Get Close to a Living Volcano

Usually not, and a tour that promises it is selling a coincidence. A handful of volcanoes are close enough to a road and steady enough in their behaviour to be a reasonable bet — Stromboli, Kīlauea in an active phase, Fuego seen from Acatenango. Where you can actually see lava goes through them one by one, and says which ones are not worth the flight.

It depends on the volcano, and the calendars contradict each other: Iceland runs on daylight, Java on rain, Etna on altitude, New Zealand upside down. When to go, destination by destination has all 35 in month grids, with the physical reason behind each one.

On some volcanoes both, on others neither, and the rules change by zone and by alert level rather than by mountain. Where you need a guide, a permit, or both lists what each destination requires and what it costs.

Anything from a paved viewpoint to a two-day climb. The volcano difficulty index puts 39 climbs on one scale, using ascent, altitude and hours on foot rather than the operators' own adjectives.

The lava is almost never what hurts people. Gas, ash, loose ground, altitude and cold are, and they are manageable once you know which one applies where. Volcanic gas, ash and what actually hurts people is the unglamorous version.

Yes, on a good number of these — and the sunrise treks that look family-friendly in photographs are usually the ones that are not. Volcanoes with children sorts them by what a child can realistically do.