Planning Your Hiking Trip Part One

Find Where You Want to Hike

Access to wilderness and trail systems varies a lot depending on where you live. And while there are trails and places to walk all across the country, knowing where to go and look for them when you’re new to hiking can be tricky. So here’s some tips for getting started.

Places to Hike:

National Parks
If you already live near a national park, you live near Hiking Nirvana and we’re all jealous of you. Congrats! If you’re traveling to a National Park, check out the park’s website with the National Park Service and research the trails to find one whose length and challenge level is a good fit for your ability and comfort.

State Parks
There are a lot of State Parks throughout the US with well-maintained trail systems. Check out your state’s Parks Department and see if there are parks, preserves, or trails near you!

Conservation Trusts
These are nonprofit organizations that acquire and steward land for the purposes of conservation. That aren't state-run, but a lot of them have wonderful volunteer-maintained trail systems. See if there are any conservation trusts in your area, and if they have maps of trail systems online!

National Forests
Oddly enough, National Forests aren’t actually parks, as the Forest Service is part of the Department of Agriculture and not the National Parks Service. So while there’s big swathes of National Forest out there with a lot of great trails, maintaining them for visitors isn’t the Forest Service’s priority, so you might need to use other trail finding tools rather than their websites. That said, there are a lot of awesome Forest Service volunteers out there doing great work!

Town Forests
There may be areas of state-owned or town-owned forest near you! Look online, check out your town’s (or neighboring town’s) website, or ask around -- there may be some nice woodland walking trails if you live in an area that isn’t highly urbanized. Your local library is a great resource for information on the local area.

Where to Find Trail Information:
It can be tempting, if there’s a park with hiking trails nearby, to give in to the temptation of impulsive wanderlust by just driving out, picking a trail, and setting out to explore. This is not always a good idea if you are an experienced outdoorsperson. Please do not do this. I have lousy impulse control and love the adventure of simply walking off into the woods too! But the adventure can wear off quickly once you realize you’re lost and it’s getting dark, or that you’re in way over your head on a trail that seems to have something against you personally and is determined to break your ankles. Take some time to look up info on a trail ahead of your hike so you know what to expect in terms of length and difficulty (and can pack appropriately), and get a map so you know where you’re going and how to get back. There’s a lot of resources for finding trail information out there!

Parks / Conservation Trust / Town Forest Websites
As mentioned above, most of these national, state, municipal or nonprofit orgs will have their own websites, and will often have detailed trail maps you can view or download!

Guidebooks & Published Maps
You’d be surprised how many published hiking trail guides (many with included maps) there are out there! Look up hiking guides for your state or region, and see what books come up. Ask around at your local library, or locally-owned book stores! You’ll want to check to see what the most recent edition is to make sure any copy you find isn’t a few decades out of date (trails change), but printed trail guides tend to be reviewed more rigorously than a lot of online resources, and contain more detailed information on terrain, difficulty, etc.

AllTrails
AllTrails is a useful starting point for finding hikes and popular trails near you! That said, I emphatically do not recommend relying exclusively on AllTrails for trail info. It can be a great tool to look up hikes in your area and their general length and elevation gain (the difficulty ranking system on AllTrails is nonsensical though -- ‘Moderate’ can mean anything from ‘it isn’t paved’ to ‘not a sheer vertical rock face’). The comments section can also be useful for recent reports of trail conditions. But it crowd-sources information and some people are dinguses and will upload their crazy bushwhacking or simply provide inaccurate data, and the app isn’t great about indicating what blazes to follow when you’re on interconnecting trail systems, so you can get a lot of inaccurate or incomplete information on there that can get you lost. I highly recommend that you always verify trail maps and data you get from AllTrails with other sources, especially as you get further into backcountry!

Other Hiking Apps to check out:

FarOut (formerly Guthooks)
GaiaGPS
Hiking Project

(ODR Tip: If you’re going to be anywhere remote and you’re using virtual sources, Print Your Maps. Many apps only work in their free version if you have internet service, and may not function once out in the wilderness. Even if you screenshot things and have them saved offline, your phone battery may die or your phone might get wet and decide not to work. Have an analog backup in a ziploc bag to keep it dry!)