By Ari Altun
Photos provided by @XTERRAplanet
For years Slowtwitch Senior Editor Kevin Mackinnon spent years travelling to remarkable places for work. His family, though, were shocked at how often he would return home having seen very little beyond the race site.
“You travel to some of the world’s most amazing spots, and all you do is work,” they told him.
A new family rule followed. Wherever triathlon took him, he had to “take in at least one sight.”
In his two-part Slowtwitch series from Western Australia, Mackinnon gave that rule more consideration. The first story followed him through Perth, Fremantle and Rottnest Island before he began the drive south. The second continued through Busselton and Margaret River, with stops along the coast, time in the water, caves, wineries and several days spent seeing where the race had brought him. After nine days, he still felt that he had barely begun.
A few hours south of Perth, XTERRA Australia, kicks-off one of the next season’s largest off-road gatherings in Dunsborough, with the course stretching from Geographe Bay into Meelup Regional Park and the trails surrounding Dunsborough Country Club. The water is clear enough to see the sand beneath the swim, while the bikes roll through red dirt, pass kangaroos along sections of pea gravel and dip into fast forest singletrack before the run follows granite headlands and small beaches along the coast.
“This is one of the best races someone can do, for the vibes, the scenery, and the course. It’s really a dreamy place, beautiful and relaxed,” said Italy’s Marta Menditto, the reigning XTERRA World Cup champion.
Dunsborough fits naturally into the route Mackinnon had already followed, with Perth, Fremantle and Rottnest Island opening the trip, and Margaret River, Busselton and the southwest coast filling the days around the race. It’s also just one example of how an event can become a meeting point for athletes from around the world, bringing them together in a place where the landscape, local culture and time we spend beyond the course become a major part of the reason for making the journey.
2005 XTERRA World Champion Nico Lebrun says, “For many athletes arriving from colder winter places, you come here, get the sun, the warm water, the atmosphere, and it really gets you fired up for the year ahead.”
Through Forests, Flowers and Mountains
The Elgin Valley is a place where trails move through flowering shrubs called fynbos, then between sandstone formations within the Cape Floral Kingdom, with naturally tea-coloured water in Eikenhof Dam and mountains surrounding the course of XTERRA South Africa.
Two-time Olympian, four-time XTERRA World Champion and local trail builder Conrad Stoltz knows the Grabouw landscape from both sides of the course. In a Slowtwitch interview following his retirement, he spoke about finally having time to explore South Africa’s diverse local region after a career spent travelling the world. “Grabouw, in my mind, is nature,” said Stoltz. “It is only forty-five minutes from Stellenbosch and an hour from Cape Town, and it feels very remote and away from the city.”
Local athlete Ryno Owen, who has now won the Full Distance race for two consecutive years says, “With all the competitors and spectators sticking around at the race venue after the race for food and drink, the vibes are unmatched and just get better and better as the weekend progresses.”
Set within 1,000 acres of Staffordshire countryside, XTERRA Weston Park is held around a 17th-century country house, private lake, gardens, orchards, open parkland and woodland. In spring, bluebells spread purple across the forest floor as the course leaves the open fields and enters the trees, while lakeside camping and live music keep athletes, families and friends on the estate throughout the weekend.
“It’s something special. This green space is an oasis of calm, only 20K away from Birmingham,” said UK off-road athlete and course designer Doug Hall. After completing the Full Distance race in 2026, Adam Brown called it “one of the friendliest, but also most competitive races to do,” adding that the three-day event created “a sense of family.”
Across the Atlantic on US soil, Oak Mountain is where red-clay singletrack winds beneath tall trees across Alabama’s largest state park, supported by BUMP, a local mountain-bike community that has spent years building, riding and maintaining the trail network. Around the racing, people remain by the lake for music, food, children’s activities and time with athletes they have met through previous editions. Marni Sumbal calls Oak Mountain “one of the most beautiful areas for nature lovers.”
Then there is Lake Molveno beneath the towering Brenta Dolomites in Trentino. Named Italy’s best lake for the 11th time in 2026 by Legambiente’s Five Sails guide, it has served as the expo village centre for previous XTERRA World and European Championship events. American age-group athlete Christina Newport wrote, “The mountains looked almost unreal. The water was crystal clear. There were incredible trails, mountain biking, delicious food and scenery that looked like it belonged in a movie.”
Old Towns and New Developments
Slowtwitch has explored this approach to European racing before. Sarah Bonner’s “5 Unique European Triathlons That Are Worth the Trip” looked beyond the largest branded events to places such as Gérardmer and Zarautz, where the course, local following and surrounding region reward a longer stay. Her later story, “The Call of Alpe D’Huez,” followed the allure of a race highlighted by the mountain, cycling history and the journey required to reach it.
XTERRA Lake Scanno has its own invitation to bring triathlon to a heart-shaped lake and the old village rising above it. The week is spent among Abruzzo’s parks, mountain roads and small communities. At Scanno, the course climbs from the lake into the forest and through the historic village, where athletes encounter cobbled passages, stone staircases and residents standing close to the route. Exploring local shops, food, music and gatherings around town draws the event into daily village life.
Scottish triathlete and filmmaker Lesley Paterson is a three-time XTERRA World Champion, a two-time Cross Triathlon World Champion, and the BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated co-screenwriter of Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front. Paterson described Scanno as “a true slice of culture within an epic challenge.”
Prachatice is a quiet medieval town in South Bohemia for most of the year, but during XTERRA Czech, its Renaissance square, cobbled streets and surrounding forests become the centre of one of the longest-running events on the tour. The race begins nearly 20 kilometres away at Křišťanovický Lake, before athletes ride old concrete roads built for military tanks, follow forested sections of the historic Golden Salt Path and descend toward town, where the final run repeatedly brings them through the square before the finish.
By race week, the square fills with athletes, local families, food, music and people watching the action on large screens before gathering there again for the afterparty. Czech age-group athlete František Bulava said, “It feels like the whole town comes alive to welcome the XTERRA family. The afterparty is legendary. Everybody gathers in the square after the race to celebrate late into the night.”
On Costa Rica’s Pacific coast, XTERRA Costa Rica is held in Las Catalinas, a recently developed car-free town above Playa Danta, where accommodation, restaurants, the beach and the surrounding trail network are all within walking distance. Athletes leave the Pacific, climb through forested hills above the coast and return through the town’s cobbled streets.
Dominik Wychera, whose life-threatening accident and recovery were recently documented in the short film 8 Fractures Later, travelled from Austria and said, “I get to combine the sport that I love with exploring this new part of the world.”
Charles Brewer, a competitor in the 65–69 age group and the developer of Las Catalinas, has watched the event grow alongside the town. “The annual triathlon has been one of the best days of the year at Las Catalinas since 2013,” he said. “I have always felt like the triathlon weekend shows off humanity at its best. All the healthy people having fun and enjoying both the natural world and the town that we have built is exactly what I always hoped would happen in Las Catalinas.”
The Long Way East
For athletes who have dreamed of seeing China’s ancient city walls, XTERRA Suzhou brings the World Cup finale there for the first time. Short Track racing is planned within the 2,500-year-old water fortress of Panmen Square before the Full Distance race moves to the shores of Lake Taihu and the forested trails of Yuyang Mountain.
The journey continues to XTERRA Tahiti on Moorea, where athletes travel by boat into Opunohu Bay for a swim beneath volcanic mountains before riding and running through the tropical interior. The lagoon, jungle and beaches have brought several athletes back more than once, including Sam Osborne from New Zealand, who describes what kept drawing him back. “I’ve been to a lot of races around the world and can tell you the hospitality here is second to none, and you can’t find a more beautiful destination to end the season at,” he said.
An epilogue to the journey can be found at XTERRA Nepal in Pokhara. Begnas Lake is the meeting point before moving through jungle, farmland, hills and villages beneath the Annapurna Range. Pokhara is already a base for trekking and exploring the surrounding lakes, while time in Kathmandu can bring temples, food and history into either end of the trip.
Bronwyn Russell of Canada remembers children calling encouragement from beside the course and local competitors helping when mechanical problems left her unsure whether she would race. One eventually lent her another bike. “What makes everything special in Nepal is the people,” she said. Russell reminisces about eating daal bhat, paddling across Fewa Lake, visiting the cultural sites of Kathmandu and spending time with the people she met through the event.
Her experience returns to the idea Mackinnon’s family first raised. Taking in one sight is a good place to begin, though a later flight leaves room for the purple-blue sweep of flowers beneath the trees at Weston Park, an afternoon beside Lake Molveno, dinner in the square at Prachatice, another morning on the beach in Las Catalinas or an unexpected conversation somewhere below the Himalayas.
The race places a date on the calendar. The days around it are often the ones that make the journey complete.