I guess everyone can agree now that the summer has ended. Even though the weather in many places is still surprisingly pleasant, the summer heat is going away. And so does the summer desire for adventures. But you cannot let it tie you to your office chair. Now is the time to enjoy the autumn views, hackneyed pumpkin dishes, sweater weather and the best way to do that is travelling. Or at least planning the travels.

A nice 540 km walk in Turkey on the Lycian Way, stunning 104 km long the Great Ocean Walk in Australia, historical 164 km Cotswold Way and so many other longer or shorter adventures are waiting for you to come. Now is the time to fight the seasonal depression buying flight tickets, booking hotels and B&B’s and researching the places you want to see.

But there’s a lot of things you do not need to plan, such as downloading TrailSmart app. Just do that now, start reading and explore the infinite ways of making your hikes easier. Remember, it’s free and takes only a minute to get to your phone.

So please, enjoy the pumpkin spice latte, plan your upcoming adventures, embrace the free help TrailSmart offers and just have a great autumn!

P.S. Picture is here: http://bit.ly/2wQ4OfV

If you’ve read more posts on this blog, you’ve probably (I really hope so!) been thinking about going to Cappadocia. The natural beauty is stunning there, but that’s not it. The amazing hot air balloon flight is definitely a must there, but again, that’s not it. The highly developed tourism sector has way more to offer even to the pickiest traveler.

Fancy restaurant, impeccable views, “natural” museums and the culture. Check it all out in this amazing video and decide which thing are going to do first!

Whichever trail you choose to hike on, you always have two more options about it – to hike it or to thru-hike it. The difference is simple – you can hike parts of the trail or you can do all of it from the beginning to the end.

The reasons behind both of the approaches are rather simple. Thru-hiking is usually the first thing everyone plans: to hike from A to Z, face all the upcoming adventures and challenges, meet all the people there and find the inspiration you were looking for. But usually no one plans the really hard challenges and physical distress which is a never leaving companion of every hiker. If the pressure is what you needed to feel better and alive again, you should enjoy and keep hiking. It (almost) always gets better and then you think it wasn’t that bad.

But if you’re not one of those people and constant pressure and tiredness is something that makes you feel less of a human being, you may want to consider taking a short break or even skipping parts of the trail. Stay in a hostel one day longer, explore the new city and enjoy the new views and new people. But if this does not make you feel better, take a bicycle, a train or a bus and get straight to the next stop planned. You may forget the hike was so hard. And of course there’s always an option of finishing earlier. Since the only person you are hiking for is yourself,  you only have to consider your needs, well-being and feeling. If somewhere deep there’s a worm whispering ‘this is it’, maybe it is right. Pushing yourself helps to find unexpected qualities in yourself, but pushing yourself too hard may make you never go on a hike ever again.

And even though the opinions about hikers and thru-hikes are usually controversial in the hiking community, you cannot let it affect your decisions. Again, you are only hiking for you.

P.S. find the picture here:

bit.ly/2xr3qnY

Remember all those cliché ideas about cute summer body? If yes, you should also remember all the sad posts surrounding you in late spring when people realise that simply talking is not helping to get yourself ready for the summer. I am terribly sorry to tell you this, but the same goes for hiking.

You may love walking short and long distances and do that every day to work, city park, shop or anywhere else. But the truth is that hiking with a fully loaded backpack is different from this. It is not always incredibly hard and you may finish it just moderately tired. But if the path is rough and you’re not prepared, your adventure may turn into something you never want to remember. In order to avoid this you can do two things – prepare physically and for the beginning choose an easier trail.

Get those sneakers ready for some pre-hike exercising.

Physical exercises sometimes remind of gym and school, but in this case you can actually enjoy it (as long as you enjoy walking)! It has been said you should start training at least 3 months before your hike begins. First you have to start with simple cardio, be it jogging, cycling, dancing or anything else you enjoy. Don’t push yourself too far, but think how good will you feel fit on the trail whenever you want to stop exercising. Do this at least 3 times a week and you’ll get way closer to your ‘hike-goal’.

Next in: strength. In order to carry around your happy or sometimes miserable self and the backpack, which, trust me, is never too light, you need to build some strength. For this part I’d suggest looking for new ideas on Youtube – you will be surprised how many free and fun lessons you can find there. Do this at least 2 times a week and you’ll avoid the silent crying moments on your hike (cannot promise avoiding that due to sadness though).

Stretch, strength, cardio, yoga… Whatever you’re looking for, try Youtube.

And lastly: practicing. Pack your backpack and go for a long long walk. Go to a store with a backpack, visit friends, hike around. This is the part where you actually feel the hike is close and you are ready.

As for the part of choosing the trail better suited for you – check out Trekopedia site and download the free TrailSmart app. Promise, they are well described, thus finding a trail will not be the hardest part.

So, since you are going to be well prepared physically and know the adventure which is waiting for you, nothing will stop you. And one more thing – it is way nicer to remember 3 hard days out of 15 rather than 10. So just get prepared so that nothing could scare you off of that beautiful adventure ahead.

P.S. Pictures taken by: http://bit.ly/2wZRRUQ

The list for successful preparation for a long-term hike is rather simple: comfortable boots, light but large backpack, depending on a trip – tent and sleeping bag, clothes, maps, etc. You know how this list goes. But what about those short and precious moments of silence and rest? May I offer you a book? Well, a book or a eReader.

Daily hiking agenda is easy to follow – hike, rest, eat, sleep. But in those short moments of rest before you fall asleep a book is just what you need to refresh your mind. If you want to take your mind away from the hiking routine, you will probably choose some completely different genre sci-fi, mystery, detective or anything else will help to do it. But just in case you wanted to get from hiking as much experience as possible, hike stories are probably what you need to read.

“A Walk in the Woods” (by Bill Bryson), “The Pilgrimage” (by Paulo Coelho) or “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail” (by Cheryl Strayed) already are well known hiking stories, but just after 1 minute on Google you can find hundreds of new unread books. If you have an eReader, it’s even better – you can fill all the books you wanted to read into one and never worry about it. But if you don’t, a lot of the hostels have book exchange sections, so don’t you worry – there are more options than the one you’ve chosen.

So good luck choosing and hiking.

P.S. Thanks for the picture, Jim:

http://bit.ly/2wZTT6q

There are more than 30 long distance walking trails in Scotland, each from 30 to few hundred kilometres long. So the beautiful historical region could easily be visited in a pace you enjoy the most, be it rough intense hiking, or slow laid back walking (or should I say wandering). Great Glen Way is also on this list and is one of the better known trails, linking Fort William and Inverness, the regional capital. It is considered to be a perfect trail to get used to long distance hiking and to get to know Scotland.

Great Glen Way is usually divided into 6 stages (each from 12 to 30km), but undoubtedly you can hike less or more than you are supposed. Being a great introduction to Scottish history, Scotland itself and long distance hiking, I hope you decide that Great Glen Way is the best way to spend the upcoming holidays.

Since words are not always enough, I hope pictures will be.

P.S. you can find them here:

http://bit.ly/2shZLqp

http://bit.ly/2wT3ZpI

http://bit.ly/2wUqusY

http://bit.ly/2wR3LQF

http://bit.ly/2wjuyAY

http://bit.ly/2vNYl5h

Since you are planning (I hope!) your big adventures, you are probably thinking what should you carry in your backpack. As you have to be prepared for everything on a hiking adventure, most likely you will carry the world there. Or at least a small part of your world. And so, you can do few things to make it easier – pack wisely (lite/smart/both) and choose the best backpack.

Depending on a trail you’ve chosen depends the size of a backpack you need. The thing you always want to consider is the weight of the backpack itself. And if the weight difference is not too big, you should move on to choosing the capacity. You may think the bigger the better, but not always. If your backpack fits a lot of things, it may lead you to carrying too much. Where a smaller backpack may be just enough for the beginning but too small for the final parts of your hike. What I would say is useful if you are not sure what size of a backpack to get is to pack most of the stuff and then buy a backpack just a bit bigger than all of that (because you’re always forgetting something until the last minute).

However, if you have a backpack already, but you aren’t sure it’s a good fit, try it out at home, try if you feel comfortable with it. If you do – well done, you will save another hundred dollars to spend during your hike. But if you decide you need a new one – use the opportunity wisely and buy the best backpack you like.

Even though choosing the backpack is not the same as choosing clothing and does not mainly depend on taste, your preferences are really meaningful when deciding about it. Mixing this with a research about the best backpacks will let you choose the best one for you.

Check out few videos on how to choose THE backpack and start looking for it.

Remember those times you’d go to your friend’s house to see a long (and not always interesting) slideshow of pictures from their trip? If you’re still doing that today – good job at sticking to traditions! But if you’re not, you probably send or post few pictures you take with your phone. And even though the picture is always about the object, there are some tricks you could use to make it even better.

First of all, sometimes the scenery you try to capture is too beautiful to be fit in single shot. This is when you have to try panoramic and 360 degrees pictures. Most likely you will be able to take panoramic picture with your phone, but for quality 360 degrees shot you’ll have to download an app. These pics are not the best ones to be shared online, since quality may be worse than you expect, but definitely something to send to your family. If there’s someone you wish could be with you, these types of shots are the ones to let them see the most of your adventures.

Panoramic pictures of sunny Camino de Santiago will help you capture all that beauty.

If the picture needs some fixing, be it basic contrast or some serious repair, try Snapseed. So many different options there will let you do minor changes to express the moment better, apply some very nice filters or drastically update the picture. Tip: if you don’t feel fine with posting that best shot of you with a pimple or wrinkle somewhere, try healing tool from Snapseed.

Trying to capture the live moments, you may want to try Boomerang app. Mini videos looping back and forth is just what you need to make others smile when looking at your beautiful memories.

Saved the best for last – VSCO. Amazing quality editing app with the best filters. First of all, the basic package is free. And there’s just enough to make your picture library look more colourful and enchanting than ever before. Another pro of VSCO – it doesn’t have too many options. Why is it good? All the filters are so beautiful, it may take too long to choose the one, but imagine how long would it take with twice as much filter. Tip: they always update the filters adding some free ones as well, so if you feel like saving few dollars on new packages – just check the store if there are some new free ones available.

Even the most simple shot looks better with VSCO.

But hey, these are only few suggestions, share with us your favorite apps!

All you need now is to book your next trip.

P.S. Find the pictures here:

http://bit.ly/2x3fD22

http://bit.ly/2iFm05K