The World’s 14 Most Awe-Inspiring Canopy Walks

In Northern Queensland, you find the Daintree Forest, the oldest rainforest on this planet. The Daintree Forest is 180 million years older than the Amazon Rainforest and a leftover from when the Earth just had one continent: Gondwanaland.

At the entrance to the forest stands the Daintree Discovery Centre, with a mid-canopy walkway and a canopy tower that allows you to get right into the thick of this 3.5 billion-year-old forest. The Canopy Tower has five viewing platforms at different levels of the rainforest, each offering a chance to see a different angle of this natural wonder, from potential Cassowary sightings closer to the ground to the chance to spot an elusive Bush kangaroo higher up.

Otway, along the Great Ocean Road Drive, is famous for its lighthouse and its koalas. When walking along this elevated walkway, you might just spot the latter, together with flora and fauna, which, in Australia, are always worth a closer look.

To add more excitement (although how can anything be more exciting than spotting koalas?), there is the Spiral Tower that sways over a creek and a 2.5-hour-long zip-line tour across and through the forest.

Same island, different country, and a chance to see gibbons and flying squirrels. You might just get lucky and spot some monkeys on this 165-foot high canopy walk in Brunei, the tiny nation that shares an island with Borneo.

You will have to brave some 20 swaying ladders to reach the suspended trail, but once up, you are right at the top of the trees, with birds flying above, gibbons swinging overhead, and plenty more exciting wildlife to be seen. This is also an amazing place to see the sunrise with magnificent views all around, but you will need to stay locally, as it means a very early start.

There are canopies, and then there are canopies. Here, the trees are not normal trees; they are sequoias, as well as mighty redwoods. Often used interchangeably, they are different tree species, if close cousins. Here in the forests north of Santa Cruz on California’s Central Coast, both trees grow, and the Mount Hermon Adventures allows you to see them in all their gigantic splendor. Whether you prefer a Sequoia Aerial Adventure climbing across rope and timber obstacles or ziplining through the redwoods, either way, you’ll see these impressive trees up close.

When is a forest extra special? When it’s a Cloud Forest. Costa Rica’s Cloud Forest is home to an estimated 2,500 plant species, more than 100 species of mammals (including several species of sloths), more than 400 types of birds, and 120 reptiles and amphibians.

In Monteverde, you can walk through the clouds hanging in the canopy of the forest, across eight different hanging bridges, all while taking in the surroundings and biodiversity of this country. For even more thrills, you can take the zipline or cable car across the forest.

Lipno is not just about the timbered canopy walk, which is gorgeous with great views, but also about a viewing tower that is 130-feet high. This gigantic and fully accessible spiral walkway takes you to a viewing platform with views extending across the coniferous forest to the Lipno Dam and mountains beyond. This setting is particularly popular around sunset, with opening times allowing for a later stay.

Navigate a more than 500-foot long, 230-foot high rope bridge that stretches across a ravine in Africa with the pristine Nyungwe forest on either side. Given that Rwanda is a popular spot for gorilla treks, you never know what you might spot along the way. The canopy walk is part of an hour’s trek through the forest, adding to the experience.

Kew Gardens is a must-see for any nature lovers and those interested in diverse flora. The addition of the treetop walk—all solid wood rather than flimsy ropes—makes for a nice extra change from the other canopy walks on this list.

The views across the botanical gardens, including the various Victorian greenhouses, are superb. No monkeys or primates here, but you will have the bonus of the London Skyline filling the horizon.

This one is a bit special because it ticks all the boxes of treetops, rope walkways, and views with the bonus of adding nighttime to the mix. Thirty pretty lanterns illuminate the 28 suspension bridges and 27 platforms that thread their way through New Zealand’s North Island’s redwood forest, allowing you to see the woods in a whole different way. You might even spot a nocturnal kiwi bird if you are really lucky.

Perfect for bird and butterfly enthusiasts, this canopy walkway comprises seven suspended bridges, allowing access to the ancient trees in the Kakum National Park. Wildlife is plentiful but difficult to spot because of the density of the forest, but you should be able to see various apes and maybe even a leopard or elephant. To truly experience the jungle, you can also book yourself in for a guided nighttime walk.

This sister attraction to the Lipno Treetop Walkway, with a similarly intriguing spiral walkway up to a viewing platform, takes in the majestic Black Forest in Germany. Accessible to all, in wheelchairs or with baby strollers, the views from the top of the 130-foot viewing platform are amazing.

The lower canopy walk covers the diversity of the coniferous forest, with plenty of stops for activities and informative displays. There are further accessible canopy walks with similar spiral access towers in other German regions, as well as Poland and the Czech Republic.

While many canopy walks are a mere mile or less long, the Treetop Walk near Singapore City, takes anywhere between three to five hours (round-trip) to walk through the forest, allowing you to make a day of it. Exploring the flora and fauna of rural Singapore shows you a very different side to the city-state. It makes you appreciate what Singapore was like before the modern developments sprang up.