15 Hiking Books For Women: Guides, Memoirs, And More
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Looking for hiking books for women?
Here’s a roundup of hiking books that are specifically written by and for women!
This list includes a range of genres. You’ll find guide books to help women get on the trail, profiles of badass women, memoirs recounting women’s hikes, and more.
Push your adventures to the next level with the hiking tips and empowering stories in these books. Or, get one of these books as a gift for the female hiker in your life.
With that, enjoy this list of hiking books for women!
1. Woman in the Wild: The Everywoman’s Guide to Hiking, Camping, and Backcountry Travel
This hiking guide book is perfect for any woman who wants to start backpacking but doesn’t know where to go for answers.
Men in the outdoor community can be completely unapproachable to women, and frankly they don’t have all the answers to women’s specific needs.
Woman in the Wild introduces ladies to all of the topics that will help them feel confident and safe in the backcountry. Learn everything from backpacking basics like navigation and nutrition to women’s common concerns around safety and feminine hygiene.
On top of the foundational knowledge, the guide book also presents profiles of experienced female backpackers. The profiles provide extra encouragement for new backpackers to take the leap into this new hobby.
Between the practical information and the empowering profiles, this guide book is a great resource for any woman who wants to take her first overnight hike in the backcountry.
2. A Woman’s Guide to the Wild
If you self-identify as a girly girl that wants to try backpacking, this guide book is a great starting point to get into hiking.
A Woman’s Guide to the Wild covers basic information for women who are more familiar with navigating a mall than navigating through the woods.
You’ll get a sense of essential backpacking information like where to hike and how to build a fire. Additionally, you’ll get shame-free advice on women-specific concerns from peeing in the woods to hair and makeup.
Check out this guide book if you’re an indoorsy woman looking for a confidence boost to get outdoors.
3. Fat Girls Hiking: An Inclusive Guide to Getting Outdoors at Any Size or Ability
Fat Girls Hiking is for any woman who doesn’t feel like she belongs in the outdoors because she does not fit the mold of a stereotypical outdoorswoman.
This book proves that there is a place for women of all sizes, abilities, and races in the outdoors even though they aren’t typically represented in the outdoor industry and the media.
The book encourages all women to get outside through a combination of practical guidance and personal stories. Profiles of real women offer inspiration and demonstrate the joy that stems from spending time outside.
Anyone who wants to be an outdoorsy woman – whether you’re interested in hiking, climbing, or other hobbies – but feels excluded from the outdoors will benefit from reading this book.
4. Walking Gone Wild: How to Lose Your Age on the Trail
If you think you’re too old to take up hiking, think again.
Walking Gone Wild is a hiking guide book specifically geared towards women ages 50 and up.
This award-winning book meets women wherever they’re starting from in their fitness journey. Whether you want to start taking walks, day hikes, or backpacking trips, this guide is a good fit for you.
The book pairs age-appropriate guidance on how to train with essential knowledge like equipment lists and safety tips. Plus, the author shares stories of real-life women to prove what’s possible.
No matter what obstacles are holding you back from hiking as you age, overcome them all with this handy and motivational guide book.
5. We’re in the Mountains, Not Over the Hill: Tales and Tips from Seasoned Women Backpackers
We’re in the Mountains challenges the idea that grand adventures are only for people in their twenties – that is, people in prime physical shape without familial responsibilities.
This hiking book features over 30 women in midlife and beyond who continue backpacking all over the United States.
Some of the women – including the author – didn’t start backpacking until later in life, making the stories that much more relatable and inspirational.
The wisdom gleaned from each woman is grouped by topic to offer insights on solo hiking, equipment, bears, and more.
Read these women’s experiences to challenge society’s message that women of a certain age are too old and have too many obligations to take up backpacking adventures.
6. Women Who Hike: Walking with America’s Most Inspiring Adventurers
Looking for a book with inspiring stories from female hikers?
Hear from prominent women in the hiking community in Women Who Hike.
In this book, over 20 women share their favorite trail in America. The trails range from short, local paths to bucket list adventures.
Each profile combines the trail’s specs, a map, and photography with a hiker’s story of growth and accomplishment on that trail.
The format allows hikers to read the book from cover to cover or to hop around to the most interesting trails.
This inspiring book is excellent for women who love hiking and anyone interested in real-world adventures.
7. Moms Who Hike: Walking with America’s Most Inspiring Adventurers
Mothers looking for hiking role models should dive into this book.
Just like Women Who Hike, Moms Who Hike is a compilation of trails paired with stories from moms who have hiked them.
Learning about these trails from adventurous moms helps prove that women don’t have to stop hiking after having kids.
This hiking book is great for mothers seeking real-world examples of other moms who still hit the trail or any mom who needs a push to make time for her own interests.
8. Walk, Hike, Saunter: Seasoned Women Share Tales and Trails
From the same author of We’re in the Mountains, Not Over the Hills comes another collection of admirable hikers’ stories.
Walk, Hike, Saunter profiles nearly three dozen women who explore on their own two feet. All of the women are in their mid-forties and beyond, defying the notion that age is a limit to these activities.
Reading these real people’s examples of adventure can motivate anyone – man or woman – to begin walking, hiking, or backpacking.
9. Chicas on the Appalachian Trail: Women-Specific Tips for Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail and Conversations with Badass Women Hikers
If you or a woman you know has ever considered hiking the Appalachian Trail, this book will help turn those thoughts from dreams to actions.
This book addresses common concerns among female hikers like solo hiking, bodily functions, and worried family members. The answers will help you tackle any reservations that may prevent you from embarking on this 2,190-mile journey.
In addition to this reassuring advice, the book also includes interviews with women who have hiked the Appalachian Trail. These hikers reveal the realities they faced before, during, and after their time on the trail.
Between the gender-specific advice and the real-life stories, this guide book will alleviate the fears preventing any woman from hiking this or another long-distance trail.
10. Hike366: A Woman’s Tales of Hiking Adventures All Year Round
Get inspired to take on a hiking challenge by reading one woman’s experience accomplishing her own hiking goal.
Author Jess Beauchemin decided to take a hike on each calendar date, a project she called Hike366. Over the course of several years, she faced the challenges that come with hiking in each season to rack up 366 hikes on every date from January 1 to December 31.
In this book, she recounts her most memorable hikes from the project to share the lessons she learned and her growth as a hiker throughout the experience.
Beauchemin’s story is an encouraging one for any woman who wants to push herself to hike more.
11. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
There are plenty of memoirs about women hiking the west coast’s Pacific Crest Trail. But none have inspired so many women as Wild.
In her early twenties, Cheryl Strayed’s life spiraled downward after her mother’s death. She spent years expressing her sorrow through destructive behaviors until she made her most impulsive decision of all: to hike the PCT with no backpacking experience.
Strayed’s journey is not one of an expert hiker who might fill readers’ souls with whimsical images of the mountains. Instead, she shares the life-changing power of the trail as her physical struggles transform her emotional suffering.
Read this best-selling memoir not to identify a hiking role model but to feel the raw pain of a woman facing her demons on the trail.
12. Almost Somewhere: Twenty-Eight Days on the John Muir Trail
Almost Somewhere is the award-winning memoir of a college graduate hiking the John Muir Trail.
After graduation, Suzanne Roberts joined two friends on this 211-mile trail through California’s Sierra Nevada mountains. She spent nearly a month confronting not just the typical dangers of backpacking, but the ups and downs of navigating it all with two very different people.
Since Roberts was so young at the time of the hike, her retelling of her experience includes less transformative growth than is typically expected from memoirs. But she does reflect on the experience of being a woman in the outdoors, making this book particularly relatable to female hikers.
Part memoir and part travelogue, this book is good for young women who want to read a hiking adventure with vivid descriptions of the natural world.
13. How To Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail
Feeling stuck in a life of codependency and people-pleasing, 32-year-old Nicole Antoinette pushes herself to take on a challenge beyond what she thinks she’s capable of. How to be Alone is her account of her solo hike on the 800-mile long Arizona Trail.
This memoir reads more like a trail journal than an emotional diary. The book is a good choice for anyone who prefers to read the nitty gritty details of life on the trail than an introspective journey that happens to take place during a thru-hike.
Antoinette’s story of pushing beyond her self-imposed limits is an inspiration for any woman who wants to do something that seems impossible to accomplish.
14. We Were There, Too: Pioneering Appalachian Trail Women
Many hikers know the names of men like Benton MacKaye who are credited with creating the Appalachian Trail.
This book tells the history of the women that were involved in developing the trail.
Learn the names and contributions of three women who helped bring the Appalachian Trail to life.
Reading this book is an important step in acknowledging women’s often-overlooked roles in hiking history.
This book is perfect for anyone who wants to learn about lesser-known women in the hiking world or for women who love both history and hiking.
15. She Explores: Stories of Life-Changing Adventures on the Road and in the Wild
She Explores showcases 40 adventurous women and their inspiring personal stories.
These women’s perspectives are diverse both in the ways they get outdoors and in the women’s identities.
Each woman’s brief narrative is enriched with stunning photography and practical advice for readers.
This beautiful work makes a great coffee table book for hikers and outdoorsy women who love adventure.
