How to Prepare for Your First Multi-Day Hike (and Actually Feel Ready)
Maybe you’ve already got the boots or there’s a shiny new hiking pack sitting in the wardrobe. You love hiking, you’re reasonably fit, and you’ve got a few multi-day trails saved somewhere that you keep thinking you’ll do one day. However, there’s a pretty big gap between just going for a day hike, and standing at a trailhead with everything you need to live out of your backpack for the next three days.
Where do you go? What do you pack? How much food do you need? Where will you get water? What if the weather changes? How do you know where you’re going? What happens if something goes wrong? And perhaps the biggest question for you might be; “How do I know when I’m actually ready?”.
After more than a decade working in outdoor education and adventure tourism, I’ve learnt that becoming a capable hiker isn’t about owning the best gear, being incredibly fit or somehow eliminating every possible risk. It comes down to three things.
Connection + Craft + Confidence = Capable.
I call this The Enliven Pathway, and it’s the framework behind Hike Ready, my 10-week online program helping adventurous women learn to plan, prepare for and take on their own multi-day hikes.
So if a multi-day hike is somewhere on your adventure list, here’s what I believe actually goes into becoming Hike Ready.
Start with the adventure you actually want…
Before we talk about tents, navigation or dehydrated dinners, there’s a more important question: Why do you want to do a multi-day hike in the first place? Maybe you want a few days away from screens and schedules. Maybe you want to experience what it feels like to travel entirely on foot. Maybe you want to challenge yourself. Maybe you want time alone. Maybe you want to laugh your way down a trail with a group of women and eat chocolate outside your tent at the end of the day. There isn’t one correct way to be adventurous, and your first multi-day hike doesn’t need to be the longest, hardest or most impressive trail you can find on instagram.
In Hike Ready, we begin with Becoming a Hiking Woman because I want you to think about the kind of hiker you actually want to become before worrying about everything you think a “real hiker” should be doing.
Your first hike should build evidence, not prove anything.
Choose a trail that suits you
Once you understand the experience you’re looking for, you can start choosing an appropriate trail. This is where planning gets more interesting than simply Googling best multi-day hikes in Australia. Two trails of the same distance can be completely different undertakings.
You need to consider things like:
distance and number of days
elevation and terrain
climate and season
water availability
navigation complexity
remoteness and access to help
trailhead access and transport
permits and bookings
camping or hut arrangements
exit points and contingency options
A 40km hike on a well-marked trail with reliable water, moderate terrain and road access is a very different proposition from 40km through exposed, remote country with limited water and complex navigation.
Choosing the right trail is one of your first acts of good decision-making as an independent hiker.
Understand your hiking gear
One of the easiest places to get overwhelmed when you're starting out is gear. There are endless tents, sleeping bags, mats, backpacks, hiking shoes, stoves, rain jackets, water filters and expensive little objects that the internet will convince you are essential. But your gear should be understood as a system, not a shopping list. You need to understand how your shelter, sleep system, clothing, footwear, pack, cooking equipment, water system, navigation equipment and emergency gear work together for the particular environment you're entering. You don't need the lightest gear. You don't need the most expensive gear. You need appropriate gear that you know how to use and preferably, you've tested it before standing on the side of a mountain wondering which pole goes where.
Prepare your body for hiking
You also don't need to become an athlete to become a hiker, but it is a great idea to prepare your body for the specific demands you're asking of it. Multi-day hiking means spending hours on your feet, walking on uneven terrain and potentially climbing and descending hills while carrying a loaded pack, then you wake up and do it all again the next day. Your preparation should gradually expose your body to those demands. That might include walking longer distances, adding elevation, carrying your pack, building strength and improving cardiovascular fitness, as well as making time for recovery. The goal isn't to punish your body into being “fit enough” for adventure. Your body is the thing that's going to carry you through it so we want to work with the body and prepare it kindly!
Learn how to fuel yourself
Food on a multi-day hike isn't just about finding lightweight meals. Your body needs enough energy to keep walking, thinking clearly, staying warm and recovering for the next day. That means understanding carbohydrates, protein, fats, and hydration then turning that knowledge into food you'll actually want to eat when you're tired and hungry. You'll also need to calculate how much food to carry, understand where you'll access water and decide whether that water needs to be treated. Running low on water isn't something you want to discover halfway through Day Two, and similarly, having the right amount of snacks can make or break your trip! (Been there, done that!).
Learn to navigate
Following a trail marker is useful, but knowing where you are is much better. Independent hikers should have a navigation system that might include maps, compass skills, GPS devices or offline mapping apps, depending on the environment and the trip. You don't need to become an orienteering champion, but you should understand your planned route, recognise when you've gone off it and have the skills and tools to work out what to do next.
Understand weather and conditions
Checking the weather isn't just looking at the little sunshine icon on your phone the night before you leave. You need to interpret a forecast for where you’re going, and understand how conditions might affect your route, equipment, water, temperature, fire risk, daylight and decision-making. You also need to recognise that climate, season, weather and forecast aren't the same thing. Good planning happens before you leave home, but good hikers continue reassessing conditions throughout the trip. Sometimes the capable decision is to change the plan or turn around, and sometimes it's not to leave at all (yep, also been there and done that! walking away from a 350km paddling expedition wasn’t easy).
Build your safety systems
Feeling safe outdoors doesn't come from pretending nothing will go wrong, it comes from knowing you've thought about what you'll do if it does. Before a multi-day hike, consider the hazards and risks you might encounter, how likely and consequential they are, and what you can do to reduce the risk of the most high-threat ones. Think about: injury and illness, weather, water, fire, wildlife, equipment failure, etc and importantly, how you'll communicate if you need help. Your phone is useful, but it isn't an emergency plan. Depending on where you're hiking, your communication system might include a mobile phone, satellite messaging capability and a Personal Locator Beacon (PLB). You should also leave detailed Trip Intentions with a trusted person who knows your route, expected return time and what to do if you don't check in.
The goal isn't to entirely remove all risk from adventure (impossible), it's to understand it well enough to make considered decisions.
CONFIDENCE: Stop waiting to magically feel ready
This is the part I think we misunderstand most. We often talk about confidence as though it's something you need to acquire before doing something challenging. But where is that confidence supposed to come from? Confidence is built through evidence. You practise putting up your tent, you navigate a trail successfully, you discover your rain jacket actually works, you carry your pack for a full day, you make a decision when conditions change, you get something slightly wrong and realise you can solve the problem, and then you finish a hike and think: “Oh. I actually know what I'm doing here!”. That's why Hike Ready isn't designed to simply dump information on you and send you off into the bush. Capability comes from learning, practising, making decisions, seeking feedback, and gradually collecting evidence that you can trust yourself.
Solo readiness doesn't mean you have to hike alone
Becoming capable of hiking independently also doesn't mean you suddenly have to disappear into the wilderness by yourself. You might love hiking with your partner, your kids or your friends. You might still choose guided adventures because you enjoy the community, local knowledge or the simplicity of having someone else manage the logistics.
The difference is choice. You will no longer be dependent on someone else knowing what to do. You will understand what's happening around you and be able to participate in decisions, and then, when there's a trail you really want to walk but nobody else is available, you will have the skills to assess whether taking it on yourself is an appropriate next step. That's a very different kind of freedom and autonomy that I want you to experience for yourself.
Bring everything together into your own hike plan
Eventually all these individual pieces need to become one actual plan. Your trail, dates, route, equipment, food, water, physical preparation, navigation system, weather checks, risk assessment, communication plan, contingencies and trip intentions.
This is where Connection + Craft + Confidence become Capability.
Being capable doesn't mean knowing everything.
I've worked outdoors professionally for more than a decade and I still research, prepare, check conditions, change plans and learn constantly!
Capability is knowing enough to ask the right questions, use the right systems, make considered decisions and recognise when something is beyond your current experience. Every appropriate adventure gives you a little more evidence for the next one.
So, are you ready for your first multi-day hike?
You don't need to have everything figured out today.
But if you've been staring at a multi-day trail thinking I'd LOVE to do that, I just wouldn't know where to start, that's exactly the gap I created Hike Ready to close.
Hike Ready is my 10-week online hiking program for adventurous women who want to learn how to plan, prepare for and take on their own multi-day hikes.
Over 10 weeks, we'll work through:
Week 1: Becoming a Hiking Woman
Week 2: Choosing Your Trail
Week 3: Gear Without Overwhelm
Week 4: Preparing Your Body
Week 5: Energy & Nourishment
Week 6: Integration Week
Week 7: Navigation
Week 8: Weather & Conditions
Week 9: Safety & Solo Readiness
Week 10: Your Hike Plan
The practical Craft lessons are supported by opportunities to ask questions, troubleshoot your plans and get feedback as you work towards your own adventure, as well as to reflect with confidence-building guided journaling at the end of each live call.
The goal isn't for me to tell you exactly where to go, exactly what to pack and exactly what to do.
The goal is for you to learn how to make those decisions yourself.
That's what becoming your own guide means, and hopefully, somewhere down the track, you'll be sitting outside your tent after a long day of walking, looking at where you've managed to get yourself and thinking:
I got myself here. I know how to look after myself. And I can do this again.
The next cohort is now open https://enlivenoutdooradventures.com.au/hikeready
