About NJ Hiking

The goal of njHiking.com is to provide everything you need to hike in New Jersey.

Most people do not associate “hiking” with New Jersey, and even people who have lived in NJ for years have no idea that hiking opportunities even exist.

The site is useful for anyone already hiking who is looking for hike ideas, for someone interested in trying hiking out to see if they like it, and for out-of-area hikers who have moved to NJ (or are visiting) and want to know where the best hiking is.

This site isn’t trying to convince anyone to go hiking. There are tons of other hobbies to take up, a bajillion things to keep you entertained in the Jersey area, and hiking is certainly not everyone’s cup-o-tea!

If you want to give it a go, cool, then this site has plenty of info to help you out.

Why We Created njHiking.com

We’ve been hiking in New Jersey for over 25 years, and just when we think we’ve hiked every trail – we find a new one.

It took us some time to figure out where to hike when we started, but over time we’ve collected a lot of great resources. This made it much easier when the weekend came around to figure out where to hike.

We couldn’t find a site that had all the New Jersey hike info we wanted in one spot, so we basically created the site we wished existed and put it online in case anyone else was looking for the same thing.

The site went live in March of 2009. We’ve been amazed at the response and traffic to the site – we had no idea so many people were interested in hiking in New Jersey.

March of 2024 marks the site’s 15 year anniversary!

By Jersey Hikers, For Jersey Hikers

We’re a married couple born and raised in New Jersey. Tom is from central Jersey, Dawn is from south Jersey, and we met at college in north Jersey. We’ve enjoyed being outdoors since we were kids.

Tom hiking Mt. Tammany, 1981.
Tom hiking Mt. Tammany, 1981.

We spend a lot of time in front of computers for our graphic design business (shameless plug: OpaqueDesign.com) but any chance we get, we hit a trail.

Dawn handles all web and graphic design while Tom’s focus is shooting and editing the video. Dawn also writes all of the site content and if you’ve ever emailed or interacted on social with us, that’s Dawn as well (hello there!).

We’ve personally hiked, biked, or kayaked everything on this site at least once but often multiple times. Everything – every photo and video, all the text, all the social posts – is created by us and not outsourced.

We used to haul around a Garmin GPS, DSLR camera, and a GoPro… until the iPhone improved to the point that it replaced all of that – much to the relief of our neck and shoulders!

While we hike, bike, and kayak extensively all over the state, sometimes we get outta Jersey too. Our goal is to hike as many National Parks as we can (current tally: 45 of 63) and also enjoy wandering out of the country (we keep track of our trips at the bottom of this page).

What does njHiking.com feature?

The focus of this site are the 200+ hike guides across all of New Jersey, plus nearby ones in New York and Pennsylvania.

These guides include detailed turn-by-turn directions, photos, videos, directions to the trailhead, restroom options, park and map links, and our insights and tips.

In the menu you’ll find links to all of our Best and Top lists, as well as hikes split into location categories such as North NJ, Central NJ, South NJ.

The Hike Finder Map let’s you pick a hike from an overview map.

We also cover easy biking and kayaking plus offer resources such as books, hiking clubs, and clothing and gear reviews.

How can you help support this site?

Please don’t block ads! Ads cover the cost of our web server and site software and the MASSIVE amount of time involved in creating guides and maintaining the site. This allows us to provide free content for everyone to enjoy.

When readers use an ad blocker it directly affects our ability to produce new guides and update existing ones. We use a fast, high quality ad provider and please ask that you allow our ads to appear. Thanks!

Tell people about the site! Share our hike guides on your socials and in Facebook groups, and let interested friends, family, and fellow hikers know about njHiking.com.

Sign up for our newsletter! We publish a monthly newsletter with the latest content added to the site plus featured hikes.

Get a sticker! Show your support with one of our snazzy njHiking.com stickers for your vehicle.

Get some swag! And if you really dig our site, consider popping over to our store and getting a t-shirt or other item we’ve designed… it helps support the effort we invest in the site.

We hope you find this site useful! You can contact us here.

– Dawn & Tom


List of Trips…

2024: Florida National Parks: Dry Tortugas, Biscayne Bay, Big Cypress Preserve, and revisited the Everglades (which was our 1st national park, waaaaay back in 1995).

2023: Revisited Ireland in May, this time taking my parents on their first European adventure, while getting in a few hikes around Killarney National Park. In September we hiked in Switzerland’s Zermatt and Berner Oberland regions including a bucket list hike to Hörnlihütte at the base of the Matterhorn.

2022: Hiked all around Arizona: Sedona, Petrified Forest National Park, Saguaro National Park, and Chiricahua National Monument (really cool and should be a NP – check it out if you get a chance!)

In September we completed all of the California national parks with an epic perimeter hike around Pinnacles NP and then on to Channel Islands NP for a long hike and a very cool kayak tour into multiple sea caves.

2021: Revisited Shenandoah National Park, plus some more near NJ stuff like Rickett’s Glen and biking Pine Creek in PA and Minnewaska in NY.

2020: Revisited the Big Island of Hawaii and Volcanoes National Park in February which included an epic hike out to Napau Crater. And stuffed our faces with malasadas at Punalu’u Bake Shop and made excellent PB&Js using their Hawaiian sweet bread mmmmm.

2019: Road trip in May to bike and hike Cuyahoga National Park in Ohio. In August visited Alaska: Denali, glacier hike at Wrangell-St. Elias NP, kayaked among glaciers and hiked to the Harding ice field at Kenai Fjords National Park.

2018: Returned to Ireland in May and hiked around in the southwest region, including climbing it’s highest mountain, Carrauntoohil. Also got out to Skellig Michael, which had been on my bucket list since reading about it decades ago.

In September we traveled around North and South Dakota: Badlands NP, Theodore Roosevelt NP, Wind Cave NP, plus Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore, Jewel Cave, and Devil’s Tower. We were there during Volksmarch so we got to hike right up to and ON the Crazy Horse Memorial!

2017: After exploring Munich and Salzburg, Austria we rambled around the Bavarian region of Germany and hiked in Garmisch and the Black Forest (where we ate cake at a little cafe mid hike… as you do in Europe).

In August we headed down to South Carolina for the total solar eclipse (AMAZING) and also hiked and kayaked Congaree NP.

In October we explored the California desert by visiting the Mojave Desert, Joshua Tree, and Death Valley where we hiked to the highest spot in the park, Telescope Peak.

In 2016 we drove the perimeter of Iceland, hiking to amazing waterfalls, hot springs, volcanic features, beautiful coastlines, and hiked on a glacier at Skaftafell National Park.

We also revisited Washington State to check out Mt. Rainier and North Cascades National Parks and to return to Mt. St. Helens.

In 2015 we headed to Ireland where we hiked in the Mourne Mountains and along the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland before exploring the Cliffs of Moher and The Burren on the western coast of The Republic.

We also we hit up several National Parks in Colorado – Great Sand Dunes, Mesa Verde, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, and Rocky Mountain for incredible hiking.

In 2014 we returned to the Great Smoky Mountains where it managed to rain every single day but we still had some amazing hikes, including our favorite up the Alum Trail to Mt. LeConte.

After that we visited Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park to do the Wild Cave tour – 6 hours and 5 miles of crawling and squeezing through passages deep underground. (Unique, awesome, and tough – we highly recommend!).

In 2013 we revisited Acadia National Park in Maine where we got a chance to hike the Precipice Trail among many others.

In 2012 we hiked Mt. Vesuvius in Italy while visiting Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Rome… and ate gelato twice a day. We also traveled to national parks in southwestern Utah: Zion (hiked the Narrows plus a 2nd time to Angel’s Landing), Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands.

In 2011 we rambled around the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico to check out the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza, Uxmal, and more. The vast, flat, unbroken expanses of trees seen from atop Mayan Pyramids reminded us of looking out over Jersey’s Pinelands from the Apple Pie Hill fire tower – go figure!

We also hiked all over Olympic National Park that year.

In 2010 we visited Machu Picchu in Peru and hiked to the top of Huayna Picchu – the peak that overlooks the ancient Incan city. That year we also climbed Mt. Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.

Prior to tracking trips here… we’ve been fortunate enough to also visit Glacier National Park, Yosemite (and climbed Half Dome), Yellowstone, Grand Teton, Sequoia, Kings Canyon, Grand Canyon, Bryce, The Redwoods, Crater Lake, Lassen Volcanic, Haleakala on Maui, and we’ve even climbed Mt. St. Helens and have done a little hiking while in Scotland.