As John McKinney puts it: “I’ve been blessed to have had the opportunity to take a hike and write about it in many great places in North America, Europe, and elsewhere around the world.”

John McKinney, The Traveling Hiker, knows the best way to experience a place is by sojourning on foot. From the mountains of Maui to the Lake District in England, the inveterate walker shares his enthusiasm for traveling—and enjoying the best hiking along the way.

An expert on hiking tours, guided and self-guided hiking vacations, John McKinney has designed and led tours for a walking vacation company. “Leading a hiking tour is a demanding but very rewarding experience,” he says. “You get to know people really well when you spend time with them on the trail in a beautiful place.”

He recently wrote a book for Frommer’s, Best Hiking Trips in Northern California, which includes 60 great hikes, plus where to eat and stay. The Trailmaster also provided introductory material about preparing for a hiking vacation and hiker safety for all the books in the series, including British Columbia and Scotland.

John has written about hiking in many places in North America from Canada’s Bugaboos to the coast of Maine, and from the Olympic peninsula rain forest to the canyon-lands of the American Southwest. He’s shared his hiking adventures in many newspaper and magazine articles, as well as in books:

Great Walks of North America: New England There’s something about New England that brings out the walker in all of us, whether we’re hitting the trail in picturesque Stowe, Vermont, wandering the beaches of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, or tramping the stunning pathways of Franconia Notch in New Hampshire. Literate entries for each walk/hike (75 of them in the six New England states) enrich your experience every step of the way with area lore, natural history, and local color. Published by Henry Holt & Company, NY, 1997

Great Walks of North America: Pacific Northwest From the majesty of peaks like Mt. Rainier and Mt. Hood to what is perhaps the nation’s most pristine coastline, the Pacific Northwest is a region of rich and varied terrain that rewards the hiker with the wonders of mountain, sea, and forest, not to mention some of the continent’s most hiker-friendly urban parks. Explore the serenity of wooded cliffs meeting the sea on the Oregon Coast Trail, the dramatic beauty of post-eruption Mt. St. Helens, the best of Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. Published by Henry Holt & Company, NY, 1997