New report reveals the state of bushwalking in Australia in 2026
Almost four million Australian adults participated in bushwalking during 2025, making it one of the country’s largest outdoor recreation activities.
Trail Hiking Australia has released The State of Bushwalking in Australia 2026, a new evidence report examining who bushwalks, how Australians participate, and what the findings mean for trails, public landscapes, safety and future investment.
Why we developed this report
Bushwalking is often discussed through the lens of tourism and visitation, club participation, or individual park and trail proposals. Each perspective is important, but none provides a complete picture of how Australian residents engage with bushwalking.
This report brings the available evidence together to examine the scale of participation, the largely informal way people bushwalk, the role of public landscapes, and the implications for future planning and land management.
Key findings
- 3.95 million Australian adults participated in bushwalking in 2025, representing 17.5% of the adult population.
- Adult participation increased by approximately 212,000 people from the previous year, although further annual data will be needed to determine whether this represents a sustained trend.
- Around 12.5% of adult bushwalking participation is classified as organised, meaning most activity occurs informally.
- Public space is the principal recorded setting for bushwalking participation.
- 72% of recorded sessions lasted two hours or longer.
- Australian adults spent an estimated $291 million in the paid-participation categories measured by AusPlay, although only 14.9% reported paid participation. This estimate excludes equipment, transport, food, accommodation and broader tourism spending.
Different users, the same landscape
The report identifies three connected bushwalking economies:
- resident participation;
- organised services;
- the walking visitor economy.
These economies overlap, but all depend on the same underlying asset: Australia’s parks, reserves, forests and trail networks.
Bushwalking is not sustained primarily through membership organisations, sporting venues or commercial facilities. It depends on healthy landscapes, accessible trails, reliable information and the systems that allow people to participate independently.
What the findings mean
The report argues that future investment should:
- treat landscapes and trail networks as core recreation infrastructure;
- prioritise maintenance, rehabilitation and condition monitoring before expansion;
- design information and safety systems for independent walkers as well as organised participants;
- invest in judgement, prevention and current information alongside rescue capability;
- support responsible walking tourism without confusing commercial growth with resident recreation need;
- protect the environmental quality, sense of place and public access that make bushwalking valuable.
The central message is simple:
Australians do not go bushwalking because of infrastructure alone.
They go because of the places they can walk.
Download the report
Download The State of Bushwalking in Australia 2026 →
The 26-page report includes the Executive Summary, national participation and demographic data, the Three Bushwalking Economies framework, inclusion findings, economic and wellbeing analysis, safety implications, policy recommendations and a detailed methodology appendix.
