Hiker journals -- where is the best place to go?

[Elaikases]

The Whiteblaze journals really seem to not be getting much use.

http://www.trailjournals.com/journal...ian_trail/2018 isn't bad.

http://www.trailplace.com/forums/ is now a 404 location.

https://thetrek.co started as trail journals, now not so much.

What are the best locations for journals of AT hikers?

[Slo-go'en]

I'd say trails journals is the most lurker friendly. I don't know if it's the most used, but it has a large number of active journals.

[Uriah]

Yes, Trail Journals, for sure. Wordpress and Blogger also have some good hiker-related blogs, but they're not always easy to find. I search Google and then sift hard. There's a lot of lousy writers out there!

[AllDownhillFromHere]

Yes, Trail Journals, for sure. Wordpress and Blogger also have some good hiker-related blogs, but they're not always easy to find. I search Google and then sift hard. There's a lot of lousy writers out there!

Still? After all your corrections?

[FrogLevel]

I find myself following more hikers on Instagram in the last 2 years. Youtube as well.

[ldsailor]

I always thought the prefab trail journals were limiting. I built a blog/journal web site using WIX. Very inexpensive and easy. It also interfaces with social media sites. I've been happy with the results. The only complaint is you can't press a "Next" or "Previous" button to go between blog entries. I'm hoping WIX fixes that in the future. The blog address is in my signature lines below.

[MuddyWaters]

I don't read many trailjournals but I will second that the prefabricated Journal blogs are pretty bad.

Maybe because they constrain people too too much
Or, maybe it's because they're primarily used by lazy people.


There's some really really excellent trailjournals out there by people that are hosted on Independent web sites. All the best I've ever read have been that way.

Such as down the trail.com. Jamie has thousands of high quality pictures . His CT hike has over 1500 photos.

[KnightErrant]

Most of my favorite hiking blogs are not on a specific hiking platform. Instead, they have their own sites. I love https://www.walkingwithwired.com/ and I've just recently started reading https://www.thehikinglife.com/. He has lots of cool international hike trip reports. I wanted my own domain name so I recently decided to go the create-your-own-website route myself. I used SquareSpace and I'm pretty happy with the result. It's very similar to WIX as ldsailor mentioned, which is also a great platform, one I've helped my parents use for their business's website. I'm still learning about SEO and stuff so that my site actually comes up when you google "at thru hiking" etc, because that does seem like a disadvantage of using an independent site: not automatically part of a collection that people are used to reading, like trailjournals.

For years I kept my travel blog on Tumblr when I was teaching English overseas. It was really user friendly, and it allows people to follow and reblog your posts. To find some blogs to read on there, just look under the tag "Appalachian Trail." A few different blogs from recent years come right up, so that might be worth checking out.

Other than that, I think theTrek has a pretty good collection of thru-hiker blogs. You have to apply to blog for them, so in theory that means they're all decent writers.

[Shrewd]

I like the Trek just because I enjoy their layout. I even wrote/Vlogged for them last year (shameless plug; https://thetrek.co/author/rhys-hora/ )

But as you say I don’t really like reading them anymore. An occasional YouTube video is it for me


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ethesis]

Thank you for this.

[TheMidlifeHiker]

The Whiteblaze journals really seem to not be getting much use.

http://www.trailjournals.com/journal...ian_trail/2018 isn't bad.

http://www.trailplace.com/forums/ is now a 404 location.

https://thetrek.co started as trail journals, now not so much.

What are the best locations for journals of AT hikers?

I use a Wordpress site: http://midlifehiker.com

Open format so I can do what I’d like. Will be blogging there for my AT thru hike this year. Also on my YouTube channel in my sign below. Subscribe and tell your friends

Chris