Trekking
Definition of Trekking: An extended form of hiking in which people carry double the amount of gear they need for half the distance they planned to go in twice the time it should take.
~Author Unknown
List of long-distance footpaths
This is a list of some long-distance footpaths used for walking and hiking.
The Americas
Argentina
- Los Glaciares
- Various Options to Laguna Torre, Cerro FitzRoy, or even out onto the Southern Patagonian Ice Field
Bolivia
- Cordillera Real
- 7 Day Illampu Circuit
Canada
- Bruce Trail
- Chilkoot Trail
- East Coast Trail
- Eastern Continental Trail
- Great Divide Trail
- International Appalachian Trail
- Juan de Fuca Trail
- Mantario Trail
- National Hiking Trail of Canada
- Rideau Trail
- Trans-Canada Trail
- West Coast Trail
- La Cloche Silhouette Trail
Chile
- Torres del Paine
- 6-8 day Paine Circuit
Peru
- Cordillera Blanca & Cordillera Huayhuash near Huaráz
- 10- to 14-day trek on the Huayhuash Circuit
- 3-4day Santa Cruz trek
- ~10 day Alpamayo Circuit
- Sacred Valley & Cordillera Vilcanota near Cuzco
- Several variants of the Inca trail, from single-day to more than 6 days, all ending at Machu Picchu
- Choquequirao 5+ days
- 5 to 6 day trek on the Ausangate Circuit
- Colca Canyon near Arequipa
- Various Single-day hikes and multi-day treks in and around the Canyon
United States
Asia
Nepal
- Trek to Everest Base Camp, an 18-day trail to the base camp of Mt.Everest (see Everest Base Camp Trek at wikitravel)
- Annapurna Circuit, a 3-week loop trek through the Annapurna range (see Annapurna Circuit at wikitravel)
Bhutan
- Snowman Trek, a 21-day hike through the Himalayas
Hong Kong
The merit of hiking trails in Hong Kong is that hikers can enjoy scenery of both the sea and highland.
- Hong Kong Trail - across Hong Kong Island (50 km)
- Lantau Trail - on Lantau Island (70 km)
- Wilson Trail - from Stanley, Hong Kong Island to Nam Chung, New Territories (78 km)
- MacLehose Trail - from Sai Kung to Tuen Mun (100 km)
- and many other hiking trails, family walks, nature trails in the country parks in Hong Kong.
See also: Hong Kong Country Parks & Special Areas, Walks and Trails in Hong Kong
Israel
- Israel National Trail - 1000 km, all of them inside the Green Line, from kibbutz Dan to Eilat (north to south), covering many historic and scenic points including some urban areas.
- Jesus Trail - 120 km in the Galilee region, connecting important sites from the life of Jesus. The trail begins in Nazareth and passes through Sepphoris, Cana, the horns of Hattin, Arbel Cliffs, Capernaum, Tabgha, the Mount of Beatitudes, the Jordan River, and Mount Tabor.
Kyrgyzstan
- Kyrgyzstan Trail - circumnavigates lake Issyk Kul in the North-Eastern part of Kyrgyzstan
Lebanon
- Lebanon Mountain Trail, a 26-day 440-km trail through Mount Lebanon
Armenia
- Janapar wandering marked trail through mountains, valleys and villages of Karabakh, with monasteries and fortresses along the way.
Europe
- The GR footpaths in Belgium, France, Spain and the Netherlands
- European long-distance paths
- The Haute Randonnée Pyrénéenne (HRP) in the Pyrenees in France, Spain and Andorra
- The Nordkalottleden Trail (Kalottireitti, 800 kilometers) in the northernmost parts of Finland, Sweden and Norway (Lapland)
Austria
- Arnoweg around the Austrian Alps
Bulgaria
- Kom-Emine 700 km, from mount Kom to Cape Emine (part of European walking route E3)
Finland
- The Karhunkierros Trail (80 kilometers, External link) in the municipalities of Kuusamo and Salla, Oulanka National Park, Lapland
- The Peuran polku Trail (115 kilometers, External link) in the municipalities of Kivijärvi, Kinnula, Perho, Lestijärvi and Reisjärvi in Central Finland and Pohjanmaa (Ostrobothnia) - a part of European walking route E6
France
- GR 5 (part of European long-distance footpath E2)
- GR 10 (through the French Pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean sea)
- GR 20 (through Corsica, from North to South)
- The Haute Route (through French Alps into Switzerland)
Germany
- Maximiliansweg from Lindau to Berchtesgaden
- Moselhöhenweg from Trier to Koblenz
- Pandurensteig from Waldmuenchen to Passau
- Rennsteig from Hörsel to Blankenstein/Saale through the Thuringian Forest
- Rheinhöhenweg Trail from Bonn to Alsheim/Wiesbaden (530km)
- Rheinsteig from Bonn to Wiesbaden (320 km)
- Schwarzwald Höhenweg West from Pforzheim to Basel (279km)
- Schwarzwald Höhenweg Mittel from Pforzheim to Waldshut (233km)
- Schwarzwald Höhenweg Ost from Pforzheim to Schaffhausen (238km)
- Schwarzwald Nordrandweg from Mühlacker to Karlsruhe (71km)
- Schwarzwald-Querweg Freiburg-Bodensee from Freiburg to Konstanz (183km)
Hungary
- Countrywide Blue Tour in Hungary (part of European long-distance footpath E4)
Italy
- Dolomites Classical High Route (no.1) from Braies Lake to Belluno
- Dolomites High Route of the Legends (no.2) from Bressanone to Feltre
- Dolomites High Route of THE Chamoi (no.3) from Villabassa to Longarone
- Dolomites Grohmann's High Route (no.4) from San Candido in Pusteria to Pieve di Cadore
- Dolomites Titans's High Route (no.5) from Sesto in Pusteria to Pieve di Cadore
- Dolomites High Route of Silence (no.6) from Pieve d'Alpago to Vittorio Veneto
- Dolomites Patera's High Route (no.7) from Ponte nelle Alpi to Tambre d'Alpago
- Dolomites High Route of the Heroes (no.8) from Feltre to Bassano del Grappa
- Dolomites High Route (n. 9): the Trasversale from Bolzano to Santo Stefano di Cadore
- Dolomites High Route (n. 10) of Giudicarie from Bolzano to the Garda Lake
- Grand Italian Trail
- Liguria - From Portovenere to Camogli hiking trail along the sea with 1000 pics, maps and journal
- Lombardia - Como Lake - Wayfarer’s Trail Sentiero del Viandante from Lecco to Colico with 1000 pics, maps and journal
- Lombardia - Como Lake - Monti Lariani Trail From Cernobbio to Sorico with 600 pics, maps and journal
- Lombardia - Como Lake - Via Regina Ancient Route from Cernobbio to Casenda with 2600 pics, maps and journal
Greece
- European walking route E4 (Florina to Agios Nikolaos)
- European walking route E6 (Igoumenitsa to Alexandroupoli)
Republic of Ireland
Spain
- St James's Way
- GR7, the Spanish portion of the E4 European Mediterranean Arc footpath
- GR11 (through the Spanish pyrenees, from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean)
- GR142 through the Alpujarras
Sweden
- Kungsleden, 425 km from the northern extremity of the country
Switzerland
See: Hiking trails in Switzerland
United Kingdom
Scotland
Turkey
Oceania
Australia
See: List of long-distance hiking tracks in Australia
New Zealand
Quotes
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you�beyond the next turning of the canyon walls. -Edward Abbey
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountain is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.
-John Muir
Not all those who wander are lost!
-JRR Tolkien
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
-Mark Twain
We climb not to conquer the mountain but ourselves.
-Sir Edmund Hillary
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.
-Wilderness Act of 1964