How to Find Hiking Buddies You'll Actually Want to Hike With
Your friends keep saying they'd love to come hiking and keep not coming. This is how you find someone who means it, and who hikes at your pace.
Team Alyke
You've got the boots, a trail saved on your phone and a free Saturday. What you don't have is anyone to go with. The group chat went quiet when you typed “sunrise start”, and a view is better with someone beside you saying “oh wow”.
What you're after is one person who wants to be out there as much as you do, walks at your speed and texts “same time next week?” before you're back at the car. Here's how to find that person, safely.
The best hiking buddy hikes the way you do
Think about the hikes you've loved and the ones you were glad to finish. The difference was the person: did they stop when you wanted to, talk the whole way up or save it for the top, and did “easy loop” mean the same thing to you both?
Pace, chattiness and the trails you pick are personality and interests in action, and the buddy who lasts fits you on both. A study that tracked students over time found the same: lasting friendships were built on shared interests and similar character traits.
You're not the only one looking
If it feels like everyone else already has their trail people, the numbers disagree. Some 63 million people in the U.S. went hiking in 2024, so the person you're looking for exists; trails just don't come with introductions. About one in eight American adults say they have no close friends at all, up from 3 percent in 1990, yet nearly half made a new friend in the past year. Plenty of hikers want the same thing you do, and they're waiting for someone to say hi first.
Three places to meet hikers like you
Each puts you among people who already love what you love. Whether one hikes like you, you'll know by mile two.
Go on a group hike
Sierra Club chapters run volunteer-led hikes with more than 5,000 leaders, and Outdoor Afro leads outings in more than 60 cities. The cost is three or four weekends as the new face, until the regulars know your name and you know who stops for photos.
Take a Hiking Basics class
REI runs hiking classes, including Hiking Basics. Plenty of people there came alone and a little unsure, so talking to a stranger is easier than on a trail. Find the one whose questions sound like yours and suggest an easy hike that weekend.
Volunteer on National Trails Day
In 2025, 6,000 volunteers worked on 758 miles of trail on National Trails Day, the American Hiking Society's June event. It's a full day of hauling rocks beside strangers, and six hours of shared work shows you someone's pace and temperament faster than six hikes.
These work, and they take time and nerve: a month or two of weekends, awkward hellos, twenty hikers met before you find the one who hikes like you. If you'd rather start with that one person, there's an easier way.
The easiest way to find a hiking buddy who gets you
Alyke is built to help you find intentional friends, one person at a time. Most friend apps hand you generic recommendations. Alyke starts your feed with the people who share your vibe the most, based on your interests and personality instead of your looks. That's what makes it the easiest way. You skip the weekends of showing up and the cold hello, because you start with someone who already fits you on both.
You pick Hiking and write one line about how you hike. When someone's line sounds like your kind of Saturday, you reply, and that reply is your friend request. If they like your vibe, you're friends, and the chat picks up from your reply, already about the trail.
Questions people ask
How long should your first hike with someone new be?
Keep it short and familiar, like a two or three mile loop you already know, with the parking lot as an easy way out. Save the big summit for your second or third hike together. Alyke lets you chat before you meet, so agree on the pace and distance there and nobody is surprised at the trailhead.
Is it better to join a hiking club or find one hiking buddy?
Both help, in different ways. A club like a Sierra Club chapter gives you planned routes on set days, while one buddy can join you on a last-minute Saturday at a pace you both like. Alyke helps with the buddy: add Hiking as an interest on your profile, and you'll see hikers whose personality fits yours.
How do you find a hiking buddy who hikes at your pace?
Be upfront about your pace on your profile so the right people find you. On Alyke, you can answer a prompt like "Rank these or we can't be friends:" with "snack breaks, views, summits." Anyone who comments on that answer to add you as a friend already knows you're not racing to the top.
What's the best app to find hiking buddies?
Alyke is a friendship app for iPhone that helps you find hiking buddies who love the trail as much as you do. Hiking is one of the interests you can add, along with others like Camping and Mountains, and Alyke shows you the people whose interests and personality are closest to yours first. Mention your usual distance or pace in the sentence under Hiking, so the people who reach out hike the way you do.
How do you find hiking partners online?
Alyke lets you find hiking partners online by browsing people who added Hiking to their profiles and reading what they wrote about it. When someone's trails sound like yours, comment on something in their profile to send a friend request, and the chat opens with your comment once they like your vibe. Plan a short, popular trail for your first hike together, so it's easy and safe for both of you.
Is Alyke safe for meeting hiking buddies?
Alyke is built with safety in mind: every member verifies their phone number and photos, verified profiles show a badge, and profiles show only a state, never an exact location. You chat before you meet, so you can agree on the trail, the pace and the timing in advance. For the first hike, choose a busy trail in daylight and tell someone at home where you're going.
Sources
- SCOOP. Shared interests and character traits play the biggest role in friendships over time, on Cowen, Stark, Frey and Flache, Social Networks (2025).
- Outdoor Industry Association. Executive summary: 2025 Outdoor Participation Trends Report.
- Survey Center on American Life. The State of American Friendship, June 2021.
- Sierra Club. Chapter outings.
- Outdoor Afro. About Outdoor Afro.
- American Hiking Society. 34th annual National Trails Day, June 6, 2026.
