How do you pack for a day hike with the environment in mind? We’ve been doing day hikes around Aotearoa for a good year and a bit now and think we have a pretty great handle on packing for the environment! We love to bring along plenty of snacks and drinks for our hikes, along with a few extra eco tools to care for the land we are hiking on. After all, we want everyone to enjoy these hikes for years to come too. So let’s open our packs and see what we bring along for an eco-conscious day hike!
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Snacks
This is where many people trip up on the environment front. Ready-made snacks packaged in plastics are heavily advertised to hikers for their convenience. However, the plastic isn’t good for the environment especially when not everyone takes their trash out with them. We like to pack our own snacks and stick to using things that don’t come in plastic, or if they do, we try to buy in bulk and portion it out for our hike.
Things like cheese and crackers are one of the main things we see in convenient one portion packages. If you think about the plastic to food ratio, this is a lot of plastic for very little food. It also costs a lot more than buying your own packet of crackers and a big block of cheese and cutting some up. Find yourself some small reusable containers from your kitchen or an op-shop and make your own personal cheese and cracker pack that you can refill for many a hike to come. Here is a list of some more great environmentally friendly snack ideas below:
- Any type of fruit! If you don’t want to carry out seeds or peels, then chop this up beforehand and place in a reusable zip-lock bag/container. We just put the entire fruit in and carry out the core/peel in one of our many other containers once we have emptied it of its treats.
- Nuts and dried fruit
- Make your own trail mix. Buy bulk of various nuts, seeds, dried fruit and, of course, some chocolate, then mix it all up in a big container at home. We portion out a little into a reusable zip-lock bag for each hike. Making trail mix this way lasts us for months.
- Veggie sticks with dip. A personal favourite of Tiff’s! We like to make our own hummus to keep this completely plastic free! We use this recipe.
- Cheese and crackers prepared as mentioned above.
- Lollies from the bulk store. Again, we only take a few of these.
- Pea snaps! Tiff absolutely loves these thanks to a good friend in Hamilton who got her into them. They do come in a plastic bag but we buy the biggest one possible and then make it last for quite a few hikes by portioning out.
- Juice, we buy a big bottle, then pour some into a little reusable bottle and freeze it to use as an ice brick in our lunch box. By the time we go to have lunch, it’s defrosted!
Tiff likes to pack more snacks than we’ll need, so we have plenty of choice on the hike and are covered if we end up in trouble on the trail. Another way of making these snacks eco-friendly is to buy them from local grocery stores instead of chains. We also ensure we aren’t purchasing imported food when we are buying from a chain grocery store.
Water
Obviously, you are going to need some water for a day hike. You need to pack enough for the day, plus a little more in case you get stuck. We use reusable water bottles for this, but have noticed people with saddle backs that help reduce the weight of a metal water bottle. Carrying a few litres of water gets heavy in our metal water bottles, so maybe one day, we’ll switch. For now though, these work well and they are what we have on hand. If you can refill your water on a hike, you won’t have to carry as much. So do your research before you leave to see if that’s an option. We carry 5 water bottles with us on a day hike. Two each and one for emergencies. The last bottle gets drunk on the car ride home. As long as you carry your water in a reusable vessel, you are winning on the eco front!
Lunch
Nathan loves a sandwich, so this is usually what we will have for lunch. We use wax wraps instead of cling wrap to keep our sandwiches eco friendly. If we are having leftovers or things like rice paper rolls for lunch, we will pack them in our reusable lunch containers. The easiest way to make this eco friendly is to ensure all the coverings you use are reusable! You don’t even have to buy anything for this, just use what containers you already have at home. Sandwiches work just as well when packed in a container. So don’t feel you need to buy wax wraps if you have no other need for them.
To keep our lunch box cool, we pack a frozen juice in a reusable bottle or an ice brick. The Ice bricks probably aren’t that eco-friendly but as we already have them, it would be even less eco friendly to not use them. Using what you have rather than buying something (even if it’s labeled as eco-friendly) is the best way to help the environment. Get creative and use what you have. If what you currently have is a bunch of single use things, then use these before buying an eco alternative.
Trash on the Trail
We like to pack a spare tote bag and a pair of gardening gloves so we can pick up any rubbish we find along our hikes. We have picked up a fair few weird items and even scored a forgotten beanie for our efforts! Having somewhere to put that rubbish that isn’t in with our food is the biggest tip we have to enable you to pick up trash along the way. We use the gloves to keep ourselves protected when picking things up that look a little questionable.
If you go in with a plan to pick up rubbish, you are much more likely to notice it on the trail and actually pick it up too. Before we had somewhere to put it we didn’t pick up a lot of it because we had no way of getting it back to a bin. So we highly recommend packing a little tote bag to carry out any trash you find along your trails. If you don’t have any gloves, be sure to bring along some hand sanitiser or something to clean your hands after picking up trash.
Leaving the trail better than you found it is an excellent way to step up your eco-conscious game. Others will see you doing it too and might even help out or at least think twice about throwing an apple core in the bush!
An Eco Attitude
Last but not least, we make sure to pack a conscious eco-friendly attitude. This will often mean researching the trail a little before going on the hike to make sure we are respecting the wishes of the custodians of the land we are getting to explore. For example, in Aotearoa, New Zealand, we check to see if there are any Tāpu (sacred) sites on the hike and what we need to do to be respectful of these. That may mean not swimming in certain areas or not summiting a mountain.
Remembering to carry out your ‘leave no trace’ motto when hiking is a big one too. This means not littering and not disturbing the natural environment. So no picking up anything unless it’s trash, sticking to the marked trails and not moving things like rocks and pebbles.
Being eco-conscious means looking after yourself and others on the trail too! When you are packing for a day hike, you need to pack for safety as well as what you need for the day. We aren’t experts on the safety front, so we highly recommend checking out proper resources like Department of Conservation. We’ll leave safety matters up to the experts. But here are a few generic safety tips to get you started:
- Always tell someone you are going, and when you expect to be back. Then actually let them know when you get back so that if you don’t come back on time, they can send out some help.
- Check in with information/park staff before leaving to make sure the track is safe on the day
- Pack for all kinds of weather. We always bring a raincoat even if it isn’t raining.
- Bring extra food and water in case you get stuck on the trail overnight
- Pack a general first aid kit
Be sure to read up specifics for the country and area you are hiking in as well. You’d rather be prepared and not need it than need it and not have it!
How do our tips fare for your Eco-Conscious Day Hike?
We hope these tips have helped you to pack more eco-consciously on your next hiking adventure! If you are practicing, leave no trace and respecting the land, then you are doing great already. It’s the little things like reducing the impact of the snacks and food you are eating that add up to an even better eco hiking experience. Plus, they make for super cute picnic photos. The more of us hiking like this, the more people will notice on the trails and start to change their own habits too. So let’s hit the trails and make a little difference. We hope to see you out there!
Keen for more inspo? Be sure to check out:
- 10 Free and Cheap Things to do in New Plymouth
- 10 Eco-Conscious Vanlife Tips for a Greener Journey
- Eco-Conscious Travel Tips That Anyone Can Implement
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