Horse Riding / Equestrian in February

Pony trekking is the classic way to travel Lesotho, and Malealea is the place most people do it. The Basotho pony, a hardy crossbreed brought to the mountains in the nineteenth century, is stout, calm and astonishingly sure-footed on the goat tracks and passes that link the villages, and for centuries it has been the everyday transport of a nation of horsemen. From Malealea Lodge, local Basotho guides lead rides that range from a couple of hours to multi-day trips sleeping in village huts, following paths to waterfalls, San rock-art shelters and viewpoints over the Makhaleng gorge. You do not need to be an experienced rider; the ponies are patient and the pace is walking, which makes this as much a cultural journey through working villages as an equestrian one. This sits under Horse Riding and Equestrian, the closest fit for a tradition that Basotho would simply call pony trekking. Evenings back at the lodge bring a village choir and band playing home-made instruments around the fire.

Uruguay has one of the highest horse-to-human ratios in the world, and in the interior around Tacuarembo riding is still the job, not the product. At Panagea, a 970-hectare working cattle ranch, guests ride as workers: herding cattle, tagging calves, moving sheep, with two hours of generator electricity a night and full board for roughly the price of a hostel bed. It is the anti-estancia-show, the ranching is the business and tourism the sideline, and the riding education is correspondingly real. Novices are put on quiet horses and taught; experienced riders do full working days.

The Vinales valley is made for the saddle. Between the mogotes, the round-topped limestone towers that give the valley its shape, run tobacco and coffee fields worked much as they were a century ago, and the tracks between the farms are too rough and too rural for a bus. On horseback you ride from vega to vega, stopping at a tobacco drying house to watch a farmer roll a cigar, at a coffee finca, and often at a cave with an underground river. Two family operators run the rides with their own horses and guides, Riding Vinales and JMC Vinales Aventura, both rooted in the valley rather than bussed in from Havana.

Mendoza's geography gives horse riding a quality you don't find at most wine destinations: you can leave the vineyard floor and climb into genuine Andean terrain above 2,500m within a few hours, with Aconcagua, the highest peak in the Americas, visible on the horizon. Several estancias and specialist operators run full-day and multi-day riding circuits that move through malbec vineyard country, then climb into the foothills through poplars and irrigation canals, and eventually into the raw Andes. Argentine criollo horses are built for altitude and rocky terrain. The combination of wine culture and mountain riding is unusual and genuinely well-executed here.

Lake Mburo is small, and the absence of elephant and, in practice, of resident lion is exactly what makes it special: you can walk here, and you can ride. From Mihingo Lodge, perched on a granite kopje above the park, guided horseback safaris take you out across the acacia savanna among Burchell's zebra, impala, eland, topi and warthog, animals that treat a horse as just another grazer and let you approach far closer than a vehicle would. The riding runs from short outrides for beginners to longer half-day trails and overnight rides for confident riders, on a stable of Boerperds and thoroughbreds. It is the only place in Uganda offering horseback safaris inside a national park, run under agreement with the Uganda Wildlife Authority since 2008.

The estancias of Ultima Esperanza pioneered long-distance riding under the Paine massif more than 25 years ago, and it remains the real thing: five-to-ten-day traverses from Sierra Baguales through the park to the Grey and Serrano sectors, riding criollo horses alongside working baqueanos, sleeping estancia to estancia. Riders join herd movements on working ranches rather than following a nose-to-tail string, and the days run 30 to 40 kilometers under the most photographed skyline in Patagonia. It pairs glacier scenery with a living horse culture that predates the park itself.

Riding safaris were invented in Kenya, and the Mara is still their highest expression: cantering across open grassland among giraffe and zebra who read a horse as another animal rather than a vehicle, which lets riders move inside the herds in a way no game drive can. The classic format is a multi-day mobile safari, riding camp to camp behind the migration or through the conservancies, with experienced safari horses, professional guides carrying the big-game protocols, and full camp crews moving ahead of you. It demands genuine riding competence, operators require confident control at all paces, because the animals set the tempo. For a rider, there is nothing else like it on earth.