-------------- Why Hiking Is Quickly Becoming the New Exercise Activity of Choice

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It’s no secret that exercise is good for the body. No matter what kind of exercise you’re doing, increasing your heart rate and working out your muscles and joints comes with plenty of good benefits that you should be taking advantage of. However, most of us don’t really get enough exercise and there are a number of reasons why we seem to neglect it.

For starters, many of us live sedentary lifestyles now, especially with the increasing popularity of remote working. We tend to spend a lot of time sitting down at our desks and rarely do we find the time to go outside and start moving our body around. Thankfully, there are plenty of good ways to start introducing a bit more exercise into our daily lifestyle, and many people have started to look towards one of the most basic and laid-back ways of being more active; hiking.

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Why hiking is becoming more popular

There are several reasons why hiking is such a popular activity for exercise. For starters, it’s a light exercise which means anyone can do it, even if you’re recovering from an injury or are extremely unfit and want to get involved with some activity. It’s also an entire body workout since you’re moving almost every muscle and joint in your body. Hiking also comes with some mental health benefits. Walking around can be meditative for some people, allowing them to stay more focused and relieve symptoms of stress and anxiety that they might face from work.

Hiking enthusiasts such as Jonathan Kimpson are a great inspiration for learning more about the hobby too. There are communities built around hiking these days and lots of great resources on hiking routes, gear that you should take with you, and also things to keep new hikers occupied such as audiobooks and music recommendations.

Incorporating hiking into your daily routine

Hiking is essentially just walking but for long periods of time. When people think of hiking, they usually think about the fantastic scenery they get from great vacation locations and they typically think of walking across mountains and sweeping vistas while surrounded by nature. The truth is, hiking doesn’t need to be done in such grand locations. Hiking can be something you do in the city as well as long as you’re enjoying the scenery around you and have something to keep you occupied.

For example, have you ever tried to walk to a location instead of taking public transport? Something like walking to your local supermarket could be a great alternative to going out into a rural area and hiking. You still get to walk for a long period of time, you get a bit of extra weight on your back to weigh you down and give you a challenge, and you can even have different elevations to walk on because of hilly areas.

Whatever works for you, to get you up and moving, is good...and if it's a non-traditional type of hiking, like just walking a lot around your own city, that's perfectly fine too!