A quick read of some great hiking quotes might be what you need to motivate you to get out in nature today.
Hiking in a beautiful setting is one of the best things a person can do for physical and mental health. Walking provides good exercise. A different environment stirs the senses, and the fresh air invigorates your being.
The beauty of nature is on full display, and in combination, these things lift your soul. To capture that feeling, we’ve identified the best hiking quotes for your review.
Have a read-through, and then find a trail near you to experience these insights firsthand. Enjoy!
Best Hiking Quotes
1.) I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
Henry David Thoreau was known for advocating simple living in nature. His famous book on the subject, Walden, provides his philosophy on how one should live their life. Being one with nature is an important aspect of this.
2.) To solve a problem, walk around.
St. Jerome wasn’t the first nor the last person to suggest that walking can provide the right environment for solving more complex problems in your life. Steve Jobs was a big believer in the value of a nice, long walk.
3.) There is no WiFi in the forest, but you will make a better connection.
Unplugging from all of our electronic activities can be difficult. With smartphones, computers, laptops, and TVs, many of us spend too much time in front of monitors. Spending time in nature is a great opportunity to recharge (so to speak).
4.) The wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned to ask.
The more you read about great inventions and scientific discoveries, the more you discover that the inspiration for so many positive advances in society comes from nature. As Nancy Newhall suggests, there may be many more answers and solutions waiting to be discovered.
Good Hiking Sayings
5.) Between every two pines, there is a doorway to a new world.
The “Father of the National Parks,” John Muir, was a naturalist, philosopher, and author. He practiced what he preached, spending most of his time in the great outdoors. Muir also wrote, “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.” And “The mountains are calling, and I must go.” Another favorite is, “And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”
6.) I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.
Trevelyan was a British academic, historian, and author. Much has been written about how walking is the perfect exercise. But I don’t think anyone ever wrote about it as succinctly as G.M. Trevelyan.
Short Hiking Quotes
7.) The antidote to exhaustion isn’t rest. It’s nature.
A good walk in nature can cure many ills, according to Shikoba. It’s counterintuitive to think exhaustion can be cured with a nature walk. But, so many find the experience so refreshing, we can’t leave this saying out. There’s no disagreement here.
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8.) Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul.
Jaime Lyn lets us know that there’s more to life than financial well-being. As Greg Child once wrote, “Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery of why we climb.” A strong sense of adventure must be quenched, and different experiences can do that.
9.) Anywhere is within walking distance.
George Meegan walked from the southern tip of Argentina (Tierra Del Fuego) to the northernmost part of Alaska in six years, from 1977 to 1983. He covered 19,019 miles in 2,425 days. Wow. That makes that 8-block walk to the coffee shop seem short.
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Trek Quotations
10.) Live your life by a compass, not a clock.
Did you know that compasses were smuggled to prisoners of war in German camps in the form of buttons and razor blades to help them escape? A compass is one of the iconic symbols of travel and adventure.
11.) I could never resist the call of the trail.
This quotation comes courtesy of William Frederick Cody, also known as Buffalo Bill. Bill rode for the Pony Express at the age of 14 and served as a scout for the army. His famous Wild West show visited sites around the U.S. and Europe.
12.) In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.
Aristotle was one of Plato’s favorite students. He opened an academy for students in Athens. He liked to walk around campus while teaching, forcing his students to trail behind.
Inspirational Hiking Quotes and Sayings
13.) Carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care.
Earl Shaffer reminds us that preparation is the key to a good time. Carrying as little as possible makes the walk more enjoyable as the burden of weight is removed. However, it takes some careful thought to make sure you have enough of the right things.
14.) Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
Another beauty by John Muir reminds us of another good hiking quote. As Amit Kalantri wrote, “You need mountains; long staircases don’t make good hikers.”
15.) A walk in nature walks the soul back home.
Mary Davis suggests that there is something soulful about a good hike. Yes, we agree. They say, “The best view comes after the hardest climb.” And, if you ever have taken that type of hike, you know that it can enrich the soul and just make you feel good.
Hike in the Woods
16.) Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.
Gary Snyder’s quote is a reminder that our ancestors lived in the great outdoors. It’s humbling to think of all the people in this world who came before us. Many of our ancestors did not have sophisticated shelter. And, yet still, nature was home.
17.) Now I see the secret of making the best person; it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
Walt Whitman, an American journalist, essayist, and poet, wrote this beautiful line. The “father of the free verse” had a way with words.
18.) Somewhere on your journey, don’t forget to turn around and enjoy the view.
As you should know, it’s not the destination; it’s the journey. Don’t be that person who rushes to the top of the summit without once stopping and enjoying the amazing view.
Motivational Hiking Quotes
19.) Returning home is the most difficult part of long-distance hiking; You have grown outside the puzzle, and your piece no longer fits.
Cindy Ross tells us that a great adventure leads to great stories. This Cindy Ross quote captures that feeling. As William Blake wrote, “Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street.”
20.) I go to nature to be soothed and healed and to have my senses put in order.
John Burroughs captures the soothing qualities of nature in this insight. The restorative nature of nature is something many can appreciate. And, if you haven’t, it’s never too late to start.
21.) To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.
A nature walk is the opportunity to witness God’s handiwork, according to Mary Davis Treat. Also, as Robert Sweetgall wrote, “We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.”
22.) Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.
Take it from the genius Albert Einstein; solutions for many problems and challenges in life lie in nature. A keen observer of nature can learn so much just through watching and learning.
23.) The earth has music for those who listen.
Leave it to the Bard of Avon, Shakespeare, to write poetically about our relationship with mother earth. Shakespeare also recognizes the importance of observation as it relates to nature. It’s not just being there but also listening, watching, and learning.
Inspiring Hiking Insights
24.) Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul.
Jaime Lyn Beatty
25.) The rhythm of nature is more leisurely. The sun comes up, it moves across the sky, and you begin to synchronize to that rhythm.
John Mackey
26.) The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.
John Muir
27.) I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the earth. Then I ask myself the same question.
Harun Yahya
28.) Oh, how can I put into words the joys of a walkover country such as this; the scenes that delight the eyes, the blessed peace of mind, the sheer exuberance which fills your soul as you tread the firm turf? This is something to be lived, not read about.
Alfred Wainwright
29.) A periodic hike not only stretches the limbs but also reminds us: Wow, there’s a big ol’ world out there.
Ken IIgunas
30.) Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.
John Muir
31.) An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.
Henry David Thoreau
Funny Hiking Quotes
32.) If you’re on the right path, it will always be uphill.
Henry B. Eyring
33.) Life is better in hiking boots.
Unknown
34.) Never follow someone else’s path unless you’re in the woods and you’re lost, and you see a path. By all means, you should follow that.
Ellen Degeneres
35.) You’re off to great places; today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.
Dr. Seuss
36.) Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.
Diane Spicer
37.) Hiking and happiness go hand in hand or foot in boot.
Unknown
38.) There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.
Sir Rannulph Fiennes
39.) Remember to turn everything off once a week, including your brain, and walk somewhere quiet.
Unknown
40.) You need mountains; long staircases don’t make good hikers.
Amit Kalantri
Trekking Quotations
41.) The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
Lao Tzu
42.) Days of slow walking are very long: they make you live longer because you have allowed every hour, every minute, every second to breathe, to deepen instead of filling them up by straining the joints.
Frederic Gros
43.) No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied – it speaks in silence to the very core of your being.
Ansel Adams
44.) The climb speaks to our character, but the view, I think, to our souls.
Lori Lansens
45.) Not all who wander are lost.
Unknown
46.) It’s easier to go down a hill than up it, but the view is much better at the top.
Henry Ward Beecher
47.) Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein
48.) I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
Henry David Thoreau
49.) Deep down, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.
Carl Sagan
Hiking Trail Quotes
50.) Leave the road, take the trails.
Pythagoras
51.) Walking: the most ancient exercise and still the best modern exercise.
Carrie Latet
52.) For hiking is one of those things that you can only do when you have determination in you.
Unknown
53.) If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.
Frank A. Clark
54.) To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.
Lao Tzu
55.) Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.
Unknown
56.) A crude meal, no doubt, but the best of all sauces is hunger.
Edward Abbey
57.) We don’t stop hiking because we grow old – We grow old because we stop hiking.
Finis Mitchel
Hiking Adventure Quotes
58.) There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
Beverly Sills
59.) The mountains were there, and so was I.
Maurice Herzog
60.) Hiking’s not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty.
Sonja Yoerg
61.) There are two kinds of climbers: those who climb because their heart sings when they’re in the mountains, and all the rest.
Alex Lowe
62.) May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, and dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.
Edward Abbey
63.) The woods are lovely, dark, and deep. But I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost
64.) Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.
Sir Martin Conway
65.) And into the forest, I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.
John Muir
66.) Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that $$$#! mountain.
Jack Kerouac
Happy Trails Sayings
67.) Hike your own hike.
Ben Crawford
68.) If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain.
Unknown
69.) The long-distance hiker, a breed set apart from the likes of the usual pack. He’ll shoulder his gear, be hittin’ the trail; long gone, long ‘fore he’ll be back.
M.J. Eberhart
70.) Backpacking: 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.
Unknown
71.) Hiking is not escapism; it’s realism. The people who choose to spend time outdoors are not running away from anything; we are returning to where we belong.
Jennifer Pharr Davis
72.) Take only memories; leave only footprints.
Chief Si’ahi
73.) Hiking is a bit like life: The journey only requires you to put one foot in front of the other…again and again and again. And if you allow yourself the opportunity to be present throughout the entirety of the trek, you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit.
Unknown
Adventurous Hiker Sayings
74.) We don’t stop hiking because we grow old; we grow old because we stop hiking.
Unknown
75.) Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.
Hermann Buhl
76.) If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
Raymond Inmon
77.) When everything feels like an uphill struggle, just think of the view from the top.
Unknown
78.) The mountains are calling, and I must go.
John Muir
79.) Carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care.
Earl Shaffer
80.) Somewhere on your journey, don’t forget to turn around and enjoy the view.
Unknown
81.) I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau
Take a Hike
Here are some more inspirational hiking quotes.
82.) Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.
Frank Herbert
83.) Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
84.) On a hike, the days pass with the wind, the sun, the stars; movement is powered by a belly full of food and water, not a noxious tankful of fossil fuels. On a hike, you’re less a job title and more a human being. A periodic hike not only stretches the limbs but also reminds us: Wow, there’s a big old world out there.
Ken IIgunas
85.) Walking is man’s best medicine.
Hippocrates
86.) When preparing to climb a mountain — pack a light heart.
Dan May
87.) Climb mountains not so the world can see you but so you can see the world.
Unknown
Lift Your Spirits Hiking Quotes
88.) I walked slowly to enjoy this freedom, and when I came out of the mountains, I saw the sky over the prairie, and I thought that if heaven was real, I hoped it was a place I never had to go, for this earth was greater than any paradise.
Daniel J. Rice
89.) Walking is how the body measures itself against the earth.
Rebecca Solnit
90.) Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. Camp out among the grasses and gentians of glacial meadows in craggy garden nooks full of nature’s darlings.
Unknown
91.) All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Friedrich Nietzsche
92.) When real people fall down in life, they get right back up and keep on walking.
Michael Patrick King
93.) It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
Sir Edmund Hillary
94.) May your dreams be larger than mountains, and may you have the courage to scale their summits.
Harley King
Morning Walk Quotes
95.) The compact between writing and walking is almost as old as literature — a walk is only a step away from a story, and every path tells.
Robert Macfarlane
96.) I am alarmed when it happens that I have walked a mile into the woods bodily without getting there in spirit.
Henry David Thoreau
97.) I love walking in the woods, along the trails, by the beaches. I love being part of nature. And I love walking alone. It is therapy. One needs to be alone to recharge one’s batteries.
Grace Kelly
98.) The warrior walks alone.
Lailah Gifty Akita
John Muir Quotations
Here are some more great hiking quotes from a legend.
99.) Between every two pines is a doorway to a new world.
100.) The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past but through us. Thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
101.) God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.
102.) Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
103.) There is that in the glance of a flower which may at times control the greatest of creation’s braggart lords.
104.) Another glorious day, the air as delicious to the lungs as nectar to the tongue.
105.) When one is alone at night in the depths of these woods, the stillness is at once awful and sublime. Every leaf seems to speak.
106.) One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
107.) No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest.
108.) The clearest way into the universe is through a forest wilderness.
109.) The world is big, and I want to get a good look at it before it gets dark.
Henry David Thoreau’s Quotes
110.) Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.
111.) All good things are wild and free.
112.) I have a room all to myself; it is nature.
113.) Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
Hiking Instagram Captions
114.) Fresh air and muddy boots make everything better.
115.) Let’s wander where the WiFi is weak.
116.) Life is better in hiking boots.
117.) Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom of the mountaineer. (John Muir)
118.) You need special shoes for hiking and a bit of a special soul as well.
119.) The stars make better company.
120.) Take a Hike!
121.) I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here. (Wislawa Szymborska)
122.) When life gives you mountains, put on your boots.
Hike Captions
123.) Coffee, Mountains, Adventure.
124.) Hiking is always a good idea.
125.) Hike more; worry less.
126.) Still plays outside.
127.) Sky above, earth below, peace within.
128.) Walking is man’s best medicine.
129.) Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. (Edward Abbey)
Funny Hiking Captions
130.) After a day’s walk, everything has twice its usual value.
131.) The closer you are to nature, the further you are from idiots.
132.) I’d hike that.
133.) It’s another half-mile or so.
134.) Dear mountains, I think about you all the time.
135.) Hike more to burn off the poutine.
136.) The Woods: No WiFi, but a better connection.
137.) Where the heart loves, there the legs walk. (Maltese Proverb)
Inspiring Hiking Captions
138.) Take only memories; leave only footprints.
Chief Seattle
139.) Some of my best memories are in hiking shoes.
140.) The closer you are to nature, the further you are from idiots.
141.) May the forest be with you.
142.) Sleeping bags are the soft tacos of a bear’s diet.
Bears
143.) My therapist’s name is Nature.
144.) A good friend listens to your adventures. A best friend makes them with you.
145.) You keep me safe; I’ll keep you wild.
146.) The only way is forward.
147.) If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain.
148.) You can’t climb up a mountain with downhill thoughts.
149.) For the sake of your soul, venture out.
150.) It’s not how many miles you walk; it’s how many smiles you share.
151.) Two’s company trees a crowd.
152.) Trail mix and hill.
153.) Are we there yet?
154.) Exercise or extra fries: It’s all perspective.
155.) Mountain air, don’t care.
156.) Life’s a climb, but the view is great.
157.) Sky above; earth below.
158.) Pack light; go far!
Final Thoughts on Hiking
You’ve just reviewed some of the best hiking quotes. Now, the only thing left to do is to get out into nature and put some of these creative ideas to use. So, I write this with all my best wishes; go take a hike! and remember Andy Rooney’s line, “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you are climbing it.”
By Mike O’Halloran
Mike is the founder and editor of Sports Feel Good Stories.
Overtime
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