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HIKING VACATIONS: PRESERVE HIKING TRAILS

by Bronwyn Ashbaker
Hiking Vacations

Preserving hiking trails is essential to promoting environmental protection. First-time hikers often become instant environmentalists when they experience the sights, sounds, and sense of peace that hiking trails provide.

Hiking vacations can accommodate everyone from rugged individualists to friends and family who wish to connect with each other and with nature. However, hiking vacations are at risk, because once a hiking trail has been carved through the wilderness, nature tries to take it back almost immediately. Hiking trails are vulnerable to overgrowth, erosion, falling trees, flooding, and wildfires, coupled with ever-growing demands for deforestation.

It is a constant battle to maintain any system of accessible hiking trails, whether they take hikers up and across a mountain range, through a series of valleys, skirting deserts or winding along cliff-tops. Unfortunately, strained government budgets don't adequately fund hiking trail building and maintenance.

Volunteering to help clear and maintain usable hiking trails combines the pleasures of a hiking trip with the purpose of preserving a legacy for future generations to enjoy.

Hiking volunteer vacations range from one-day projects to two-month conservation expeditions.

Due to the nature of remote trail building, accommodations are usually primitive, involving camping in tents, cooking on a campfire, and enjoying the outdoors. As a result, trail maintenance is one of the most affordable volunteer vacations, with fees as low as $50 to $130 per week.

There are affordable trail building vacations available in every region of the United States, such as:

Week-long volunteer vacations for hiking trail fans are by far and away the most popular, providing just enough time to make a real difference and absorb the environment. The American Hiking Society provides a long list of 7-day trail-maintenance hiking trips.

Slightly more expensive, yet still very affordable volunteer opportunities can be found through the Sierra Club and Wilderness Volunteers. These trips cost between $200 and $500.

The United States has thousands of miles of hiking trails, and so does the rest of the world. To discover the natural beauty of another country right at ground level, check out the variety at the International Volunteer Programs Association. For instance, you can spend 5 to 8 weeks in the Australian Outback for $895 for the first two weeks plus $200 per additional week and travel expenses.