For 34 years of my life, I lived in Australia where the usual term for walking outdoors for an extended period of time was referred to as bushwalking or hiking.
Now that I live in the United Kingdom, it’s referred to as rambling by most.
I’ve done quite a bit of walking in New Zealand as well where they refer to it as tramping. In most places in Europe, they refer to it as hiking as they do in the United States and Canada.
So as you can see, how you refer to it really just depends on where you are located.
But it has got me thinking about various conversations I’ve had with people over the journey and how they see it from their perspective.
I remember back in 2016 during the day when The Hiking Society was a MeetUp group, a conversation came up on a hike in the You Yangs with one of our members as to whether we were hiking or bushwalking
In her opinion, she felt that bushwalking should be used to describe day hikes, whilst hiking should be used to describe overnight or multi-day hikes.
However, I believe there’s an argument for both terms to be used to describe either day, overnight or multi-day hikes. At least in Australia anyway.
Personally, I use the term hiking regardless if I’ve gone out on the trail for the day, overnight, or for multiple days. Or in any of the countries I’ve had an adventure in.
While it’s referred to as rambling in the UK, I don’t think I could ever wrap my head around that as a term. It almost sounds like a derivative of bouldering. Something a little more extreme than what I am doing.
Furthermore, with regard to the term bushwalking, there is also the argument that it should be the official term given in Australia as most trails can often be found somewhere in the bush.
Although, is there are plenty of forests in Australia, and indeed in other parts of the world, so would they be considered bushland? Is a national or state park considered the bush? Are we forest walking or park walking?
Furthermore, bushwalking is a term that is typically associated with Australia and very few other countries.
And then you throw in other terms, as mentioned before, such as tramping which is what hiking in New Zealand is referred to. You would rarely hear a Kiwi refer to tramping as hiking.
Essentially, I reckon it all comes down to the individual or what you’ve been brought up on.
Regardless, as long as you are out there and enjoying yourself on the trail or top of a mountain or in a forest, it really doesn’t matter what you refer to it as.
