the Te Araroa Trail

madpom poses a good question about the TA in his article. why do so many people especially foreigners all walk the TA exclusively and there are so few people walking off the TA.... the reasons could be many the amount of public information being diseminated widely about the TA is greater than most other tramping tracks and routes around except for tracks like the great walks and some day walker. the TA is even promoted on mainstream websites, often this is the only information a lot of these people have about tramping in NZ. and or they dont hav experience walking off mainstream trails some people want to use pre prepared information about established routes and or arent good at or confident walking off mainstream tracks or creating their own route. the people walking the TA often know or expect there to be other trampers around on that route and like the sociable atmosphere and or the perceived increased safety perception of having other people around outside their own group, or if they are walking alone, having other people around at some point even if they arent physically walking with them some or all of the time. a lot of people doing long distance trails are into doing established known long distance trails . often the logistics of walking established trails can be a lot easier than making up your own route. the established trails have a reasonable ability to resupply without great difficulty. often you only need half a weeks food if that before your next resupply and don't have to carry larger amounts of food all the time established long distance trail are generally reasonable quality tracks or there is a perseption of reasonable quality. and the people walking the long distance trails dont want to walk on rougher tracks...