What Is Cross Country Hiking?

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Last Updated on March 2, 2025 by Paul Clayton

What Is Cross Country Hiking?

The particularly adventurous hiker may sooner or later discover that regular hiking trails no longer satisfy their needs for exploration. However, no matter how familiar you are with your local hiking trails, they still have plenty of things for you to explore! 

After all, going cross-country allows for so many new hiking opportunities!

Key Takeaways

• • Definition: Cross-country hiking involves hiking in areas without designated trails, similar to skiing.
  • Preparation: It is crucial to choose a safe hiking area, train for long distances, learn resource management, and understand survival skills.
  • Navigation: Mastering map reading, using GPS devices, and taking orienteering classes help avoid getting lost.
  • Essential Gear: Includes a detailed map, GPS device, personal locator beacon, trekking poles, gloves, long pants, and an ice ax for rough terrain.
  • Survival Skills: First aid knowledge, recognizing environmental hazards, and setting up a tent in various conditions are vital.
  • Hiking Ethics: Follow Leave No Trace principles to minimize environmental impact and preserve natural landscapes.

Cross Country Hiking

Cross-country hiking is hiking where there are no hiking trails. It is similar to cross-country skiing, where skiers move across snowy terrain without using ski lifts or other skiing assistance.

While cross-country hiking brings plenty of new challenges and dangers into hiking, it’s a great way to experience an already familiar hiking area like never before. Even if you were stuck with just one hiking trail option, cross-country hiking could provide you with new things to explore for the rest of your life.

But since cross-country hiking implies going off into poorly explored areas, you must be extra careful when venturing off the trail. It’s easy to stay safe on a well-known trail maintained for years, but trying to cover miles of wildlands off the trail is another thing.

If you intend to do cross-country hiking shortly, read the tips below to ensure a safe journey.

Things to Do Before Your Cross-Country Trip

Because cross-country hiking isn’t quite the same as regular hiking, you must take a few additional preparatory steps before the trip. Below, we want to talk about 5 key things that you must do while preparing for your hike.

Choose a trail for cross-country hiking

Believe us, it isn’t the best idea to veer off the trail in a random spot and start exploring the wildlands. You will surely find plenty of new things, but you will be unprepared for the challenges awaiting you along the way.

First, you have to choose a safe trail to cross-country hike on. You may do it anywhere, but it would be best to do it on a relatively safe trail where you don’t risk coming across a bear or dangerous terrain.

Research the safest trails online. Even though you will be hiking off the trail, you will need to check where the entry and exit points are, how easily the trail can be accessed, and how easily it can be navigated. If there are any safety alerts for the trail, make sure to take them into account.

Not only that, but you may also check the map of the trail to see what is in its environs. Is it just pure vegetation, or maybe someone lives along the way? These are important questions since social amenities or nearby people can save your life in an emergency.

Check the trail’s terrain, specifically its elevation, as this will significantly affect your ability to cover long distances.

Finally, pick a hiking area suitable for your skill level. Know your limits, and do not select a poorly documented or challenging area if you are inexperienced.

Train for the cross-country trip

Before your first cross-country hiking trip, you should dedicate a lot of time to improving your skills on regular hiking trails. Remember, hiking trails are specially adapted for easier walking. You won’t have the convenience of adapted trails off the route.

The 2 key things that you should become better at are:

• Covering more distance.
• Resource management.

When covering distance, you should aim for 20-30 miles once or twice weekly for two months before your trip. Depending on what you expect from your cross-country trip, you may try to train for 20-30 miles daily (which is difficult) or spread it out over several days. 

Ideally, you should do the practice hike in conditions close to what you expect to get off the trail, but this will only be possible if you have enough information about your cross-country route.

Resource management is no less important than covering a lot of land quickly. Among the things that you have to become efficient about are:

• How many hours per day will you be hiking? It may seem that giving the most at the early stages is the best strategy, but in reality, you have to spread out your journey equally so that you don’t get exhausted in the first two days.
• Your speed. You shouldn’t focus too much on going quickly. Instead, you should pick a moderate pace you can maintain throughout the journey. Being efficient about your speed is even more important off the trail since the terrain can be much rougher out there, and it’s okay if you aren’t able to cover as much distance as you would on a regular trail.
• Your eating and resting routine. You must learn to take breaks relatively frequently (once every 2 hours). While it may seem that frequent breaks won’t allow you to cover as much land, you will be less exhausted throughout the journey.

You will also need to eat and drink healthily to provide the proper energy for the hike.

• Equipment. You will need to take only what you need since a heavy backpack will weigh you down and force you to spend more energy to keep up the pace. You must also learn to pack your gear properly to occupy minimal space.

Gain survival knowledge

Survival knowledge is also necessary on regular trails, but it’s much more important off the trail since you will most likely be left alone in an emergency. Or, assistance won’t be able to arrive quickly, and you will need to perform some basic first aid procedures.

First, learn the common symptoms of dehydration, hypothermia, heatstroke, and other ailments you may encounter outdoors. Most importantly, learn how to deal with them.

You must learn how to perform basic first aid when dealing with ailments. You will likely receive cuts, bruises, or something worse in the wild.

Then, find out what kind of animals you may find along the way and how you should behave if you encounter them. Not only that, but you can also learn what to do in bad weather and how to protect yourself from the cold.

Learn navigation

Needless to say, off the trail, you won’t have signs or maps to assist you throughout your journey. You must learn how to use navigational tools correctly (check out My Open Country’s guide to learn more).

First and foremost, learn how to use a map or your GPS navigator. These will likely be your best navigation options, so practice in-depth before the hike. You may not have phone coverage on the hiking trail, and even if you do, your mobile maps may not be able to provide you with enough information.

Of course, you must also ensure that your navigation tools accurately describe the desired hiking area. However, since imprecision is likely, you must know how to navigate using only general landmarks.

You may also take some orientation classes before the hike. This is a highly recommended option if you have the time and money. Orienteering classes teach you how to handle a map and compass.

Learn how to use a tent

If you hike cross-country overnight, you must provide for your sleeping needs. Your best bet is a tent and a good sleeping bag.

If you’ve never slept in a tent before, you must practice in safer conditions well before your actual cross-country trip. You may use the camping sites at some hiking trails or just set up your tent in your backyard and practice using it there.

Please practice in various conditions, including wind, rain, and snow. Ideally, your practice should mimic the actual trail conditions as closely as possible.

And yeah, don’t scrimp on a good tent or sleeping bag. Get proper gear that will provide protection and warmth during cold nights out in the wild.

Cross-Country Hiking Checklist

You probably have a checklist for your regular hiking trips. All of your checklist items will also be useful in cross-country hiking, but there are additional things that you will want to take with you.

Map & GPS device

As mentioned above, traditional means of navigation most likely won’t be able to assist you off the trail. You will thus need to buy a detailed map of the area, preferably made from waterproof materials. Services like Green Trails may be unable to provide detailed maps suitable for navigation.

You may also bring along a GPS device. While you can navigate with a map, a GPS device will make things easier. Some people don’t take any GPS devices, though, since navigating by map allows them to get more involved with cross-country hiking. But if you aren’t too experienced with navigation, we highly suggest you take a GPS device and a map.

Personal locator beacon

A PLB (personal locator beacon) is a must-have since local emergency services may not be accessible off the trail.

PLBs are intended to indicate the location of a person in distress when normal emergency services are not available. PLBs send their signal to satellites, assisting rescue personnel with locating you.

Trekking poles

You may already be using trekking poles on your regular hiking trips. They can be quite helpful on trails, but they will be much more useful off the trail where the terrain isn’t adapted for hiking.

Pick a good pair of trekking poles to withstand the journey’s challenges.

Ice ax

An ice ax will be handy if you encounter perennial snow patches out in the wild. Alternatively, you may opt for traction devices for your boots.

Gloves

You may need to grab onto shrubs or branches to clear your way. To protect your hands, you should bring a good pair of gloves. A good option is leather gloves that are tear—and abrasion-resistant.

Long pants

Again, you may already be wearing long pants to protect your legs from dense brushes, but if you are not, invest in long, durable pants that protect you from cuts and bruises.

Gaiters

Gaiters, like long pants, can be handy. They keep dirt and stones out of your boots, allowing you to stay comfy throughout the journey.

Remember About Hiking Etiquette

When hiking cross-country, you must pay special attention to hiking ethics. The Leave No Trace principles address what you should do no matter where you hike. And since you are dealing with untouched lands, you should try to keep them as pristine as possible.

You aren’t the only backpacker whose mind may be crossed by the idea of cross-country hiking. Other cross-country hikers are likely to follow the same route you’ve covered, which would create new trails. This puts the perhaps already endangered area at a greater risk.

Feel free to cross-country hike wherever you want, but ensure minimal impact on the area. Trails suffer the most from erosion, pollution, and damage from campfires nowadays. If you want to preserve the vast yet quite limited natural variety available to us now, make sure to make responsible choices when hiking off-trail.

You can read more of our hiking articles here.

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