Beautiful Rivers

The Kenai, Alaska, US

If sports fishing, canoeing and kayaking sound like the ingredients for a dream holiday there is no better place than the lush, rugged landscapes of the Kenai River. It runs 82 miles (132 km) westward from the Kenai Mountains, through the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge and Skilak Lake, to the Pacific Ocean.

Salmon fishing is another of the main attractions, with one specimen caught here reaching the extraordinary weight of 97lb. It tends to get overcrowded during the peak fishing season - July and August - so consider a date closer to autumn.

The Rhine, Europe

The busiest and, according to many, the most picturesque waterway in Europe, the Rhine flows through six countries: Austria, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, The Netherlands and Switzerland. The 820-mile river has shaped the history of Europe more than any other and its legacy is on its margins: castles and medieval fortresses bare witness to Europe's belligerent past. The terraced vineyards of the legendary Lorelei Rock stretch are a Unesco World Heritage Site, and produce some fantastic rieslings.

The Danube, Europe

The Danube is the Europe's second longest river, ranking below only the Volga, in Russia. It crosses ten countries - Romania, Hungary, Serbia, Germany, Austria, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Croatia, Ukraine and Moldova - and serves some of Europe's most historic cities.

As far as river cruising wars go, only the Rhine can match the Danube in terms of popularity. A typical itinerary will take you to Vienna, with its Art Deco cafes, where the likes of Frank Kafka drank; Budapest, the Hungarian capital; and Bratislava, capital of Slovakia and a great stop for lovers of the outdoors due to its location in the foothills of the Carpathians.

The Yangtze, China

"If you haven't been up the Yangtze, then you haven't been anywhere." So goes an old Chinese saying.

The longest river in Asia rises from the glaciers of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and flows eastwards through 10 provinces before emptying into the sea north of Shanghai. While the riches of the Yangtze today come mostly from its mammoth hydroelectric potential, it has served China for far longer as a source of food and water for the irrigation of its rice fields. One of the most impressive sights along the river is the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest power station.

The Douro, Portugal

Although its popularity has soured in the past decade, with development spoiling its banks somewhat, many towns along the Douro still preserve a certain late 19th-century aura. The bright morning light bouncing off the white houses, each of which are filled with tapestries and hand-painted tiles, takes you back to a time when the number of wine producers and the number of inhabitants in the region was virtually the same.

The Mekong, South-East Asia

Some of the world's most exotic and fascinating destinations are touched by the Mekong, which rises in the Tibetan Plateau and runs through China's Yunnan province, Burma (Myanmar), Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam before emptying in the South China Sea. Some of Southeast Asia’s best destinations can be reached on a boat through the Mekong including Siam Reap for the Angkor Wat ruins and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam's cosmopolitan metropolis.

The route is full of thriving cities, rural communities, floating villages such as Kompong Luong, floating markets and endless rice paddies, pagodas and temples.  A highlight is a visit to Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, an extensive array of ornate 12th-century stone structures and beehive like towers built in the jungle near Siem Reap.