What is Trekking?

Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship enterprise. Oh wait, that is not the kind of trekking I am talking about. The trekking I am referring to does not involve Captain Kirk, Vulcans, or Doctor McCoy telling everyone he is a doctor and pretty much useless at everything else. The kind of trekking I am referring to involves a very popular mode of human travel. Trekking is an increasingly popular way that people are using to travel through the wilderness to get from one point to another. You may be wondering if I really mean hiking and I do not. Hiking refers to the interaction with nature for pleasure and leisure. Trekking is considered a mode of travel without using any vehicles at all.

When people go trekking they throw on a back pack and either decide they are going to see a large portion of the wilderness or they need to get from point A to point B and they decided they wanted to trek rather than take a bus or any other form of mechanical transportation. Usually trekking takes the person through some incredible scenery on their way from one point to the other and that is the attraction besides the obvious physical benefits from walking for miles instead of driving. That is the big difference between trekking and hiking. With hiking you set out to see nature for fun but when you go trekking you are setting out to reach a destination.

Avoiding Civilization

When you head out on a trek you are trying to avoid urban situations. Many people think that people that go trekking are the people that throw on a back pack and just start walking from place to place to see the sights, meet the people, and take in everything that walking would have to offer. People on a real trek are out to see nature. For many they have made the decision to go to a town 20 miles away but they prefer to walk there through the wilderness rather than drive or even just walk along the roads to their destination. It is a total experience with nature but combined with a destination in mind.

In order to trek properly you need to have other skills to help get you through the wilderness. You need survival skills because living in a tent when you only have whatever food you can carry can sometimes get to be dangerous if you don’t know what you are doing. You need to have skills such as swimming, mountain or rock climbing, and you need to be agile enough to do things like climb trees and other natural challenges. It is all about getting to your destination while also taking in the beauty, and perils, of the wilderness.