Best hikes, treks, tramps in the world.
Arriving Bilbao, Spain on Oct. 1, 2026.
Planning on some days on the Camino del Norte (Northern Way): Irún on the French border back to Bilbao.
The red section on the map below.
That’s about 149 kilometers (92.5 miles) across rugged Basque Country.
Many feel this is the best and most scenic section of the Camino del Norte.
I’ll be an official pilgrim, using the network of albergues (pilgrim hostels), hostels, and tenting.
I hope to visit Biarritz, France, as well. It’s close to Irún.
Kyle Kotajarvi reflects.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube. (You probably have to click through to YouTube.)
Amity Gaige had a hit with this novel.
Personally, I felt the storytelling average. Sometimes pretentious.
What kept me going was the plot ➙ story of the search for Valerie Gillis, a 42-year-old hiker known as “Sparrow,” who vanishes while navigating the challenging Appalachian Trail.
After weeks experience on the A.T., Sparrow makes many dumb mistakes.
The book was slightly inspired by the story of Geraldine Largay who went missing in 2013 and survived for 26 days.
Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.
At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. …
… The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. …
The ending of the book did tie up things well.
And some of the philosophical musings were interesting to me.
The world’s most accomplished hiker, Cam Honan, has updated his list of BEST BOOKS for hikers. Expanded to include more than 90 works divided into eight categories: 1. Educational; 2. Guidebooks; 3. Humour; 4. Inspirational; 5. Literature; 6. Memoirs; 7. Philosophy, and; 8. Ultralight.
It includes his own wonderful and inspirational coffee table books.
A long, relaxing voiceless video.
For me, Harmen Hoek is inspiring like Kraig Adams. Both are wonderful hiking movie makers.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
I use the terms interchangeably on this site.
Casey Fiedler:
There are different expectations of each word based upon English speaking countries around the world.
It’s pretty clear that very little is truly clear when it surrounds different subtle variations on these terms …
The Difference Between Hiking and Trekking (‘cos, it kinda matters)
BUT Alex Todd on 10 Adventures did a deep dive concluding:
Hike: a long walk or walking tour.
Trek: a long arduous journey, especially one made on foot.
Click through to see his chain of thought on that:
An excellent book. Even if you have no interest in hiking or pipelines. 😀
In fact, you won’t learn much about hiking. A thru hiker would not be impressed. Ken’s gear was too heavy. And he hiked the wrong months of the year.
Ken Ilgunas has a Masters in English from Duke. He’s a terrific writer.
This book has given me the best insight into how poor North American rural people think. An insight into why they vote for political Parties that make the rich richer, the poor poorer. Worse education and health care.
Children and grandchildren leave for big cities. Life is tough for those remaining.
Ken mostly sought out small town religious leaders, asking them for advice on where he could tent safely. He was astonished by the generosity of those spiritual leaders.
Ken worked as a backcountry ranger in Alaska. And was forced to take a job as dishwasher in a high Arctic oil camp.
Jobs there were high pay — very low quality of life.
Those arguing for the Petrotoxin industries usually shout JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Ken came away thinking these were actually lousy jobs. High rates of alcoholism and drug abuse.
In September 2012, I stuck out my thumb in Denver, Colorado, and hitchhiked 1,500 miles north to the Alberta tar sands. After being duly appalled, I commenced my 1,700-mile hike south following the route of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, from Alberta to the Texas Gulf Coast. It would become a 4.5 month journey across the Great Plains. To follow the pipe, I couldn’t take roads. I’d have to walk across fields, grasslands, and private property. I’d have to trespass across America.
The book is about my journey–fleeing from cows, taking cover from gunfire, and keeping warm on a very wintry and questionably-timed hike. But it’s also about coming to terms with climate change and figuring out what our role as individuals should be in confronting something so big and so out of our hands. It’s about taking a few months of your life to look at your country from a new perspective. Ultimately, it’s about embracing the belief that a life lived not half wild is a life only half lived.
kenilgunas.com
Most of the folks he met were supportive of Keystone XL Phase IV — but over the months Ken didn’t come away with even one good argument in support of the project.
Few jobs. Short term jobs. MOST of the money kept by the corporation, not those people who had dirty oil flowing over their property.
Most of the dirty Canadian oil is shipped overseas.
There are plenty of pipelines in North America. If you must ship Petrotoxins, pipelines are likely the least terrible way.
But Keystone XL became symbolic of the debate over how to slow or reverse climate change.
On January 20, 2021, Biden revoked the permit for the pipeline on his first day in office. It may never be completed.
