Why You Should Go On a Book Hike (and what books to take with you!)

[image description: a blonde woman in outdoor clothing (toboggan, puffer vest, long sleeves) reading a paperback book]
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I’ll admit I’m not the most outdoorsy person. You’re not going to catch me on a backpacking trip or sleeping outside of a tent where any creature can just walk right up on me and if it’s raining forget it. I’m a let’s get a cabin with indoor plumbing and go on short hikes kind of girl.

So that’s exactly what my husband and I did for our second wedding anniversary. Normally we go on a road trip around this time of year and I come back with a ton of pictures about the bookstores we found along the route. Since the pandemic de-railed our travel plans, we did the only socially distant, safe vacation we could: renting a cabin in the middle of the woods in southern Ohio.

We’d never been to this state park before and weren’t familiar with its trails, but as book nerds, we couldn’t leave our books in the cabin even if they did add extra weight to our pack.

We hiked 6 miles along the edge of a lake, which considering that lakes are in lowlands had way more elevation than we anticipated. Most of the time, the path was narrow and I thought we’d faint before we found a place to rest and read awhile. Finally, we saw a cut-through off the path that led closer to the lake and JACKPOT.

There was a tiny peninsula with some huge rocks with flat tops, big enough for us to lay down and stretch out in the shade. As salamanders skittered by and dragonflies darted overhead, we read our books in nature’s serenity.

Knowing we wanted to hike leisurely and stop to read every so often, it encouraged us to observe the home-likeness of nature. Does this stump look comfortable to sit on? Would the angle on that rock make a comfortable sitting spot? Look, a shady, flat spot in the grass!

Though it might seem odd to go on a hike and do something we do all the time anyway, knowing we planned to read along the hike made it even more enjoyable. It was a vacation, so we weren’t racing or trail running. One of the many reasons we love reading is that it demands a change of pace. No matter how hectic the rest of the world is, if you’re going to read (in print anyway), you have to slow down and just enjoy it. That’s how we feel about hiking too, so it makes sense to us to combine the two.

While in the woods that week I read 3 books: Opioid, Indiana by Brian Allen Carr, Lives of the Monster Dogs by Kirsten Bakis, and Excavation: A Memoir by Wendy C. Ortiz. I didn’t know what kind of mood I’d be in, so I picked a medley of stories.

Here in the US we’re heading into fall, though there’s still time to get some good hikes in. What books will you be taking?

If you’d like to get copies of these 3 books (and support me as well as indie bookstores!) please use this link to buy them.