Challenges That Get You Outdoors More

It is that time of year again -- the time when everyone is making resolutions and setting goals for the new year. If you’re an outdoorsy person there is a pretty good chance this goal is going to be focused around...the outdoors! Resolutions and goals are more fun to talk about when they sound cool, so we’ve come up with a few ideas for you to steal or tweak.

Hike 52 Trails

Get yourself outdoors and hiking more with the 52 Hike Challenge. That’s one hike per week, on average. You can start a weekly group hike or simply invite friends from time to time. Either way, you’ll spend the year exploring new trails while hiking. There is no requirement about where you hike, how long you hike or how far you hike. The goal is to simply hike more. You can get more details on the official 52 Hike Challenge on their website

Complete a Six Pack of Peaks

If you’re looking to challenge yourself a bit more check out the Six Pack of Peaks Challenge. There are a few different challenges so you can choose one close to home or make a vacation out of it. The peaks in each Six Pack of Peaks Challenge were chosen to give you an opportunity to explore some of the most popular or most beautiful trails in the area. This is a great challenge to do with friends. The Six Pack of Peaks website does an awesome job of describing the details of each hike so all you need to do is read up, pack up and hike up! Get more details on each Six Pack of Peaks Challenge here!

Participate in a Hike Streak

Many runners participate in a “run streak” at some point in their life. There is now streaking...but you are heading out for a run every day, day after day. It’s quite popular to see people taking on a month long hike streak, but you’re welcome to choose whatever time frame works for you. The goal is to get outside and exploring on foot every single day. Generally speaking the ideal distance to “count” toward the streak is one mile, but 30 minutes or 60 minutes are also great ways to measure the hike. There is no official website for this challenge -- you simply create the time frame on your own and stick to it.

Camp Out For a Month

This challenge sounds, well...challenging. The goal is to spend at least 30 days sleeping in your tent. The catch is that this does not need to be 30 consecutive nights. It is simply 30 nights out of the 365 nights of the year. The only real parameter for this goal is to fall asleep in your tent. This can be in the backcountry, at a local campground or even in your backyard if you’re in a pinch. A huge perk of this challenge is the creativity it requires. Camping every weekend isn’t exactly feasible, with life schedules or personal desires. So snag a night in the tent whenever you can, even on “school nights” when you need to get up for work the next day. A local campground can be exactly what you need. Read more about the idea behind this on Semi Rad’s site: Go Camping for a Month (Without Quitting Your Job). Whatever you do we sincerely hope you set a goal to do something that gets you outdoors more often in the coming year!