Backpacking can be a great way to get out in nature, give your body some great exercise, and have experiences that will create amazing memories for you for years to come. However, if you’re not prepared for the trip, the memories you could be making will be tinted with negative feelings of being tired, sore, and otherwise ill-prepared. Luckily, with the right training and preparation, you can have a great backpacking experience.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three tips for training and preparing for a backpacking trip.
Give Yourself Enough Time
Training for hiking and backpacking can take quite a bit of time, as getting ready for the mental and physical exertion you’ll be going through isn’t something that you can just all of a sudden accomplish. You’ll have to put in effort over weeks and months to ensure that you have the strength and stamina to sustain a backpacking trip.
Ideally, you should try to start with your training no fewer than eight weeks before your trip. This way, you’ll have time to do slow but effective training without wearing your body out before you want to put it to the test on your backpacking trip.
Do More Than Just Hiking To Train
While you might think that because backpacking is mainly what’s involved in hiking that that’s all you’d need to do for your training, it will take more than this to really be ready for a bigger backpacking trip.
In addition to training up on a mountain or in the type of terrain that you’ll be going through on your backpacking trip, you’ll also want to do things like strength and cardio training. Just hiking won’t strengthen your muscles as much as going actual strength training will. And with stronger muscles, you’ll be able to tackle any terrain you might encounter on your backpacking trip. Along with this, doing some more extensive cardio training will help strengthen your heart and lungs more than you might be able to do when slowly hiking.
Make Sure To Break In Your Shoes
As you’re doing your training, something that you should keep in mind is how you can break in the items that you’re planning to use during your backpacking trip, like your leather shoes or your pack. If you haven’t been using these items during your training, you could be in for a rude awakening when you try to use them on the trail. So to help ensure that you know exactly how it will feel to hike in your chosen chosen or use the other tools you want to bring with you, make sure you break those items in during your training.
If you have plans to go on a backpacking trip soon, consider using the tips mentioned above to help you in your training and preparation.
