Urban hiking
Would you consider walking around an urban area hiking? I pondered this thought the other day as I jogged around town and I came to the conclusion that, yet, urban hiking is a legitimate form of hiking.
One definition for hiking from Dictionary.com says a hike is “a long walk or march for recreational activity, military training, or the like.” I’d also add that the long walk needs to be outdoors - mall walkers don’t really qualify in my opinion. So, under my amended and slightly more specific definition, walking outdoors in an urban area for the purpose of recreation is indeed a hike. In fact others have already latched onto the term ‘urban hiking’ as this New York Times blog post confirms.
So where are the best urban hikes in the US? I’d vote for a number of locations, starting first in the Southeast: Charleston, SC, Savannah, GA, and New Orleans, LA are truly walkable cities with plenty to see and do along your hike. Megapolises like New York and San Francisco are also great places for urban hiking and even small, less traditionally ‘walkable’ cities like Denver and Atlanta can be fun if you have a guide.
For hiking purists the idea of urban hiking may seem like blasphemy but I’d argue that urban hiking has its place, particularly for those who live in urban areas without easy access to nature. The best part is, many of us can go for a quick urban hike on our lunch breaks!
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September 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Instead of the term “Hike” or “Hiker” I, being a nature-loving “hiking purists”, prefer the term saunterer or to go “sauntering” through the woods. It seems to really capture the Nature-hiking experience in its full spectrum. Not only in the Webster definition, “being a slow or unhurried walk” but also in the ancient origins of the word. It came from the people who take a pilgrimage to the holy land, who (in Latin) were going A la sainte terre or to the holy land. This transformed into saying “there goes a sainte-terrer” or holy-lander. I feel like this captures the essence of a hiker, for he seeks not the same holy land that was perused when the word was formed but a different holy land. He takes a pilgrimage to the woods or the holy land within himself that is discovered on long saunters.
Alas, all this to say that if you want to take the term hiking and include city walks, it is fine with me, I’ll stick to sauntering:)
September 26th, 2008 at 9:57 am
[...] be a welcome item to have, especially on long international trips. Something to take on your next urban hiking trip [...]