Perhaps that’s what makes these adventures so memorable.
Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of her 1,000-mile trek along the U.S. Pacific Crest Trail was so enthralling it made it to Hollywood.
“Wild,” a film based on her account and starring Reese Witherspoon, was one of the most talked about releases at the end of 2014, with Witherspoon even nominated for a best actress award at the 2015 Golden Globes.
If you’d like a piece of that action, or simply crave dehydrated food, days without washing and multiple, life-threatening encounters, then here are 10 other epic hikes ripe for big screen treatment.
Who would play you?
The Appalachian (United States)
Distance: 3,510 kilometers (2,180 miles)
The Appalachian is the grand dame of long-distance trails.
One third of North America’s holy hiking trinity, the Triple Crown — the others being the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails — it’s the most iconic, famed for its “thru hikers” who attempt to complete it in a single season.
Its 5 million steps follow the Appalachian Mountains from Mount Springer, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine.
The range was once a natural border to the 13 colonies held by powerful Native American tribes like the Iroquois and Cherokee, before independence gave rise to westward expansion.
Among the highlights: the idyllic, overgrown tracks through Great Smokey Mountains National Park in North Carolina, North America’s most diverse forest.
More information at: Appalachiantrail.org
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Japan’s northernmost island is roughly the size of Austria, with short balmy summers and long, cold winters.
A complete tour takes seven months and is best divided by either side of winter.
More information: Walkjapan.com
Trans Panama Trail (Panama)
Distance: 800 kilometers (497 miles)
Anyone who has hiked in the tropics will testify to the difficult conditions.
Sweaty, dense jungles, swarms of mosquitoes and numerous other bloodsucking creatures await and that’s before you even begin this 500-mile journey.
But the rewards are greater for those challenges.
This cross-Panama route takes hikers from the border in Colombia to Costa Rica, and promises encounters with remote indigenous tribes like the Kuna and Embera.
Hikers have a chance to canoe backwaters banked with lush rainforest and explore paths carved by conquistadors 600 years ago.
Half complete in 2009, the whole route has now been mapped by Rick Morales, who himself completed it in just more than three months.
More information: Transpanama.org
