats and crumbly brocciu cheese. We cycled on winding roads, hiked up granite mountains, and slid down waterfalls — and at the end of the trip, we finally rested our weary bodies by the beach.

Our self-guided tour, which was organized by the travel operator Butterfield & Robinson, began in the northern part of the island. Within an hour of landing at Bastia-Poretta Airport from Paris, we parked our rental car in the town of Oletta, where we’d be spending the night at Aethos Corsica, a restored 17th-century palazzo turned hotel. There we met our first guide, Anthony Laplagne, who leads cycling tours. The three of us hopped on e-bikes for a 20-mile round-trip ride to the fishing port of St.-Florent, zooming along steep, curvy roads that made me grip the brakes so hard my palms tingled.

About seven miles in, we stopped at Ribella, a roadside craft brewery where I sipped a draft beer called the Madonna while Laplagne regaled us with a tale from Corsican mythology. “God created the world, and at the end, he had a mix of different pieces of land left over,” he said. “So, he put everything together and dropped them in the water, and that became Corsica.”

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We got our next glimpse of the varying terrain the following day, after driving an hour inland to the university town of Corté. The white noise of cicadas filled the air as we pulled up to Dominique Colonna, a modern 29-key hotel that sits on the maquis, a wild landscape that blends desert and forest. There was also a shallow creek, and when we learned we could swim in it, Jared and I tiptoed over the slippery rocks and sunk into the cool water.

Soon after, I was stretched, pulled, and kneaded in the spa cabin, where floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the stream we’d just swum in. Not that I could see anything, face down and blissed out, but I appreciated the connection to the land all the same.

After a buffet breakfast the next morning that included four types of house-made granola and six fruit jams, plus warm chocolate-hazelnut cookies, Jared and I were on our way again. En route to the southeastern village of Chisà, we let out a “wow” every couple miles as we entered what looked like a screen saver: blue mountains silhouetted against the sky, with soaring pine trees enveloping us on either side. My brother navigated the single-lane, snaking roads with a mischievous, childlike grin. “It’s like driving in a video game,” he said.

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We were headed to our next activity: aqua rando. The term is an amalgam of two of the three languages spoken in Corsica (Corsu, French, and Italian). Aqua is Italian for water, while rando is short for randonnée, which means hike in French. We’d be hiking in water — a first for us both.

Our guide, Guillaume Ferreri, met us at a bridge on the outskirts of Chisà. After donning wet suits, waterproof boots, helmets, and clip-on canvas pads to help us slide over wet rocks, we waded into the Travo River. The water was so clean and clear we could drink it — and spot trout and eels swimming below. While I translated for Jared, Ferreri instructed us on when to slide, jump, and float as we made our way downstream for two hours. This is wild, I thought — what the French would call sauvage. Buoyant on my back, I gazed up at the trees, boulders, and sky as the cold rush shot me forward, muffling all sound.

As it turns out, hiking in a river is exhausting. We spent the rest of the afternoon nodding off on lounge chairs at A Pignata, a hilltop inn and working farm. Inside, the 19 rooms feel country-chic, with their mismatched furnishings; there are also a couple of stone barns and modern tree houses.

Dinner was a five-course affair in the open-air dining room. With the timing of a choreographer, our server brought us sliced figatellu, a popular local pork sausage, followed by a soup of greens from the garden, braised lamb in a thick gravy, and cannelloni covered in melted brocciu cheese. Just when we thought we might burst, out came a bowl of lightly dressed lettuce, a basket of stone fruit, more cheeses to dip in a house-made jam, and, finally, sugar-coated beignets. Jared and I stumbled back to our duplex room in slow motion, as if we were still wearing those cumbersome wet suits.

Our last day inland consisted of a hike led by mountaineer and photographer Christophe Melchers, who guided us into the Alta Rocca mountain range in southern Corsica. The highest point, a jagged cluster called the Bavella Needles, soars more than 6,000 feet. We began by walking through fields of ferns so tall they tickled my bare shoulders. Up we climbed for a couple of hours, slithering through tight granite crevices and passing under tall pines. When we finally reached our summit, we sat for a snack of salami and cheese, gazing at the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

That glittering expanse would be our end-of-trip retreat for the next two nights. We checked in to the lavish Hôtel U Capu Biancu, a 20-minute drive from the town of Bonifacio, near the southern tip of the island. Now a popular beach destination, the town was built in A.D. 830 on the coast’s white cliffs — the same steep escarpments I’d later be gripping like a crustacean on a self-guided hike.

When Jared and I returned to the hotel, sweaty and covered in dust, we were pleased to be back in Capu Biancu’s natural yet comfortable setting: stone walls, exposed beams, and decorative driftwood. We took turns dipping into the amoeba-shaped outdoor pool, swinging in a hidden hammock, and napping in a sun-dappled gazebo by the shore. For the first time on this otherwise go-go-go getaway, I reveled in the idea of doing nothing — and doing it again tomorrow.

How to Book

Butterfield & Robinson can design self-guided Corsica tours that include road biking, hiking, and aqua rando. Six-day trips from $8,795 per person for two people, including accommodations.

A version of this story first appeared in the July 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline "Au Naturel."

Read the original article on Travel & Leisure