10 Benefits Of Hiking With Your Friends

Activities

10 Benefits Of Hiking With Your Friends

By Peter11 mins read

If you are planning to go on a hike in France, I recommend taking some friends along with you.

Why, you may ask?

While I have definitely heard many people talk about the benefits of hiking solo, there are many benefits of hiking with your friends as well.

Hiking with your friends will help you create new memories and connect with them in a different way. In fact, many people are motivated to go on hikes just because they have their friends with them.

Given below are some benefits of hiking with your friends.

Get Fit Together

Are you and your friends always talking about fitness or making plans to get fit together?

There is a saying that there is ‘strength in numbers, and this also applies to exercising. If you and your friends are not fans of repetitive and scheduled exercises, why not go for a hike together?

Hiking is one of the best exercises for a number of reasons.

Hiking helps build muscle mass and strength.
Climbing up and down hills constantly gets your heart rate up and serves as a great cardio exercise.
It reduces risk of heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, and diabetes.
It puts you in a better mood and reduces stress.
Boosts Vitamin D levels in your body.

>>Also Read: Top 8 Most Underrated Landmarks in France

Spend Time Together

Spending quality time with your friends is important for maintaining healthy and positive friendships.

Yes, it is easy to get caught up with busy schedules and not talk to each other for months. Spending time with friends can help improve your mood and yield emotional health benefits.

Hiking is one of the best ways to reconnect with your friends. You can plan a long or short hike depending upon everyone’s schedules. I recommend taking at least a few days out of your week for a hike. Longer hikes mean more adventures and more memories.

Help You Share The Load

If you are hiking alone, you are stuck with carrying a heavy backpack all by yourself.

You will need to carry a lot of things for your hike like food, clothing, medicines, hiking gear, shoes, water, and other essential items. It is not very easy to carry everything by yourself unless you have the strength and endurance to do so.

If you are hiking with friends, you get to share the load with them. Different people can be assigned with different loads depending upon their physical strength. If you have a friend who is significantly stronger than others, they can be in charge of carrying the heavier things.

You can also have fun planning the things you have to buy and carry. One friend can be in charge of researching the best gear, and another friend can be in charge of finding the best clothes like hiking boots, insulation jackets, and hiking pants. If you want more information about the best hiking pants, you can find it on Res Marty’s blog.

It Is Safer

Hiking with your friends is obviously more safe compared to hiking alone.

A lot of hiking spots and destinations along the way are secluded. You will feel more safe visiting these spots when you have friends to keep you company.
If you want to explore new, uncharted trails, it is always better to go with a friend in case you get lost. Hiking a new trail can be pretty risky, especially if your phone doesn’t have service in that area.
If you get injured along the way, you will have friends to help you out. While minor injuries are not much of an issue, serious injuries are quite difficult to handle alone.

Better Photos

If you are hiking alone, nobody is going to get a cool shot of you standing on a big hill or taking a dip in a waterfall.

The only pictures you will have of yourself are selfies and let’s be honest, selfies don’t capture places in the same way photos do. Your friends will be able to get cool and candid shots of you which you cannot do yourself.

Similarly you can also capture your friends’ pictures. You can take funny pictures of them sleeping or capture a video of them snoring at night, which will give you something funny to look back on.

Spread The Costs

Let’s be honest, preparing for a hiking trip can be quite expensive.

The gear alone will cost you a considerable amount of money, and with all the additional things you will need, it can be financially difficult for a single person to manage.

Other costs like transportation, entry fees, and accommodation will also add to the burden. If you hike with friends, you can share these costs and save a lot of money.

An Opportunity To Disconnect

The distractions in everyday life can easily leave us overwhelmed.

Even while spending time with friends, mobile screens and work calls can come in the way of a fruitful conversation.

Hiking is a great way to disconnect from the busyness of life and spend time in nature with your friends without any interruptions.

Games And Competitions

You can create new games and hold competitions with your friends on a hiking trip.

For example, you can see who reaches the top of the hill first or who sets up a camping tent the fastest.

This will create healthy competition, and you will have a ton of fun together.

Learn New Things

You will be surprised at how many new things you will learn while hiking.

Hiking will push you in ways you have never been pushed before and make you do things you never thought you would in your entire life.

You will learn to cooperate with your friends and find solutions to problems together. You might even learn new skills like learning how to start a fire from scratch or setting up a tent.