Are you thinking about going on a hiking holiday but finding it a little overwhelming? Try not to stress or overthink it and keep reading as we are here to help. When you dive into the world of hiking holidays, there can be a myriad of information thrown at you, with many different types of holidays to choose from, but when you start breaking things down and doing your research, it’s not stressful at all.
Hiking holidays get broken down into a variety of sections: Duration of your hiking holiday, the difficulty, distance covered, the places you will visit, the type of trip and the availability, amongst a few other things. The most important tip we would advise is to check the difficulty level, as you don’t want to be taking on something harder than your ability as that isn’t going to be enjoyable – a good example is this Sicily Walking Holiday, you can see the difficulty is 3 out of 6.
Here are our tips for choosing the right hiking holiday.
Consider the difficulty level
We just touched on it above, the difficulty level should be one of the first things you consider. Walking holidays are often graded out of six with one being the easiest. As a beginner, you want to go for levels one or two, intermediate hikers three and four and advanced hikers five and six. A lot of trips will have reviews about them which you can read before booking as this may give you an indication of the difficulty level.
The location can make a difference
There isn’t only one country that offers a walking holiday, you will find the majority of countries do – whether that’s in Europe or not. Choose a country that you haven’t been to before as this gives you a chance to discover something completely new. You want to also pay attention to the number of locations that you will visit in said country, as depending on the duration of your trip, you could visit three, four or five different towns or cities.
Duration is important
Talking about duration, this is also important when choosing the right hiking holiday for you. Your trip can be over a couple of days, a week, two weeks or even a month – some people choose to do a long hiking adventure for their sabbatical! Depending on how experienced you are at hiking, you may want to do a shorter trip as a taster, before going on a longer one in the future.
Pay attention to the trip style
Don’t forget to pay attention to the trip style before booking your breakaway. Your trip can be self-guided (which is very popular) or you can opt for a guided tour. Self-guided, you take the adventure on by yourself at your own pace. Guided, you will be going away with other people who have similar interests as you.
What tips would you say to someone who is looking to choose the right hiking holiday for them? Which of the above tips did you find most useful? Is there anything that you would like to share that will help our readers? Let us know in the comment box below.