Tramping vs Hiking trends

Tramping is used only in NZ and to a small extent in Australia to describe what we do Go to Europe and tramping becomes a lifestyle choice where being 100% self sufficient becomes the norm by whatever means available. Shelter more often or not is a motorway bridge.

"What is interesting is that people in NZ are increasingly searching for 'hiking' rather than 'tramping', though the two are about equal at the moment' says it all. "tramping" is on the way out, short strolls in sneakers, or in the wilderness in boots

@DonaldDuck [original thread]: "What is interesting is that people in NZ are increasingly searching for 'hiking' rather than 'tramping', though the two are about equal at the moment' " I'm not sure exactly what can be told from the way the Trends data is shown, but there are a couple of further things I'm wondering about: (1) How accurate is the Trends data? It seems to have jumped around massively in the earlier years. 'Tramping' searches in particular fluctuated frequently, almost every month or two within the same year (not seasonally as in later years), before it settled roughly 5 years ago on a value that's not hugely different from what it is now. This makes me wonder if those early years were really so much higher than current for 'tramping' as is being shown, or if the data's just broken. Has Google been changing or improving the way it's measuring? Has its search-engine competition changed over that time? (2) Is this a fixed change in what all people are searching for, or is it directly relative to tourism? If 'hiking' searches from New Zealand are increasing to meet 'tramping' searches, as seems to have been happening in the last two or three years, it might be because there are an increasing number of transient people in NZ with better internet access, who could all disappear if the tourism boom drops off.

In the past trampers have not been great internet users. When they did they wouldnt search for tramping. It was more likely a search for xzy hut or something specific. Websites like this have possibly changed that Its the people from overseas that were looking for options that would search under hiking or if they had been here before they might search for tramping. The data is probably correct but also broken. The devil is in the detail and the details can show a completly different answer once you loook only at your typical target user

Another way to measure it is also to look at what people are publishing instead of what they're searching for, though it's hard to pin down exactly who's producing the content, where and why. eg. Many businesses like Kathmandu are strongly biased towards using "hiking" as a term these days -- such as http://www.kathmandu.co.nz/hiking.html . You have to search hard to find a reference to tramping. It's on the Men's boots page, but not the Women's boots page. International markets I guess, with more to be made by consolidating on terms recognised overseas, or maybe they just think the same thing about the local market as @DonaldDuck. In any case when I search for "tramping site:nz", Google tells me there are about 339,000 results. If I search for "hiking site:nz" then I'm told there are about 478,000 results.

Just to add re those two searches above, the results are distinctly different. "tramping site:nz" returns a heap of non-commercial results: clubs and blogs and the like. This site is near the top. "hiking site:nz" is flooded with commercial results -- businesses and tourism operators selling stuff, plus a handful of public information services, with very few non-commercial results. To me this suggests that businesses are strongly into hiking.. maybe to attract that international interest, but perhaps people actually doing stuff and writing about it remain more strongly into tramping.

'Many businesses like Kathmandu are strongly biased towards using "hiking" as a term these days ' always thought it was Kathmandu's fault.:)

Whenever I lace my boots on and head into the hills I'm "tramping" whether or not it's for the day or overnight. I hate the H word, it's so un-kiwi.

@gazcan Whenever I lace my boots on and head into the hills I'm "tramping" whether or not it's for the day or overnight. I hate the H word, it's so un-kiwi. absolutely! This is a tramping forum, it should be banned

Fascinating discussion! I basically agree with @madpom that there is a difference between tramping and hiking and it all comes down to the core values of self-reliance, remoteness, and endurance. However, I do see tracks like the Great Walks as having a part in that. Sure, an overseas visitor on these tracks is hiking. However, a New Zealand family who has never been "tramping" before might see it quite differently, as an accessible way to participate in the tramping culture, or at least a good place to get started. For a lot of people, walking for several days with a pack *is* a challenge, even on the highly managed terrain of a Great Walk. In summary, in my opinion you can either tramp or hike the Routeburn and it all depends on what you think you are doing. We have all heard news stories of "entitled" folk in the Tararuas or elsewhere expecting a helicopter so they're not late for work -- point being you can have the wrong attitude even in classic "tramping" country.