Fall is all about food, with pumpkin-flavored everything already lining the shelves. But for animals, it's about fattening up to hibernate, or stockpiling for the coming cold. And while you're downing your PSL, the wildlife is on the move, through predictable places, at predictable times, which makes autumn one of the best seasons to catch them in the act.

In the US and Canada, salmon runs pull bears down to the rivers. In Kenya, the Great Migration lingers in the Maasai Mara through October (and November brings lower prices before the holiday crowds). And in northern Australia, the dry season sends animals crowding to Kakadu's watering holes in September and October.

Here's where to see wildlife at its best this fall.

Andermatt sits quietly on the road from Zurich to Milan, ringed by alpine pastures and three legendary climbs: Oberalp, Saint-Gotthard, and the Furka Pass, whose switchbacks and glacier views starred in the 1964 Bond classic Goldfinger.

Rent a top-tier road bike and take on the same tarmac 007 tore down.

Call him Bigfoot, skunk ape, or yeti: the seven-foot, fur-covered cryptid has fans and believers in every corner of the continent.

If you want to pitch a tent where the sightings happen, these eleven campgrounds put you in prime squatch country.

Alaska's eight national parks cover more ground than every other US national park combined, most of it with no roads, no trails, and no cell service (sorry, influencers).

Visiting them all in one trip is wildly impractical, which is exactly why it would be such a dream trip: one long, light-filled summer linking tundra, volcanoes, fjords, salmon rivers, and Arctic sand dunes.

Can't swing the full eight-park dream trip (see above)? Here's a great way to get a real taste of Alaska in one go.

Getting to Denali Backcountry Lodge took me 3,300 miles, nearly 50 hours, a plane, an eight-hour train, and a helicopter. Denali is North America's tallest peak and the country's third-largest national park, more than six million acres served by a single road that's currently closed past Mile 43.

The right travel jacket keeps you warm and dry without eating half your carry-on. Matador's editors tested dozens of packable options, and these are the ones worth the suitcase space.

The Matador Editorial Team

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