Can Anyone Walk the Trans Canada Trail? Why Experience, Reliable Information, Responsibility and Common Sense Matter

Reflections on walking across Canada, the questions we should be asking, and the growing responsibility of those who provide outdoor advice.
 

Can Anyone Really Walk Across Canada?

 
During a recent interview about our six-year #Hike4Birds journey along the Trans Canada Trail, we were asked two questions that have resonated with us. The first was whether we believed anyone could undertake a journey of this magnitude. The second concerned the growing number of online hiking and cycling guides, including material copied, scraped, rewritten, and generated using artificial intelligence, and whether the people publishing such information were being responsible to those who might eventually rely upon it. 
 
At first glance, these might seem like two different subjects. One concerns the ambitions and abilities of people considering an extraordinary journey, while the other raises questions about the reliability of the information available to help them prepare. Yet the more we thought about them, the more closely connected they became. Encouraging someone to undertake a challenging adventure is one thing, but providing the information necessary to understand what that adventure involves is quite another.

 
Having spent 759 days walking almost 18,000 kilometres across Canada between 2019 and 2025, we remain convinced that long-distance hiking is not reserved for professional athletes, wilderness experts, or people possessing extraordinary physical abilities. We certainly did not consider ourselves any of those things when we set out from Cape Spear, Newfoundland, in June 2019.  And still do not feel as though we are athletically inclined – we were simply able and fortunate enough to keep walking.  Instead, what we had was a willingness to learn, considerable determination, a great deal of curiosity, and more than a year of research and practical preparation.  It is from this that our hiking guides, reflections, cycling assessments, and resupply information that we have published on each province have come from.  It is research that has been subsequently informed and tempered by lived experience.
 
With that said, let us return to the original question - can anyone walk the entire Trans Canada Trail? Our answer remains an encouraging yes, at least in the sense that far more people may be capable of undertaking a substantial long-distance journey than initially believe themselves to be.   However, that encouragement comes with important qualifications and caveats. Not everyone has the physical ability, financial resources, available time, desire, or personal circumstances necessary to complete such a journey, and determination alone cannot overcome every obstacle.  Perhaps more importantly, being told that something is viable and believing that something is possible are not the same as understanding what completing it will actually require.
 

The Difference Between Possible and Practical

 
One of the difficulties in discussing the Trans Canada Trail is that people often imagine it as a single continuous hiking pathway comparable to the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail. In reality, it is an enormous network of regional trails, rail trails, urban pathways, rural roads, highways, wilderness routes, and waterways connecting communities and landscapes across Canada.  The national network now extends more than 30,000 kilometres, but that figure should not be confused with the distance any individual must walk to connect Canada's coastlines. Nor does the existence of a line on a national map mean that every kilometre offers the same conditions, facilities, or opportunities for travel.

 
Some sections offer exceptional recreational trails, regular communities, accommodations, and convenient resupply opportunities. Others involve lengthy stretches of road and highway walking, considerable distances between services, limited access to drinking water, isolated landscapes, and weather conditions that can dramatically change what is possible.
 
Throughout our journey, we discovered that the challenge was rarely about whether we could physically walk another twenty or thirty kilometres. More often, it was about determining where we could safely walk, how we would obtain food and water, where we could sleep, whether the route shown on a map actually existed, and how we would respond or could adapt when our plans proved unrealistic.  Each of these is a consideration that enthusiasm alone cannot resolve.
 

Are We Asking the Right Questions?

 
There is another concern that has emerged – largely since we completed the TCT - as more people turn to artificial intelligence to research outdoor adventures. It is not simply whether the information they receive is accurate, but whether they are asking questions that can produce genuinely useful answers in the first place.  Imagine someone opening ChatGPT or Gemini and asking, "Can I walk the entire Trans Canada Trail?" The answer may well be encouraging. With sufficient preparation, determination, physical fitness, and appropriate equipment, completing a long-distance journey across Canada may indeed be possible. Those are not necessarily incorrect statements, and we would be among the first to encourage someone to pursue such an ambition.
 
But what has that answer actually told them?  It has not established whether they understand the differences between recreational trails and highways, whether they can safely carry sufficient water between distant communities in the summer, whether they have experience travelling through isolated landscapes, or whether their proposed schedule accounts for the enormous geographical and seasonal differences across Canada. It has not considered what happens when a mapped route is impassable, services are unavailable, or the conditions they encounter bear little resemblance to the descriptions they have read online.  Perhaps most importantly, it has not established whether the person asking the question knows enough about the journey to recognize what information is missing from the answer.

 
We have encountered online discussions in which people propose completing the entire Trans Canada Trail in only a few months, or express ambitions to become the first person to walk across Canada along the national trail network. One individual recently asked, “What do I need to know to hike the Trans Canada Trail next month?” A question which in itself shows a lack of understanding of the enormity of the route and challenges along it.  Now, of course, there is nothing wrong with ambitious goals, and we understand the excitement of imagining an extraordinary adventure. However, such discussions often suggest an incomplete understanding of the trail's scale, the experiences of those who have already undertaken these journeys, or the practical difficulties involved.
 
A more useful question might begin with what someone needs to know before attempting a particular provincial section, what circumstances could make that route unsafe, which parts of their proposed itinerary require additional research, or what information should be confirmed with the local organizations responsible for maintaining the pathway.  Even those questions should be the beginning of research rather than its conclusion.  Added to this is the fact that inexperienced travellers may not, and often do not yet, recognize which questions matter most. The result is that a reassuring answer to an incomplete / incorrect question can create a misleading impression of skill and preparedness, particularly when it comes from a system that presents information confidently without necessarily distinguishing between verified facts, reasonable estimates, and uncertainty.
 

When Digital Advice Leads People Astray

 
These concerns are no longer simply hypothetical, and several recent incidents in Canada have prompted search and rescue organizations to warn against relying uncritically on artificial intelligence and general-purpose digital maps for wilderness travel.
 
In April 2025, Lions Bay Search and Rescue assisted two hikers on British Columbia's Unnecessary Mountain after they encountered difficulties descending snow-covered terrain. The organization subsequently confirmed that the hikers had used ChatGPT and Google Maps in planning their outing, reminding the public that changing mountain conditions require reliable navigation information, appropriate equipment, and careful preparation.
 
During the summer of 2026, three teenage hikers undertaking part of British Columbia's Howe Sound Crest Trail required rescue after relying on Google Maps directions suggesting that their route could be completed in approximately five hours. The challenging alpine journey would ordinarily require considerably longer, with rescuers estimating twelve to fourteen hours under appropriate conditions. The hiker’s reliance on a system underestimated the demands of the terrain and left them exhausted and short of supplies.
 
More recently, in October 2026, a sixteen-year-old hiker required rescue from technical climbing terrain near Crown Mountain after using several digital planning resources, including the Claude AI chatbot. Although early reporting attributed the incident primarily to AI-generated directions, the hiker subsequently disputed that characterization, explaining that he had used the chatbot to supplement other information rather than relying upon it exclusively.

These incidents involved different circumstances, and it would be misleading to suggest that AI alone caused each emergency. Nevertheless, they illustrate a shared problem: technology can and increasingly does provide directions, distances, and estimates without adequately communicating the conditions, skills, equipment, or judgment necessary to complete a journey safely.
 
In October 2026, Lions Bay Search and Rescue explored this issue in an article titled The Rise of AI in Mountain Trip Planning, emphasizing both the need to ask better questions and the importance of independently verifying information before entering the backcountry.  Although mountaineering in British Columbia is quite different from walking along many sections of the Trans Canada Trail, the underlying lesson is equally relevant. Knowing where a route goes is not the same as understanding what travelling along it will require.
 

The Growing Problem of Rewritten Trail Guides

 
Beyond the limitations of digital navigation, we have become increasingly concerned about the proliferation of online hiking and cycling guides that reproduce, condense, or rework existing information without preserving the practical details that made the original material useful.  Over the years, we have invested considerable effort in documenting our experiences along the Trans Canada Trail, developing provincial hiking guides, cycling assessments, resupply information, and detailed accounts of the challenges we encountered. Our purpose was never simply to identify attractive landscapes or provide lists of communities. We wanted to share what we had learned, including information that might help someone else avoid our mistakes and make their planning a little easier.

 
We have since encountered online descriptions of provincial cycling routes, resupply opportunities, and Canadian Caminos that closely resemble information and experiences we previously published, yet appear to have lost many of the warnings, qualifications, and practical observations that we considered essential. They certainly have been stripped of the lived experiences that highlight our own insights and qualifications.  As we have talked about previously so too have many of our images been scraped, being sold online, and are now regularly offered by AI as pictures of the TCT.   What concerns us most, however, is the disappearance of the details upon which someone's safety may depend.

 
A cycling guide might correctly identify a series of attractive rail trails and communities while failing to explain that substantial portions of the route follow roads shared with fast-moving traffic. A resupply guide might accurately identify towns along a route without mentioning that services are seasonal, businesses have closed, or certain stretches require considerably more preparation than the distances alone would suggest.  These omissions can change how readers understand the journey, even when much of the remaining information is technically correct. Generic AI-produced guidebooks attempt to present knowledge without the qualifications that lived experience gives way to.  This in itself makes them unreliable at best and dangerous at worst. 

 
The problem is not, of course, that people are using AI or Technology – after all, we use Garmin InReach, digital cameras and produce a blog – technology can be a useful tool.  The problem is that information is being presented as authoritative without the experience, verification, context, or accountability necessary to support it. There is an entire world of wonder to explore – and we encourage people to go out and see for themselves.  However, we also don’t want people to be at risk because they have come to rely on AI or are taking directions solely from a chatbot that merely produces an incomplete, overly generalized, and non-specific account while also presenting the “information” in an overly encouraging and equally hollow manner.

 
Many of the AI slop guides are terrifying not only for their generalized information but also for presenting this “material” in a manner that is dangerous.  Publications – even those online – need to strive to accurately inform people, not simply copy and thin out material to produce more clicks and likes.  There is a distinction between providing information that sounds useful and providing information that someone can actually rely upon. Especially when that information can influence people’s safety.  Responsible outdoor writing should empower people to undertake adventures without hiding / generalizing / thinning the information they need to decide whether those adventures are safe and appropriate for them.  With that said, in setting out – especially into nature - we all need to ask better questions, be better prepared, avoid relying on a single resource, and at the same time know our own abilities and take responsibility to learn what is needed beforehand. 
 

Why We Included the Difficult Parts of Our Journey

 
One of the reasons we began documenting our preparations and later our daily experiences was that we frequently struggled to find the information we needed ourselves.  Before leaving Newfoundland, we spent more than a year examining maps, speaking with other hikers, researching potential accommodation and resupply options, testing equipment, and undertaking training hikes across southern Ontario and beyond. Even with all that preparation, we regularly encountered circumstances that we had not anticipated.

 
There were bridges that were no longer accessible, routes that did not correspond with what appeared on official maps, unexpected closures, and occasions when we had to reconsider whether continuing was sensible. We discovered that a community marked on a map did not necessarily have the services we required, while a route described as part of a national recreational network could present substantial safety concerns when travelled on foot.  Our journals consequently included experiences that might not have made particularly attractive promotional material – certainly we have been told in the past to stop posting and ultimately did when we trekked to the Arctic.

 
We wrote about traffic, weather, difficult terrain, unexpected detours, exhaustion, and the frustration of discovering that information we had relied upon was incomplete or incorrect. We hoped that documenting what actually happened would help future travellers make better decisions and develop more realistic expectations or pick sections that appealed to them.    There is of course an important difference between an inspiring account of a journey and a practical guide intended to help someone follow it. Both have value, but a guide that removes uncertainty, difficulties, and warnings in favour of an appealing description is not only be less useful than the original experience from which it was developed but also dangerous to follow.
 

Experience Does Not Mean Knowing Everything

 
Our years on the Trans Canada Trail also taught us that even firsthand experience has limitations.  Even after years of hiking, we still made mistakes and had to turn back at times.  We regularly relied upon local residents, trail volunteers, park employees, fellow travellers, and regional organizations whose knowledge of particular landscapes was considerably greater than our own. They knew which bridges had washed out, which routes had recently changed, which services remained available, and which sections might be difficult or dangerous under particular conditions. Their advice frequently influenced our decisions and occasionally caused us to reconsider plans that had seemed perfectly reasonable when examining a map.

 
These experiences strengthened our appreciation for the local and regional trail organizations that maintain Canada's pathways and provide much of the practical knowledge necessary to use them responsibly.  They also reminded us that having walked a section of trail in 2019 does not mean that every detail we recorded remains accurate in 2026. Conditions change, businesses close, bridges are repaired or removed, and routes are altered. A responsible guide should identify when information was gathered, acknowledge where circumstances may have changed, and encourage readers to consult current local sources.  Firsthand experience is enormously valuable, but it is not a substitute for recognizing uncertainty or continuing to research the places we hope to visit.
 

Making Adventure Accessible Without Making It Seem Effortless

 
Returning to the interviewer's original question, we still believe that walking the Trans Canada Trail is an ambition worth encouraging. We hope our journals, photographs, and practical guides inspire others to explore the extraordinary variety of landscapes, communities, and regional pathways that make up the national network.  For some, that may mean walking across a province. For others, it may involve completing a local trail over several weekends, undertaking a long-distance bicycle journey, or setting out on a multi-year expedition across the country. There is no requirement to pursue the most ambitious version of an adventure for the experience to be worthwhile.

 
Indeed, one of the most important things we learned over six years was that the value of walking is not measured solely in kilometres completed or destinations reached. Much of what we remember most vividly happened during ordinary days, in conversations with people we met along the way, encounters with wildlife, and peaceful moments in landscapes we might otherwise never have experienced had we not stepped out the door in the first place. 
 
Those experiences are available to far more people than might initially imagine themselves capable of a long-distance journey.  Yet making outdoor adventure accessible should mean providing people with the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions, rather than concealing difficulties behind reassuring descriptions or unrealistic promises.  We would much rather someone reconsider a particular section, modify their itinerary, seek additional experience, or postpone a journey because they understand the challenges involved than discover those difficulties when they were already far from help.
 

The Responsibility of Those Who Offer Advice

 
As more people turn to online resources and artificial intelligence to plan their adventures, we believe it is increasingly important to ask where information comes from, whether it has been verified, and what may have been left out.  Digital tools can be valuable for discovering destinations, comparing routes, organizing information, and identifying subjects that require further research. We have benefited enormously from online maps, GPS devices, satellite imagery, and the countless resources maintained by individuals and organizations willing to share their knowledge. However, no single website, guidebook, map, navigation application, or AI-generated itinerary should be treated as an unquestionable authority.
 
For those producing outdoor information, there is a responsibility to distinguish firsthand experience from research, acknowledge uncertainty, avoid inferring expertise they do not possess, and preserve warnings or qualifications that may be important to readers.
 
For those planning adventures, there is a corresponding responsibility to compare sources, consult regional trail organizations, investigate current conditions, and recognize when additional preparation is required.   People also need to know themselves, their abilities and use common sense amid their plans.
Most importantly, we need to become better at asking questions that reveal what we do not yet understand, rather than seeking reassurance that an ambition is achievable.

So, can anyone walk the Trans Canada Trail?
 
We believe far more people can undertake to trek, cycle and explore this extraordinary network, and perhaps even set out to venture on a coast-to-coast-to-coast journey, than might initially think possible. Yet doing so safely requires more than enthusiasm, and those of us encouraging such ambitions owe our readers more than attractive photographs and convincing descriptions.  After hiking almost 18,000 kilometres, we remain enthusiastic advocates for exploring Canada on the Trans Canada Trail. We also know that some of the most important things we learned came from the difficulties, mistakes, unexpected challenges, and acts of kindness that never appeared on the maps we consulted before setting out.  Those are not details to be edited out of a good trail guide. They may be among the most important reasons for writing one.
 
See you on the Trail!