Why Individuals Hike the Appalachian Trail: A Qualitative Approach to Benefits

Abstract

he Appalachian Trail (AT) is a 2,175 mile–long National Scenic Trail extending from Maine to Georgia. Since its inception in the early 1920s, individuals, families, schools, and other organizations, just to name a few, have used the AT. Approximately 3 to 4 million visi­tors hike a portion of the AT each year (ATC, 2006). Throughout its 80­year history and millions of hikers, much of the empirical research on the AT has focused on place attachment (Kyle, Graefe, & Manning, 2004; Kyle, Graefe, Manning, & Bacon, 2003). While Nisbett and Hinton (2005) ex­plored motivations for AT hikers with disabilities, only limited research could be found on understanding motives among other AT users. In ad­dition, researchers have indicated a need to further examine “types” of hikers (i.e., day, weekender, section, and thru) of the AT (Kyle et al., 2004). To better understand the AT hiker, the means-end theoretical framework was used.