The Great Outdoors presents a different type of travel that can transport you to a different location, both physically and spiritually. Great climbers like Edmund Hillary, and naturalists like John Muir, have added to the collective knowledge and spirit with hiking quotes and sayings to express both their love of nature and its benefit to the human soul – among many others.

Below are some of our favorite quotes about hiking that are perfect if you’re setting off on the trail, or perhaps even looking merely for inspiration to begin! In no particular order, we hope you enjoy our favorite 99 quotes about hiking, and the walking the open trail.

“Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”

“The best view comes after the hardest climb.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary

“May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.”
– Edward Abbey

“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

“We don’t stop hiking because we grow old – We grow old because we stop hiking.” – Finis Mitchel

“In every walk with nature, one received far more than he seeks.”

“For hiking is one of those things that you can only do when you have the determination in you.”
– Carl Sagan

“Walking: the most ancient exercise and still the best modern exercise.”
– Carrie Latet

“Set loose, a child would run down the paths, scramble up the rocks, lie on the earth. Grown-ups more often let their minds do the running, scrambling, and lying, but the emotion is shared. It feels good to be here.” – David Miller

“Hiking and happiness go hand in hand or foot in boot.” – Diane Spicer

“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.”

“It feels good to be lost in the right direction.”

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.”

“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order.”

“I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than trees.”

“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.”

“If you think you’ve peaked, find a new mountain.”

“Keep close to Nature’s heart… and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.”

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.”

“Getting to the top is optional. Getting down is mandatory.” – Ed Viesturs

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity.”

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”

“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.”

“You need mountains, long staircases don’t make good hikers.” – Amit Kalantri

“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”
– Anatoli Boukreev

“Mountains are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”
– Anatoli Boukreev

“I’ve realized that at the top of the mountain, there’s another mountain.”
– Andrew Garfield

“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.”
– Beverly Sills

“Life sucks a lot less when you add mountain air, a campfire and some peace and quiet.”
– Brooke Hampton

“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

“Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.” – Dag Hammarskjold

“A walk in nature walks the soul back home.”
– Andy Rooney

“When everything feels like an uphill struggle, Just think of the view from the top.” – Anonymous

“Anywhere is ‘within walking distance’.”
– Anonymous Hiker

“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

“Trekking means a travelling experience with a thrilling excitement.” – Amit Kalantri

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

“To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles.” – Lao Tzu

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

“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

“In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

“Every mountain top is within reach if you just keep climbing.” – Barry Finlay

“When preparing to climb a mountain – pack a light heart.” – Dan May

“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

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you are climbing it.” – Dr. Seuss

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.” – Dr. Seuss

“Carry as little as possible, but choose that little with care.”
– Earl Shaffer

“If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere.” – Frank A. Clark

“Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.”
– Frank Herbert

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”
– Frank Lloyd Wright

“I have two doctors, my left leg and my right.”
– G.M. Trevelyan

“Between every two pines there is a doorway to a new world.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“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

“Me thinks that the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.”
– Henry David Thoreau

“Walking is a man’s best medicine.” – Hippocrates

“The experienced mountain climber is not intimidated by a mountain, he is inspired by it.”
– William Artur Ward

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street.”
– William Blake

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” – Jack Kerouac

“Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance.”
– Jack Kerouac

“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

“Mountains are the beginning and the end of all natural scenery.”
– John Ruskin

“Many climbers become writers because of the misconceptions about climbing.”
– Jonathan Waterman

“I love to sit on a mountain top and gaze. I don’t think of anything but the people I care about and the view.” – Julian Lennon

“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 Ilgunas

“You’re off to great places, today is your day. Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.”
– Gary Snyder

“After a day’s walk everything has twice its usual value.”
– George Macauley Trevelyan

“Deep down, at the molecular heart of life, the trees and we are essentially identical.” – Greg Child

“Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb.”
– Greg Child

“You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.”
– Lito Tejada-Flores

“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

“Climbing is as close as we can come to flying.”
– Margaret Young

“I found far more answers in the woods than I ever did in the city.”
– Mary Davis

“Mountains have a way of dealing with overconfidence.”
– Nemann Buhl

“Mountain hikes instilled in me a life-long urge to get to the top of any inviting summit or peak.”
– Paul D. Boyer

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.”
– Raymond Inmon

“I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
– Robert Frost

“We live in a fast-paced society. Walking slows us down.” – Robert Sweetgall

“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.” – Robert W. Service

“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

“I like being near the top of a mountain. One can’t get lost here.”
– Wislawa Szymborska

“It’s impossible to walk in the woods and be in a bad mood at the same time.”

“Remember to turn everything off once a week including your brain and walk somewhere quiet.”

“You Can’t Climb Up A Mountain, With Downhill Thoughts.”

“The higher you climb on the mountain, the harder the wind blows.”
– Sam Cummings

“Nobody climbs mountains for scientific reasons. Science is used to raise money for the expeditions, but you really climb for the hell of it.”
– Sir Edmund Hillary

“There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing.”
– Sir Rannulph Fiennes

“For me, a holiday is about taking a book and going to a mountain and reading.” – Sonam Kapoor

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” – T.S. Eliot

“To travel, to experience and learn: that is to live.”
– Tenzing Norgay

“If the winter is too cold and the summer is too hot, you are not a hiker.” – A Bitter Hiker

“Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein

“My father considered a walk among the mountains as the equivalent of churchgoing.” – Aldous Huxley

“Mountains teach that not everything in this world can be rationally explained.” – Aleksander Lwow

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”
– Terri Guillemets

“Each fresh peak ascended teaches something.”
– Sir Martin Convay

“You need special shoes for hiking — and a bit of a special soul as well.”
– Terri Guillemets

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” – Unknown

“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