Hiking solo or with a group is a question pondered by many people. In a previous post I touched base on a few of the pros and cons.

The image above is a photo of myself, the author of this blog and post on a solo hiking trip. This was my first long section hike on the Appalachian Trail. It was a 335 mile long section hike ending in Daleville, Virginia two days after this photo was taken.

Hiking Solo

Many people seem to think that hiking alone isn’t safe. I suppose that thought does have some merits. However, I have done at least 95% of my hiking alone and have remained uninjured and healthy. I sincerely believe that much of the reason I remained safe and without injuries is BECAUSE I hiked solo. In a previous post that topic was covered as to why. On my longest hike in 2019 in which I hiked over 1000 miles on The Appalachian Trail it was mostly a solo hiking trip. Beginning on March 1, 2019 at Amicalola Falls on the “Approach Trail” I was solo hiking.

Hiking Solo Then With a Group

As described above that longest hike started as a solo hiking trip and after a few hundred miles at a shelter between Hot Springs, North Carolina and Sam’s Gap on the North Carolina and Tennessee border I suddenly began hiking with a group of four other hikers. It was great for a while as we were all Christians and had prayer together each day before starting our hiking for the day. There was great companionship and friendship in that group but it was sort of short lived.

Too Much Diversity of Ages in the Group

I believe the eventual downfall of this group began with the generation gap within the group or “TRAMILY” as hiking groups are often described. I was the oldest at 65 years of age. Then there was Waffle at 53 if I’m remembering correctly. Bullfrog was 38 years old. Angel was a young girl of 23 from Florida and then there was Hawkeye 13 and the son of Waffle. That’s like three generations but none of us were related.

Hike Your Own Hike

Another disadvantage to hiking with a group as opposed to hiking solo is losing the ability to hike your own hike. If you have done much long distance hiking then you should be familiar with the phrase “HYOH” or “hike your own hike”. With a group who doesn’t agree on everything that becomes nearly impossible. This is especially true with as much age difference as in the tramily that the author was with.

Differences in Budgets

Another drawback with the group I became aligned with was budgeting differences. I’ll explain this a little. I had the smallest budget of this group since I only had a small Social Security check each month to work with. Waffle was constantly making hotel reservations for two and three days at a time much too often and I simply could not afford all those expensive town stays. So after about a month of that I woke up one morning at Chatfield Shelter early after having announced the night before that I would be leaving the group. I sort of missed them for a few days but soon that newfound freedom to hike my own hike far outweighed missing my tramily.

I hope you have found this article beneficial and have enjoyed reading it. Feel free to use the contact form to message me or leave your comment or opinion. I’m not sure if there will be any more posts on this topic or not but there will be more soon an subjects related to hiking, backpacking and camping. Thank you for reading and I’ll be seeing you later. HAPPY HIKING and HAPPY TRAILS!

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