Gifts For Hikers

Picking out gifts for hikers can get a little tricky.

Are hikers any different than other folks celebrating a special day or milestone?

Not really! But they have specific needs and wants that may complicate the gift selection process, especially if you're not a hiker yourself.

Need some general ideas for gifts for hikers? You could start with this list.

But what if you're interested in buying her something specific, such as hiking gear?

You want her to be comfortable and safe while she's hiking. You're looking for a balance between quality and cost, right?

In today's electronic marketplace, it's easy to point and click, whooshing a new pair of boots or a jacket into the snail mail pipeline and onto her feet or hands or head or back within a few short days.

But please heed a few words of caution before you hit the "go" button: do a little research first.

Some gear is worth a little extra money, some of it is just hyped because it has a particular brand name on it.

You want your gifts for hikers to be exactly the right thing: functional and long lasting.

To begin, check out what others are saying about the type of item you're considering, first in general terms, ("What's a reliable brand? What features should I look for?), followed by specific ratings of the item you're considering.

After you read through these forums and reviews, let me know if you have any questions you'd like me to chime in on (use contact form below).

Sturdy footwear, a pack, and a water bottle are all you really need to get started if you stick to well maintained and marked trails.

But where's the fun in that??

There are so many places to buy gear to make trail time more adventurous, enjoyable, not to mention safer (plastic water bottles being the latest concern for hikers).

What if the hiker you're gifting has all the gear she needs?

Aha! Does she have any

hiking skirts??

Don't despair if she's already a gear head, and would not welcome more gear! Gifts for hikers can run along the lines of adding to personalized information collections: for instance, maps, trail guides, hiking field guides (birds, flowers, fossils), software, to name just a few things that make my own eyes light up.

Check out my humble "Gifts for Hikers" suggestion list below for some hiking books , broken into categories so you can zoom in on just the right thing for your favorite hiker.

I'll give you an honest appraisal of why I think it would be a great gift (or a useful addition to your own trail gear).

My suggestions for books:

Women Hikers: Try a book from the editors of Adventura Books called Gifts of the Wild: A Woman's Book of Adventure. This collection of essays is divided into themes: joy, courage, animals, hiking alone, motherhood, friendship, aging. Some of them spoke directly to my heart. She can dip into the book whenever she has a little time, or read it cover to cover. Give it a try!

Solo Hiking: Craig Childs writes a lot about hiking solo through the desert Southwest. What he has to say resonates with me hiking in the Pacific Northwest, so don't feel that you have to do desert hiking to enjoy his words. Try Soul of Nowhere for starters.

Another thought about finding books as gifts for hikers: I recently discovered a fantastic source of used books: Better World Books. HEADS UP: it's not the usual online book seller.

This business was started by folks with a strong social conscience, who fund literacy efforts with their profits (almost $9 million to date).

There's also an environmental component to them: every shipment is carbon neutral via offsets at carbonfund.org.

But wait! There's more!

Because you buy used books, you are keeping tons of books out of landfills (26,000 tons thus far).

When I place an online order with them, I always receive a witty thank you letter in return.

And the last time, I got a free bar of fair trade chocolate - any hiker knows how important hiking chocolate is - yum!

Oh, almost forgot to mention their Bargain Bin - great prices on books that were probably library discards or destined for the scrap heap, but now are sitting on my shelf and in my hiking pack (field guides, adventure tales, animal lore, so many good reads - so little time). So don't feel that you have to drop a bundle of cash to get good gifts for hikers.

Hiking With Kids: I used Nature Crafts for Kids: 50 Fantastic Things to Make with Mother Nature's Help when my kids were younger. This book gives you a great excuse to get the kids out on the trail, collecting bugs, rocks, plants, pine cones, bark, twigs, leaves - and you can give away the stuff they make as gifts.

Hiking With Animals : If your lady hiker has a canine trail companion, does she also have a dog pack?

Nature Appreciation: As a closet wanna-be sketcher/artist, a book by Hannah Hinchman called A Trail Through Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place really grabbed me. I still can't sketch, but I use her ideas to pay attention to what I'm hiking through.

Here's another favorite: The Sierra Club Guide to Sketching in Nature by Cathy Johnson. I like this book because it starts with the basics: what type of pencil for sketching? How do you hold it? What types of marks can you make?

She spends lots of time on the basics of field sketching, which I am trying to do a little bit of when I have time. You could apply these principles to a woman who likes to keep a travel diary/journal, too.

One more thought: put together a starter kit of pencils, eraser, paper - sort of a field kit - to go along with the book. It's lightweight, and you never know when the creative mood will strike.

Nature Identification: Full disclosure: I have insatiable curiosity around what things are called and why they do what they do. So is it any wonder that three shelves of my bookcase are crammed with wildlife field guides?

For a complete list of my favorites for potential gifts for hikers, go

here.

For a general beginner's field guide which covers both plants and animals, I highly recommend Reader's Digest North American Wildlife. It does a great job of putting wild life into context: habitat, identification markings, range maps, and general background information. If nothing else, this book will make you more finely attuned to the diversity of life you are hiking through. And when I travel outside of my big backyard, I carry the book along on the plane and prepare myself for the new area I'll be enjoying.

Here's another fascinating general resource: Peterson Field Guide to Venomous Animals and Poisonous Plants. I like to know who the neighbors are!

For a general animal book, I'd recommend to Predators: Wild Dogs and Cats by Kevin Van Tighem. The photos are great, and the book delivers a huge amount of fascinating information.

I got a great hiking question recently on the topic of what to read while gearing up for a great summer of adventure. Here's my answer.

Just in case none of my suggestions for gifts for hikers resonate with you, here's another source of written outdoor knowledge.

If you'd like specific suggestions for regional guides, or more details on anything I've mentioned above, please let me know! I'm happy to help you find just the right gifts for your hiker. Just be sure to let me know a little about the hiker's skill level and location.

When you've finished browsing through ideas for gifts for hikers, return Home.