Trail memoir is a subset of adventure travel memoir. Walking and reflecting are its essence.
For our purposes here, trail memoir is the recounting of a long hike, on an easily identifiable route, often in wilderness, told in first person by the one that walked it.
I’m going to resist for now including other self-powered forms of travel, like biking or boating, in this genre. There aren’t many books in that category and the pacing and routing are qualitatively different than a long walk on an established path. I’ve done a lot of biking and a bit of boating and there is simply more time for reflection on a walk.
Most trail memoirs cover a discreet trip so they share many common structural elements, including:
- prologue or preview
- idea or inspiration
- study
- gearing up
- departure
- learning curve
- first trial
- enduring
- flashbacks to previous life
- mastery
- final trial
- ending
- returning to society
Other topics that seem to inevitably arise include: personal relationships, natural challenges and crises, and reflections on the experience.
Obviously, the more literary the memoir, the better and more discreetly these elements might be integrated into the text. But most of them are usually present.
Trail Memoir 