Have you ever thought about hiking in the winter? Chances are pretty good that you’ve never though about doing such a thing. However, the reality of the matter is that many people actually prefer winter hiking for several reasons. For starters, it’s considered an off-peak time of the year, which means that prices for certain trails and accessories for hiking are actually quite low. The kicker here is that most people assume that all locations in the world experience winter at the same time, and this is not the case at all. In fact, you can actually have a great hiking trip in the wintertime just by picking the right location.
For example, you might be surprised to find that Indonesia has plenty of great hiking tails that you can check out in the wintertime. These trails are cheap, and most of them are actually free. All you would really pay is the airfare and a few light accommodations. You can move around in countries like Indonesia without spending a lot of money, which adds a bit of a thrill to the whole hiking trip experience.
So, how do you actually get started? There are a few things that you will need to do. First and foremost, you need to figure out how luxurious of a trip that you actually want. You don’t want to skip over details just because you’re trying to save a little money. It’s more important to have a great experience that you will be able to talk about for many years to come than it would be to save a couple of hundred dollars on your trip and have to strip out essential trip activities.
From there, you will need to figure out where you actually want to go. Now, this is something that you sort of need to determine along with your budget. There are plenty of “hot” destinations for winter hiking, from Indonesia all the way up to Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. It’s just a matter of how far that you actually want to go from your home country and how much you’re willing to spend to get there. Naturally, the farther away your travel destination, the more money that you will have to spend in order to get there.
You should pick a travel destination where you haven’t been before. This will make you feel better about the overall traveling experience and what you can get out of it.
Don’t forget that when you’re trying to budget for your trip that you don’t overlook all of the supplies that you will need in order to enjoy your winter hiking trip. This might include a good backpack as well as trail mix to snack on as you make your way along the trail. For longer trips, you will need to make sure that you have more than enough supplies. It’s tempting to try to downsize, only to find that you actually needed all of the things that you left out of your pack! Safety is far more important on a hiking trip than trying to save money, you know.
One thing that you might want to also think about is whether or not to bring a friend. Hiking alone can be a pleasurable experience, because you will always be able to reflect on the greater points of life without any interference. On the other hand, traveling alone can get pretty lonely at times, and it might be nice to have a friend that you can trust on the trail with you. It’s better to try to seek out people that can really make the experience more pleasurable, but it can be hard to find someone that enjoys hiking as much as you do.
Thankfully, the rise of the Internet has made it easier than ever before to really have a great time on your next hiking trip. There are message boards and forums out there where people can meet up and talk about going on a trip together. This is more or less where you will pick out a travel destination, and then have people come in and join you on the chosen hiking trail. This is also good from a safety point of view because they can get help in case something happens to you on your trip.
Overall, there are plenty of ways to have sizzling hiking trips in the wintertime. If you’re really interested in building a trip like this for yourself, there’s really only one thing to do — put these tips into practice as soon as you can!
