Looking for inspirational hiking quotes? We created a list featuring the best quotes about hiking and trekking so that you can have your daily dose of mountain inspiration.

Whether you’re creating a travel video, searching for inspiring captions for hiking, or simply looking for ideas – you’re in the right place.

hiking quotes

How To Use And Display Hiking Quotes

Hiking and trekking quotes can be used and displayed everywhere. Here are some examples of ways you can use them:

  • Instagram or image caption
  • Video caption
  • Home decoration
  • Mobile background
  • Tattoo
  • Sticker
  • Journal
  • Diary
  • Planner

Many hikers and outdoor enthusiasts love to display inspiring quotes in frames, doormats, pillows or blankets. That said, you can find plenty of inspiring ideas on websites like Etsy.

Best Quotes About Hiking

Without further ado, let’s take a look at the most inspiring and beautiful hiking quotes.

  1. Some of the best memories are made in hiking shoes. – Unknown
  2. A walk in nature walks the soul back home. – Mary Davis
  3. It feels good to be lost in the right direction. – Unknown
  4. Because in the end you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing the lawn, climb that goddamn mountain. – Jack Kerouac
  5. On a hike you’re less a job title, and more a human being. – Ken Ilgunas
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. None of your knowledge, your reading, your connections will be of any use here: two legs suffice, and big eyes to see with. Walk alone, across mountains or through forests. You are nobody to the hills or the thick boughs heavy with greenery. You are no longer a role, or a status, not even an individual, but a body, a body that feels sharp stones on the paths, the caress of long grass and the freshness of the wind. When you walk, the world has neither present nor future: nothing but the cycle of mornings and evenings. Always the same thing to do all day: walk. But the walker who marvels while walking (the blue of the rocks in a July evening light, the silvery green of olive leaves at noon, the violet morning hills) has no past, no plans, no experience. He has within him the eternal child. While walking I am but a simple gaze. – Frédéric Gros
  9. I like being near the top of a mountain, one can’t get lost here. – Wislawa Szymborska
  10. 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
  11. Hiking is just walking, where it’s okay to pee. – Demetri Martin
  12. Walking; the most ancient exercise, and still the best modern exercise. – Carrie Latet
  13. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu
  14. The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot. – Werner Herzog
  15. We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down. – Robert Sweetgall
  16. Perhaps there is no thrill so great as that which comes with a walk in the freshness of morning air. – Hellen Keller
  17. I love writing in the sunshine ’till my head throbs and hiking in the woods ’till my feet hurt. – Kaylee Stepkoski
  18. All that is required of you is a willingness to trudge. There is no point in hurrying because you are not actually going anywhere. However far or long you trod you are always in the same place – in the woods. It’s where you were yesterday, where you will be tomorrow. – Bill Bryson
  19. Hike your own hike. – Ben Crawford
  20. 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
  21. I slow down when hiking. 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
  22. If everyone in the world took care of each other the way folks do out on the trail, and if everyone approached each day with as much hope and optimism as hikers do, the world would be a better place. – Jon Tullis
  23. I love walking in the woods, along the trails, by the beaches. I love being part of nature. I love walking alone. It is therapy. One needs to be alone, to recharge one’s batteries. – Grace Kelly
  24. The trail was designed to have no end, a wild place on which to be comfortably lost for as long as one desired. – Ben Montgomery
  25. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. – Robert Frost
  26. There really is no correct way to hike the trail, and anyone who insists that there is ought not to worry so much about other people’s experiences.… – Adrienne Hall
  27. Hiking is the only slightly less ugly stepsister of running. – Lindy Hughes
  28. Trails are like that: you’re floating along in a Shakespearean Arden paradise and expect to see nymphs and flute boys, then suddenly you’re struggling in a hot broiling sun of hell in dust and nettles and poison oak…just like life. – Jack Kerouac
  29. Hiking and happiness go hand in hand (or foot in boot). – Diane Spicer
  30. You, who know that all the bruises and scrapes from scrambling and rambling are the best because they remind you of being alive. – Madison Perrins
  31. Trekking means a travelling experience with a thrilling excitement. – Amit Kalantri
  32. I was no longer following a trail. I was learning to follow myself. – Aspen Matis
  33. 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. – Ken Ilguna
  34. Hiking’s not for everyone. Notice the wilderness is mostly empty. – Sonja Yoerg
  35. My most memorable hikes can be classified as ‘Shortcuts that Backfired’. – Edward Abbey
  36. Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  37. Most of the time I am sunk in thought, but at some point on each walk there comes a moment when I look up and notice, with a kind of first-time astonishment, the amazing complex delicacy of the words, the casual ease with which elemental things come together to form a composition that is–whatever the season, wherever I put my besotted gaze–perfect. – Bill Bryson
  38. Carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care. – Earl Shaffer
  39. After a day’s walk, everything has twice its usual value. – G.M Trevelyan
  40. If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk. – Raymond Inmon
  41. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. – Beverly Sills
  42. For hiking is one of those things that you can only do when you have the determination in you. – Unknown
  43. I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than trees. – Henry David Thoreau
  44. You need special shoes for hiking—and a bit of a special soul as well. – Terry Guillemets
  45. The trail leads not merely north and south, but up to the body, mind, and soul of man. – Harold Allen \
  46. In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. – John Muir
  47. Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkein
  48. We don’t stop hiking because we grow old  — we grow old because we stop hiking – Finis Mitchell
  49. Go out, go out I beg of you And taste the beauty of the wild. Behold the miracle of the earth with all the wonder of a child. – Edna Jaques
  50. 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. – John Muir
  51. Hiking is the answer.  Who cares what the question is. – Unknown
  52. I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city. – Mary Davis
  53. Walking is a man’s best medicine – Hippocrates
  54. For those who climb, the answer is both obvious and impossible to explain – the everyday concerns of livelihood, of social standing, overdue bills, and futureless romance all fall away before the vast and overwhelming absolute of the mountain. – Paul Watkins
  55. Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world. – John Muir
  56. Anywhere is ‘within walking distance’. – Unknown
  57. We must get beyond textbooks, go out into bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness of truth and explore and tell the world of our glorious journey – John Hope
  58. Oh, how can I put into words the joys of a walk over 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
  59. If the winter is too cold and the summer is too hot, you are not a hiker. – A Bitter Hiker
  60. Leave the road, take the trails. – Pythagoras
  61. Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow. – Henry David Thoreau
  62. If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. – Frank A. Clark
  63. Hiking is the best workout! You can hike for three hours and not even realize you’re working out. And, hiking alone lets me have some time to myself. – Jamie Luner
  64. An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day. – Henry David Thoreau
  65. I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it. – Rosalia de Castro
  66. Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken. – Frank Herbert
  67. Cover the earth before it covers you. – Dagobert D. Runes
  68. I have two doctors, my left leg and my right. – G.M. Trevelyan
  69. Take only memories, leave only footprints. – Chief Seattle
  70. Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt. – John Muir 
  71. 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
  72. It’s not how many miles you walk, it’s how many smiles you share. – Unknown
  73. The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain, he is inspired by it. – William Artur Ward
  74. Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street. – William Blake
  75. When everything feels like an uphill struggle, Just think of the view from the top. – Anonymous

hiking quotes for outdoor enthusiasts

Final Thoughts On Hiking Quotes

We hope our list of beautiful quotes about hiking triggers your need for hiking adventures and the outdoors.

Need more hiking inspiration? Take a look at our list of the best hiking songs so that you can make the most of your next hike.

About Melissa Giroux

Melissa Giroux founded abrokenbackpack.com in 2015 and has been living abroad since 2014. Originally from Canada, she has embraced a digital nomad lifestyle, working online from various destinations worldwide. Melissa is passionate about travel, technology, entrepreneurship, and CrossFit. Her extensive travels have taken her across Asia, Oceania, Europe, and North America. Currently, she resides in Thailand.


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