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When you talk about activity days in the Midlands everyone automatically thinks of a day at Alton Towers, and there’s no doubt that the most famous of all Britain’s theme parks is a great place to visit. However, there are some hidden gems lurking in the countryside outside Birmingham that shouldn’t be missed.

I say outside Birmingham because of the great number of quality hotels in Birmingham. Usually people assume that city centre hotels are expensive, but thanks to websites like Millennium Hotels you can get some amazing deals, making a city break both affordable and a great way to get away from it all for a couple of days.

Inching towards 5,800m, my left calf tightens as the crampon digs into snow. The southern ridge ahead curves towards the Stok Kangri peak. Looking over my right shoulder, the powder-clad flank of the mountain surges below into a vortex of snow with sparse patches of rock. About 20 steps ahead, Jigmet stops in his tracks. “We’re almost there,” he shouts, pre-empting me from a second thought of rest, and points to the northeast at the rising hops of undulating snow. A thoroughbred Ladakhi, Jigmet often guides expeditions from Leh (the capital of Ladakh) into the surrounding Himalayan range.

Indoor climbing has recently enjoyed huge growth in the UK but the outdoor climbing scene is harder to find, requires new skills and rain always threatens to stop play. I headed to France to find a new climate and a new approach to outdoor climbing…

‘C’est super,’ calls Alé, our tanned, beaming instructor from what seems like a league beneath me. Looking down at him, a grinning bronze dot far below, I wonder what on earth I'm doing here. I manage to make my forearms stop complaining when I find some better holds and look around – a little reminder of why I left the comfort of the local wall and made the trip to the Ardèche, France.

There is a story in Urubamba, a town in Peru’s Sacred Valley, that several years ago the inhabitants all realised they were having the same dream. They dreamed of the Señor de Torrechayoc, a beloved local saint whose image stood thousands of meters above town on a windswept Andean pass. As they slumbered, the saint visited their dreams and implored them to visit him: he was lonely, no one passed his way anymore due to the newly paved highway. And so the locals responded in true Peruvian fashion: they decided to have a party.