I started hiking when I was growing up on B.C.’s west coast islands, traipsing around after my older sister. Growing up to spend a summer at age 14 working in a mountain park near Jasper, I knew I’d found my calling. In later years working in parks in Alberta as an interpretive naturalist, I spent downtime… well… hiking, of course. Southwestern U.S., Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica - from canyon crawls to mountain highs – it does seem that there are so many places to explore and so little time!

Whether you’re an avid day hiker, or out for the serenity of a multi-day backpacking trip, or both like me, there’s no such thing as too much information! Learn everything you want to know about destinations, gear, safety, wilderness advocacy, hiking with the family (canine members too!), reviews of good books, checklists of what to pack – and oh, so much more!

But there’s a catch and that’s where BellaOnline’s Hiking & Backpacking newsletter comes in. Once you sign up for this newsletter, I’ll pass on tidbits of new information encapsulated in handy articles every two weeks. By signing up for this free bi-weekly newsletter, you’ll know just when to check in, and what the topics of the past two weeks are going to be. Don't worry, these newsletters are brief; I know you’d rather spend time out hiking!

To sign up, look to the right of this article. See the box labeled Free Newsletter? All you need to do is type in your email address in there, that's it, that's all. You can unsubscribe at any time (but I'm sure you won't want to!). And don't worry, your information won’t be sold or shared, if fact, I don’t even know who has signed up unless your newsletter bounces and your ISP sends me a notice. All I will see is one more number added to the overall number of subscribers.

Once you sign up, you’ll receive a confirmation notice. This just lets you know if your spam filter is letting us through. If you don’t get one, you’ll want to change the filter to allow BellaOnline.com’s Hiking & Backpacking Newsletter to come through. Any more questions, just ask! Otherwise, go ahead, sign up and let’s go hiking!

P.S. If my name sounds familiar, you might also recognize me as the editor for the Island Travel topic here at BellaOnline.com!