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Please do a video on Santa Rosa California, it's a very car centric city. Iive in Cloverdale which is a small city so cycling is not that intimidating even with car centric design relative to what it would be if there was more car traffic, it's still bad but nothing compared to Santa Rosa California which is just horrible, I wouldn't even cross a crosswalk there much less ride a bike if I didn't have to.
Have you done a video on all the trails you can et to from NYC by train or bus? There are also great places to go for a day trip outside of NY if you rent a car.
there is/was one car manufacturer advertising how nice and quiet it was, ignoring the fact the car itself causes a lot of noise pollution for everybody else. Cars ruin cities but also the "great outdoors"
Does that exist? Though you can get to the outdoors with mass transit, but you aren’t gonna get the top 100 trails , outside San Francisco and Phoenix and a handful of others
"cities with car-free access to over-rated hiking spots" -- if it's on the top 100, it's going to be overcrowded on the trail anyway. the Bear Lake area hikes mentioned in RMNP for Denver are decent, but there is far better stuff out there
Before coming to the US I was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city (circa 2.5 million people), and the absolutely great thing about Almaty is the mountain ranges around the city with dozens of hiking trails. Pretty much all of those trails are accessible with local transit and there are your regular city buses going to the mountains as part of their route. This makes it very easy to go hiking pretty much any time and any season.
Yes, that area is stunning. I was fortunate enough to go up to Shymbulak and Big Almaty Lake, fish and grill shashlik on several visits. As a retired person, I could definitely live in Almaty as there's so much incredible nature nearby.
I think relying on the top 100 trails list is a bit distracting from the goal of balancing city living with some great nature. There are many quality state and local trails that don't require as much travel to get to, whereas I would likely plan a multi-day trip to experience something in the top 100. But I can't blame you as someone who doesn't identifies as a hiker!
I agree. No one methodology is going to be perfect, but limiting this to only the top 100 hiking trails on an app that I'd argue isn't super reliable ignores a lot of metros with great access to nature. Cities like Cleveland, Akron, and tucson have a national park on their doorstep. Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and DC have national recreation trails and state parks within 50 miles. NYC, Baltimore, and Boston all have relatively easy connections to Appalachian MTN hiking and biking. Some have better transit than others, but taking a bus and bike combination can get you out to natural settings relatively easily and that doesn't even account for water-based recreation. I like this video, but I don't think it'll be new info for most people. If someone is looking to move to a new city that has good outdoor recreation and good urban amenities and stumbles across this video, they'd likely miss out on so many great opportunities and see cities they already had in mind.
I think I agree with this, what's more important to me than a world-class awesome hike within 100 miles is some really natural-feeling parks within the city itself (e.g. Seattle's Interlaken Park or New York's Van Cortlandt Park). Having said that - I still think the list gets the order pretty much correct, with Phoenix/Denver/Seattle topping the list and San Fran/Salt Lake/Portland close behind. Maybe because cities that are sort of close to awesome nature have a citizenry of people that want pretty awesome nature to be even closer - but that's pure speculation
agree. for me it is not so much that the trail is ranked at 40 or 400. if it is a well maintained trail, meaning it is not tick-infested, well-marked, and most importantly, light on traffic ( after all aren't we trying to escape from the density by coming here?) then it is a good trail. on the contrary, nationally famous trails tend to be overcrowded, some even feel touristy.
Understand why your criteria doesn't capture this but in the Albany NY area the local public transportation is running "nature bus" service to area state parks, free of charge! Many surrounding communities are looking to replicate this, it's great to see the growing recognition that we shouldn't lock access to nature behind car ownership!
It's so funny you bring up Potato Chip Rock. When I was a senior in high school, I skipped school to go on a hike after my girlfriend broke up with me. I didn't have a car, so I took MTS all the way there and had to take an uber the last 4 miles. I ended up taking the trolley, 2 buses, and a shuttle to get there from Chula Vista. When I finished my hike, the bus was 30 minutes late so my mom ended up finding out and yelled at me haha. This was back in 2015 and I remember telling myself "I wish there was public transit to just take me there." Brought back a funny memory when you showed the trip on google maps.
Yeah Potato chip rock is definitely not accessible, unless you count going there as just reaching the entrance but the actual trail is not within public transit reach
touching on cities not being the antithesis of the 'natural world' is so important; especially when that narrative is largely pushed by suburbanites and NIMBYs who completely disregard the huge and negative externalities of suburban sprawl and scattering of amenities
I live in Boulder, Colorado. I can walk from my apartment, to the top of Mount Sanitas, to downtown Boulder, and back in 3 hours. It would be interesting to see a list with a lower population threshold. People from the Denver metro love to connect their identity to the mountains, but it is almost 100% only accessible by car. Every weekend, year round, I-70 is bumper to bumper traffic with 9-5ers headed to the mountains to ski or hike.
The warning early in the video is right: the methodology of top trails from alltrails is where this goes wrong, and then the end result isn't really salvageable. I'm an urbanite and a serious outdoor person, and it's more useful to have access to many trailheads/trails/public land than to have access to a particular top trail. As others have said, Metro-North & NJT are underrated for access to the ring of mountains around the NYC metro area. Metro-North even lets you bring your dog to the trail.
During my most recent visit to Munich, I took a day trip out to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The train was full of people headed for the ski slopes, with their gear neatly stowed in the ski/snowboard racks. As a skiier myself, I was so jealous!
@@joeyang7441 Take the metro north hudson line to Manitou. Get off there and it's a 15 minute walk to the appalachian trail. I really think NYC deserves to be on this list because from Midtown 7 days a week you can take a 1 hour train ride to the most famous and longest trail in the country.
He already made that video a couple years ago. Central Park in NYC was #1 of course. I think Forest Park in St. Louis was #2. Pretty sure The Presidio or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco were on the list too.
@@geisaune793 Eh, that's a 'best public parks' video. It's not about the overall quality of all the parks in a city. A city can have one incredible park, but if the rest of it's park system is lackluster or non-existent...that makes a pretty big difference. Especially in places like New York or San Francisco where housing around those parks is extremely expensive.
@@katiem.3109 You're talking about something more like a "Parkscore" which aggregates a city's parks overall and ranks cities based on these scores taking into account things like transit access, park acreage per resident, how well they're distributed around a city, amenities, etc? That would be an interesting video and could potentially have NYC not make the top 5 or possibly not make the list at all even with its mighty Central Park, citywide park access isn't particularly great given the sheer amount of people that live there.
Glad to see DC get a mention. I know a lot of what we've got doesn't quite fit your criteria, but the DC area has an amazing amount of trails, parks, and general nature. I love that you can get off the Metro at Rosslyn and walk for like 10 minutes and be on Theodore Roosevelt Island, where you can forget that you're in a major metropolitan region for a while. There are a lot of trails that wind through urban and suburban areas where, at least in the summer time when the leaves are full and green, you can forget that you're only fifty yards from someone's back porch or an office building's loading dock. Apparently there's a bus that'll get you from downtown DC to Shenandoah, but it seems like a long haul, not very cheap, and I don't think it runs very often.
Completely agree! Also, in addition to the MARC commuter service, Harper's Ferry is serviced daily by Amtrak's Capitol Limited. It still wouldn't work for a day trip, but it's a perfect overnight!
Yep, I did that Amtrak trip to Harper's Ferry earlier this year to stay for a few days and do a couple hikes. Years ago, I did that C&O bike trip to Harper's Ferry and back with an overnight stay. It would be nice if there were buses two or three times a day out and back to Harper's Ferry or even just to Great Falls.
Methodology is a little weird on this one. Maybe top 100 trails is too narrow. As someone who's lived in both Denver and SLC, the access to nature in SLC is far and away better, especially via transit.
Yeah RTD doesn't run to any of the open space parks on the west side of the metro area. Even the closest bus stops are a long walk away. There are definitely some missed opportunities there. If RTD ran to the top of Lookout Mountain then you could use it to shuttle hike the Beaver Brook trail, as it starts on the top of lookout mountain, but the other end of it is a short walk from a RTD park & ride.
Top 100 trails is way too narrow. Instead, if you're stuck on using trails as a metric then maybe something like "Access to X number of trails with a rating over Y within Z distance/time" or something. Just having 1 top 100 trail isn't really indicative of overall outdoor access quality.
Yeah, as a current Denverite with friends in Utah, I think we lose to them. I figured Colorado would have been repped by Boulder or maybe even Grand Junction. I think the choice of major cities instead of smaller metro areas skewed things as well.
As a longtime Seattle resident and frequent hiker, I love living so close to hundreds of day hikes in the Olympics, Cascades, Issaquah Alps, and urban parks! (I also love when Seattle ranks highly in many of CityNerd's lists!)
@@CityNerd same! I took it for granted so much as a teen. Grew up in Seattle and now a Phoenix transplant the past 10 years. The routine now is heading back to PNW each Summer when it's too hot here.
Worth noting that northeast Ohio is home to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the closest national park to a major metro area. From Cleveland public square, you can reach it in 45 minutes on the 77 bus line. You can then get on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad to explore the park by train!
I think outdoors access is a lot more than 'top trails', much more about how convenient it is to get to nature in general. Then it's more activity centric. Rock climbing would have very different needs than say bird watching.
City Nerd's methodology definitely needs refinement. I'd much rather be five minutes from regular, uncrowded trails than one hour from a top-100 trail.
I agree. I may be biased as someone who used to live there, but the SF Bay Area feels like it was way too low on this list. The populated parts of the bay area basically form two narrow strips between the bay and the mountains on either side, with the Bay Trail going all around the bay, and the Ridge Trail going all around the mountains, plus all the other trails in between, meaning that most of the bay area is within about an hours walk of a trail, not to mention how much is accessible if you use transit or ride a bike.
@@sophocles1198 totally! In San Diego, I actually don't recommend potato chip rock as mentioned in the video. It is far too busy and there are much better open spaces if you aren't after a silly instagram photo
Seattle also has great rock climbing near the city... It's the number 1 city for nature access for sure. Tons of nature spots in the city, and lots of spots if you wanna get farther away.
Car-free Downtown Denver resident here. I take the W light rail line to Golden for all my hiking, then scooter/bike the rest of the way to trailheads, of which there are lots in just the foothills. If you want to go further into the rockies for nicer hikes, there is bus service to tons of small towns throughout the rockies, but I do wish the W line extended further west. Look forward to you visiting in November- make sure to check out the bike network especially Cherry Creek, Denver transit kinda sucks (except commuter rail lines) but the bike network is underrated! I hope you host some event while here because it would be great to meet and chat about urbanism.
As someone from Denver, I often feel like my city doesn't appreciate how much outdoor activities we have at our doorstep. Growing up on the foothills, you only realize how great it is once you visit somewhere with nowhere to go like Dallas. We also have a large network of bike trails which you can access by train. Also, we pronounce Estes as ESS-tuhs, but I have heard that Es-TEEZ is correct in other parts of the country so ehh.
I almost spit out my drink when he pronounced it that way! Used to own property near Estes and still live in Denver. I'm surprised how high Denver got, considering you need a car to get almost anywhere here. Denver - you need to up your public transportation game!
RTD REALLY needs to run a bus service on weekends that does the circuit of the Golden/Morrison area open space parks, have it start/end at the Golden light rail station. At present you can bike to most of them from the light rail station without too much difficulty, but if you're planning to hike your bike won't be there by the time you get back.
Denver adjacent person here, and I can confirm that RTD leaves a lot to be desired. many of the local busses in my area don't even run on Sundays. The service patterns seem to be mostly built around work commuting. Driving is by far the best way to get anywhere, especially in the mountains or suburbs. RMNP also has timed entry and pretty solid busses. CDOT is looking to build out a train line to Steamboat Springs, which might push Denver to number 1 in the future.
It's not quite as bad if you're on a bike, you can pedal to most of the Golden area open space parks fairly quickly from the Golden light rail station, on bike paths not roads.
As a Denver guy I'm not too angry about missing the number 1 spot - our transit up to the mountains is pretty crappy. The ski train to winter park is pretty neat though more of a gimmick than anything. I hope this changes in the upcoming decades. Sitting in traffic to go to all the beautiful places is such a pain and kills the vibe.
The main issue with the I-70 corridor is it is too steep to build a rail corridor, the feasibility study said Maglev was the only viable technology for that corridor, the existing rail line goes north of Summit county and most of the ski resorts, hence why the ski train only stops at Winter Park, since Winter Park resort sits right at the west portal of the Moffat tunnel. There is an abandoned rail line connecting Vail with Leadville, Buena Vista, Salida and Canon City that could be rehabbed though.
Honolulu, though a small city, deserves a mention. Though we don’t have great bike or public transportation infrastructure versus places like Portland or Seattle, so many residents here benefit from how close a trailhead is to any given point of the city (or the island of Oahu). The views are second to none.
In 2013 I visited the bay area car-free and went to Muir Woods on public transit. It was four hours but I met a lot of very nice foreign tourists along the way. Highly recommend.
Denver has shockingly little transit to the foothills, even to Golden. It's truly surprising given how much Denverites claim to care about the outdoors. And considering that Denver maintains a lot of parks in the Foothills!
Colorado does have the Bustang intercity routes, and is working on train service out to the northwest. Since many routes are all day hikes (or bikes) anyway, planning an overnight doesn't seem unreasonable, for access to so much amazing outdoor activity in stunning settings.
I think the Flatiron Flyer into Boulder is decent. You can bus up to Chautauqua and enjoy any number of excellent hikes. That said, I agree Front Rangers love to espouse eco-friendly values from their 4Runners and Tacomas blasting up I-70 every ski season weekend.
Too many NIMBYs in the burbs that don't want transit. There's even a public bus up to Evergreen that runs down in the morning and back up at night to make sure us poors can't day trip up there, and let's not mention the 3-4 mile bike ride to Golden, the lack of a bus to Idaho Springs, the lack of a bus to Red Rocks, the crappy bus to Cherry Creek res, the rail that stops about 4 miles short of Chatfield, and just how awful Denver chooses to be because they could easily fix these issue but choose not to.
@@jayzee4097 Yup, and the Evergreen bus just goes to downtown Evergreen. The main open space parks there, Alderfer 3 sisters and Lair o' the Bear are several miles out of town, decent bus service to Lair in particular would be a game changer given it's propensity for having a full parking lot every day. Though any bus going there is gonna need a big bike rack.
@@bearcubdaycare Most of the golden area open spaces are good for short day hikes and shorter bike rides. Car-free trail access is actually the best in Summit county, the summit stage bus service goes to most of the major trailheads that are off paved roads in summit county, that bus is also free. You can also take it to the Quandary peak trailhead in summer, the only 14er with transit access to its trailhead.
Calgary, AB deserves a shoutout as well, with Fish Creek Provincial Park inside city limits and served by light rail and a number of different bus routes
I was thinking the same thing. You never know if City Nerd is going to do a NA list or just a US one. In any case, Vancouver is sublime for outdoor/nature access without a car.
Absolutely. Off the top of my head: Cleveland Dam, Grouse Mountain, Lighthouse Park, Pacific Spirit Regional Park, Stanley Park, Deep Cove, Horseshoe Bay, Belcarra Regional Park, and Burnaby Mountain Park are all transit accessible and much more than your typical urban park. Some of those are the edges of true wilderness that you can get to in 20 minutes from downtown on a bus every 10 minutes.
@@SeaToSkyImages He used to do way more North American content with Canada and Mexico included. It's what originally got me hooked, but he's been very US-centric recently. It's probably due to the challenge of getting getting clean and normalized stats from different countries, but it's still disappointing.
If you look into this in the future, you may also want to check the transit in the night on the way back. Many times when hiking around the nation I've had to use a car because while transit is great in the morning, it's spotty or non-existent in the night.
The video I begged for a year ago when I had to leave South Korea! Yay!! Seoul and Korean cities in general set the world standard for allowing a city dweller to go hiking for a quick break. Yes it’s not really wilderness but it’s sooo refreshing to the spirit.
Main reason Korean cities have good hiking is simply bc the country is so mountainous. Even the biggest cities of Seoul and Busan have steep mountains in the middle of the urban density. Valleys full of people and transit lines-steep upper slopes of trees, trails and rocky overlooks. They lucked out geographically. And you can step off a subway in Seoul and there will be a trailhead 100 yards away. Also the circumferential Seoul trail! All easily accessed by subway. They will never be top trails on All Trails but there’s a reason Korea has the most hikers of any country. There’s always a mountain nearby and a local bus to take you there.
I started hiking when I was in Seoul. The subway takes you straight to hikes in the city like Achasan, or you can hit up the grand Bukhansan so easily with the subway and a short bus transfer. I also joined this hiking meetup group that would arrange transportation to and from hiking spots all over Korea that was SO fun and lovely since it wasn't a business trying to make money off of people who wanted to get outdoors!
@@regisphilbin222 Great memories. It’s truly amazing that Bukhan-San is right there and so accessible. And big thumbs up for group activities not run for profit!
As a Denverite, I was impressed with Seoul's access to nature. A car-free life is one thing that kept me there for several years. You can bike from Seoul to Busan on a trail! Then hop on the train back. In Denver I only use my car to access the mountains. The Bustang bus service can get you into the high country, too.
NYC should at least have received an honorable mention. Taking a weekend morning Metro North Hudson line is a great option to get out of the city and hike some exciting trails in the Hudson Highlands, such as Beacon Mtn and Breakneck Ridge. It's possible to get out at one station and hike to another with great views along the way. Also, on the Harlem line, there is an Appalachian Trail stop.
Sydney, Australia has the second oldest national park in the world, Royal National Park (Yellowstone is 7 years older). As the car had not been invented when it opened in 1879 a rail line was built right into it and picnic trains used to be run from Sydney. The picnic trains stopped when people got cars. But the old track is still used by the Sydney Tram (streetcar) museum. You can still get to the park by hopping off at several rail stations which are right next to it or taking a ferry from Cronulla.
You can also get up into the mountains from Sydney and do some decent bush walks over the cliffs between beaches. Great city minus the night life scene.
And the Blue Mountains are easy to get to by train too. Plus the Manly to the Spit, Bondi to Coogee, Cremorne Point, Middle Head, Watsons Bay, Barrenjoey Head, Homebush to Parramatta Riverside path are nice walks.
Philadelphia’s Wissihickon Park deserves an honorable mention as probably being one of the best places to hike entirely within a city (you forget you’re in a city) and the Lehigh Valley George deserves an honorable mention for its incredible views and the fact that you can take a tourist train to a trail head that you bike back to the station from along the Lehigh Valley
I live in the LV and I can walk about 15 minutes to the woods and trails on South Mountain. Or drive 3-4 mins to the official trailhead down the road from me. It’s sooo nice!
As a Denverite, RTD doesn't really go to many trailheads, they really need to have a bus service in Golden that does the circuit of all the open space parks in Golden and Morrison, run it on weekends, and have it start/terminate at the Golden light rail station. If you're biking, you can pedal to most of the Golden area open space parks pretty easily from the light rail station (Golden's bike path system links up all the open space parks), the RTD rail system has decent bike acommodations, the buses only have a 2 slot bike rack that won't fit MTB tires. There is better transit access to trails in Boulder with RTD stopping at Chataqua park and also running a summer bus service up to Nederland and the West Magnolia trail system.
The results of the list totally match what I had in my head. But if I had one small critique as an avid hiker, I would say I generally avoid any trails popular enough to be in the top 100. But truth be told all these cities have less popular and less crowded options that are also very good.
I’d love to see this list with Canada included. I could see Vancouver winning it all, with Calgary and possibly even Edmonton ranking in the top 10 considering Elk Island National Park.
Hard to say while Canadian cities have fantastic nearby parks almost none of them are connected by any sort of transit. I'm in London, ON, 1 hour by car from 3 different great lakes and the only one I can get to by transit is by going to Windsor on Via Rail. Hamilton is 45 minutes by car from Niagara falls one of the wonders of the natural world, but no transit connection.
@@mrvwbug4423 Yes, I take the bus from Vancouver (not North Van) to go for hikes on the north shore regularly, there's one that stops 2 blocks from where I live and goes straight to Lynn Valley
If you’re really focusing on car-free access, I think you’re really sleeping on the Northeast. Philadelphia has the Wissahickon Valley, easily accessible by SEPTA bus and regional rail, NYC has a preserved old growth forest in Bronx Park and several nature trails in the Hudson Valley are accessible on the Metro-North Hudson Line, and Boston has the Middlesex Fells. Halibut Point State Park can also be accessed by Cape Ann Transit from Rockport, which is on the MBTA commuter rail. Sure, the Northeast has fewer preserved wilderness ares than the west, but there is still some nature left, and it’s all far more accessible than most of what you showed here (although not gonna lie, Seattle seems to be fantastic for car-free access to nature)
There's also Inwood Hill Park right under the Henry Hudson bridge at the northern tip of Manhattan, a short walk from the A train. I'm in NYC next month and plan on visiting it.
@@charlienyc1 I haven’t been to Inwood Hill exactly, but a close friend of mine lives in NYC and last time I visited her, we went to the Met Cloisters and walked around nearby Fort Tryon Park. It’s hard to believe you’re still in Manhattan when you’re there! It’s a really magical place, especially since it was a cloudy, misty day when we were there
@@dannygerth5785 It's similar to Ft. Tryon, but ~20 blocks north and it really feels nothing like NYC. On the W side of the hill, your view is dominated by the river & a beautiful dense tree-lined shores of NJ (which actually exists!). It's super quiet and relaxing and feels incredibly remote.
UTA (Salt Lake's Transit Agency) really needs to run busses up Big and Little Cottonwood canyons in the summer (they run ski busses in winter). It would be so easy to hit a few major trailheads. The main reason I bought a car in SLC after 2 years car-free was hiking access.
DEFINITELY. Going up the canyons in Summer is the best. We're a few short miles from 100° rush hour traffic and 80° tranquil trails, but without a car you're S.O.L.
I haven't watched the video yet, but I have to shout out my city, Burlington, VT. There are so many natural areas that I can walk, bike, and take the bus to from downtown. There's even a mountain that you can reasonably bike to. (Mt. Philo) One of the many reasons I love it here!! I walk out my front door and one way I see the Adirondacks over Lake Champlain, and the other way the Green Mountains. It's amazing.
Preserving nature is one of the most important reasons for building dense cities! Hmmm...if only there were already a video about this idea...😅 In all seriousness, love your videos. Keep em coming!
I left a comment (won't repost the whole thing) how denser cities = less land for people = more land for nature and farming. It's honestly my main focus when talking about urbanism
I know that you focus on US cities, but I need to mention Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in this category. There are two big natural parks (Tijuca national park and pedra branca state park) that are basically inside the city and help to preserve the Atlantic forest biome. There are lots of trails, including ones to access the well know sugar loaf (specifically Urca's hill) and the Christ of the redeemer (corcovado hill), that have easy access to bus stops and metro lines. Even other cities in the metropolitan region have also preservation areas who you can visit without a car.
I agree! When I was in Rio de Janeiro, the relative ease of access to all the nature and geography the city is nestled in, was quite surprising, and I was also surprised at how safe it was walking about and how lush and vivid the landscapes were. I got to the pedestrian stair access to the Cristo Redentor using a bus that picked up directly from Botafogo, and was walking adjacent to the funicular, which was real neat. The geographical features of Rio are quite surreal
would you visit any of these besides corcovado on your own? early in the morning (when cooler)? i've been considering these but wondering about personal safety (preferably recently).
@@esgee3829yes. Some of them have more people, like the Morro da Urca (urca's hill), starts at a pedestrian path (Pista Cláudio Coutinho) that starts beside the Praia Vermelha beach. It's probably the easier to reach and shorter. That's also the Pedra Bonita, that is in the Tijuca national park and closer to the kite/parapent ramp, so there's people there almost all day. Tijuca's national park has control points so it's also safer. Personally I always did those trails in a group or with one other person at least, because it's more enjoyable rather of fear or safety.
Was just there this last July and did most of those hikes by myself. Did not feel endangered at all, but I did try to avoid any entrances near favelas. Regarding news stories about problems popping up on those trails: news stories become more popular the more shocking they are.
Philadelphia has a massive park and forest system in Fairmount & Wissahickon. Hours of activity available in biking, hiking, canoeing, rock climbing etc. all without leaving the city limits and accessible by many buses
The Wissahickon is no doubt one of the most remarkable city parks in the country. It is more of a nature preserve than a develped park, and if you live near it you are most fortunate.
Boston has one of the the highest densities of inner-metro green space in the country! This includes the Esplanade, Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Oaths, Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, Jamaica Pond and the Forest Hills Cemetery, which is, in and of itself, offers hundreds of acres of perfectly-manicured walking, running and cycling space. Down the road, er rails, in NYC, while Central Park gets most of the fame for urban green space, the Bronx Botanical Garden and Brooklyn Botanical Garden both offer hundreds of acres of recreational space. If that's not "real hiking" enough, for Boston, there is the Lynn Woods to north and Blue Hills to the south, both transit-accessible. For NYC, there are numerous "real hiking" opportunities accessible by Metro-North and the Long Island Railroad.
It's a bit outside the scope of this video, but talking about transit to natural places makes me think about Yellowstone. I'm from Montana, and we get TONS of folks from all over the world who fly in, rent a car, and drive to Yellowstone so they can sit in traffic for an hour trying to see Old Faithful or whatever. I'm of the opinion that if we want places like Yellowstone to be both worth seeing and accessible to people in the future, we need transit to and within national parks. I'm sure a train would be less destructive and more convenient than a billion personal vehicles stuck in traffic. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Zion NP has banned most cars from its main road and has a fleet of electric buses. It's a huge improvement! There's less road noise, less air pollution, and less land taken up by pullouts and parking . Plus, when you're traveling through the park, you can focus on the sights instead of the road.
You’re only counting over 1 million residents, but Anchorage has the woods in everyone’s backyards. Growing up we had moose camp in our driveway and we as kids could be in the woods woods around Cheney Lake all year round.
The transit is straight up awful though. Same with Fairbanks. So yes, you can access the outdoors easily without a car, but if you want to access any part of the wilderness other than the part right by your house you have to drive.
@@reilandeubank I love Juneau, and the city just completed a reorganization of the bus lines and announced a downtown circulator service to start operation next summer. Downtown Juneau also has some very good urban fabric. I really believe Juneau feels more urban than even Anchorage which is 10x larger. Juneau’s trail system is a bit lacking though, at least from my point of view coming from Sitka’s fantastic network.
You can take a very expensive train ride to Denali national park and nature points south until you hit Seward. Pretty awesome option to have as someone looking to travel there w/o a car.
@@Hahlen Totally agree! I just got back from a trip to AK (a cruise, yes i know...) and TOTALLY fell in love. I'm a city lover, which is why I'm here in the first place, but Sitka and Juneau were both incredible. Juneau's downtown felt so much more real and urban than so many larger places I've been, and as you said their bus lines are suprisingly adequate.
Yay! Two of my favorite things: living in a car free city and hiking beautiful trails in nature. Most of the cities were the ones I expected, but I was surprised to see Phoenix ranked so high.
I might get shunned for this but as a native Detroiter living in the Bay Area. I truly believe the Bay Area has the best balance of weather, city, and nature access. I don't think any other comparable major cities can compare in the States. Its a very unique geographical location. I have yet to visit Seattle but my take is, nature and access is great 60-75% of the year.
Small correction. In the DC area MARC running to Harper's Ferry is a commuter train and not a bus. You were correct in that it is a Monday-Friday operation geared towards DC commuters.
While it's a much smaller metro area, I think Spokane WA deserves an honorable mention here. While it doesn't have these big name trails, it DOES have literal state parks within city limits (both Riverside and Mt Spokane), along with MANY other natural areas. Being outdoors is really part of the culture there. No, these aren't your "top 10 scenic trails", but they ARE not crowded at all, and instead of being a 1 hour bus ride, they're a 20 minute bike ride away. I'd argue they're more accessible/closeby than those in Portland. They are great places you'd go all the time, versus a destination vacation you do once a year.
Fair, but if you wanna pick a fight with Portland, you'll have to contend with Forest Park, 5200 acres of forest with loads of trails and walking distance from the city center.
I can beat that--Minneapolis/St paul literally has a national recreation area running right through the middle of the urban area (the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area). Also from Minneapolis, it's only a short bike ride or light rail ride to the Minnesota valley national wildlife refuge.
Re: Denver. RTD is heavily skewed in catering to weekday commuters so transit access on a weekend tends to be poor. That being said, I knew a lot of people who had arrangements with their employer to swap weekend days with weekdays (specifically for skiing). Though access to Golden and Morrison are pretty poor from downtown Denver, access to Boulder is good via FF1 bus.
Hi, Denver folk here, and yes you've got us totally right, though we are working to improve transit access to the mtns with a rail option from downtown Denver and the bustang busses, but that's all 2+ hours.
I have to admit, I am a little surprised that the the NYC commuter train stop on the Appalachian Trail didn't merit a mention of some kind--particularly because it's the only train stop on the 2,100+ mile trail.
I kept waiting for it to be mentioned. This was a very Western-centric list. I mean The Appalachian Trail? Sorry it doesn't go through some dry desert rocky mountain but it's pretty great if you don't mind green.
Came to the comments to say this. I do get it though, it didn't fit the criteria of being listed on AllTrails as a top 100 trail - so it wouldn't be included in this analysis. There is a small part of me that would love to see two lists: one list of trails or "nature experiences" on either side of the Mississippi River since it probably splits the country in the most natural location for this type of analysis. Yeah the western US is beautiful, but we don't do too bad ourselves here on the East coast. :)
@@mariaansley1519 which really just shows that this methodology isn't that useful. You can also take New Jersey transit to the lakes and small mountains in the northwest of the state, and take Amtrak to Vermont and the Adirondacks.
It's so easy to get to the Appalachian trail from the metro North though. And you can even take a boat up there and enjoy Bear Mountain. Maybe not top 100 in the county but I think that area has some of the top 100 East of the Mississippi. I did grow up in the Rockies, so I get why the East Coast cities got the shaft.
@@charliesullivan4304so what is your method that is more useful? I'd definitely look at good trails on all trails for good city options, so it seems useful to me
I get that you were just using top 100 trails which definitely trends towards mountains, but look into Cleveland on this topic as well. Cleveland Metroparks are frequently ranked as best in the nation. Easy rail, bus, and bike access to a lot of beaches, parks, and even a national park with a scenic train running through it. I can take a bus that has 15 minute frequency from Public Square to the 50 ft Mill Creek Falls. Bike, bus, or rail to Edgewater Beach/Park. Irishtown Bend is a new park being built right now that will be one of the best urban parks in the country. You can bike to Cuyahoga Valley National Park from Downtown or Edgewater Park on bike trails that are entirely separated from the road. And there are more improvements on the way.
You said what I was thinking- I get the beauty of mountains but there are other natural settings beside having to live in the West of near Grt Smoky Mtns. I love the mountains and enjoy being there on vacation but I live in Cleveland. Cleveland's park system is amazing. However, @CityNerd I always enjoy your content!
Another example is Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area literally runs straight through Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. And the Mississippi Valley National Wildlife refuge--a major hot spot for birding--is accessible both by transit (light rail) and separated bike paths from Minneapolis.
i wouldn't add any but vancouver for the transit bit to a canada/global list. can get from city to northshore trails in about an hour by transit. not the case for those other cities (mont royal doesn't count imo).
SLC has good trails starting at University of Utah, which is accessible by light rail. You can ride the train to the uni and walk 20 minutes through campus to a trailhead.
accidentally walking down to memory grove park was literally the coolest part of my trip to slc from st. george. (which should be on the list of smaller us cities close to nature) but it just reassured me that i need to move to downtown slc
SLC is fantastic, as a former U of U student, there’s nothing like it. I don’t think our Trax system gets the love it deserves on any of the urbanism channels, aside from RMTransit, who actually does a great video about it
I'm guessing the Cleveland/Akron, Ohio area just missed for population, but you can practically take transit from downtown Cleveland and Akron to the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which has very good hiking and biking trails. Also, in season the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad runs from downtown Akron and near Cleveland through the park and has a dedicated baggage car and coach for bicyclists for a flat, reasonable fee. This is one of only two national parks with a tourist railroad serving it (Great Smoky Mountains is the other), and both are among the top visited parks in the system.
I just made a similar comment haha. Cleveland has over 2 million so it meets the population standard, but I think only using the top 100 trails on all trails is what kept us off. Those top 100 are almost entirely mountain trails.
I get that this video isn’t considered small cities, but its still insane that Flagstaff, AZ isn’t mentioned when 95% of the city is less than 30 minutes by foot or bus from a trail that goes into the mountains.
I'd say Tucson is better than Phoenix, too, with Mt Lemmon, Sabino Canyon, Madera Canyon, and Saguaro National Park. Unlike Tucson, none of the mountains around Phoenix are high enough to be green and forested.
I live in Flagstaff but just spent the summer in Portland and one of the things I disliked about Portland is that all the hiking is so far away. Something you have to drive an hour to get to is a relatively close hike! Also Sedona is quite far from Phoenix and AllTrails is smoking something, Devil's Bridge isn't even one of the best hikes in Sedona. (Though probably it is one of the most crowded.)
@@bethanyweber3989 Yep. Devil's Bridge is a Sedona hike we would never do again -- very crowded for a minimal payoff (a long line of people waiting to be photographed on the natural bridge). Yuck. But even with nobody on the trail, it wouldn't rate that high for Sedona.
I agree that Tucson has better hiking but the issue is lack of transit to those areas and that Phoenix has some great hiking right in the urban area which means better transit. Flag is just too small to be considered for this list. It might make best hiking near small cities.
@@cmdrls212 that’s why. the population center that borders the park system is greater than one million. But its divided into many cities, the most populous being Oakland at just under a half mil.
@@ianbent0n Berkeley and Oakland are part of the San Francisco “metropolitan statistical area” as defined by the Census Bureau. Maybe they weren’t mentioned due to time constraints? Or if it’s because Redwood, Sibley, Tilden, and the other East Bay Regional Parks aren’t represented in AllTrails, that’s fine by me, they’re already plenty busy and popular enough 🤫
Estes is incredibly unfriendly to bikes, no real bike infrastructure in town, and no MTB trails in the area even outside RMNP. And the roads there are awful for road cycling, small shoulders, no bike lanes, and endless distracted drivers.
As a city-dwelling avid hiker/biker/climber, it's fun to see many different places I've called home or frequently visited. It's also fun to hear "Estes" pronounced like "testes".
Denver and Colorado are making a lot of strides in the right direction, like CDOT’s Bustang service directly into RMNP on the weekends, potentially reviving rail service through the Moffat tunnel to NW Colorado, and maybe a bus connection from the end of the W light rail to Red Rocks. However, Colorado doesn’t yet have the same attitude towards public transit as CA/OR/WA yet. Everyone here is from the Midwest and has no experience with the benefits of transit and wants to show off their $60k Tacoma/4Runner/van in I70 traffic :/ I love Colorado and it’s beautiful but it absolutely does not have transit accessible nature at the moment
@@bantolphbantir9605 Europe works hard to make wilderness areas available to people. It has to, because the ratio of people to wilderness is pretty much zero. Europe has people everywhere, I loved it when I traveled there from Vancouver in my 20s. Even taking the train through the alps, although beautiful, there was always evidence of habitation. After a month or so, what I noticed, and started to miss, was that in Vancouver, 20 minutes from downtown, accessible by transit, you can go for a hike and never see anyone. If you go off the trail even for short distance, you can get lost, and find yourself somewhere no human has ever been. And if you were prepared and knew what you’re doing, you could walk all the way to the North Pole, (2400kms, 1400 miles), never seeing another person, and crossing perhaps two paved roads and some gravel trails.
I just left the #8 city on this list for grad school in the environmental program at a rural university. When I described myself as an urbanist a couple of weeks ago, I was literally sneered at. Thank you for the great explanation of why cities matter!
Hey, my town got a mention! I never thought CityNerd would mention Estes Park, CO. There is a (long) bus ride from Denver and every bus/trolley in town once you get here is free to ride!
The main issue is, transit accessible hiking in RMNP doesn't run at the hours needed to hike the trails worth hiking there. Sure you can do a couple hour hike around Bear Lake, but if you're planning an all day hike you need to start very early there. If you're doing Black Lake, Sky Pond, Flattop/Hallet, Andrews Glacier, you need to start those hikes before 7AM, and if you're doing Longs peak (which is not transit accessible at this time) you need to start around 2-3AM.
Just want to shout out Chicago, where you can literally take a commuter train from downtown into a national park - the South Shore Line runs into, and stops at, Indiana Dunes National Park. Not a renowned hiking site, but pretty cool that you can do that!
The use of the All Trails list is problematic in that a) it's somewhat arbitrary unless you're in the 99th percentile of the hiking population and b) those trails are by and large remote from population centers. Thus, wonderful opportunities such as Indiana Dunes are simply invisible from this point of view.
@danielshlian There are lots of forest preserves and parks such as Chicago Botanic Garden and Morton Arboretum in the Chicago suburbs that are accessible via Metra rail and/or Pace bus. Lake County north of Chicago has been diligently buying up land and turning it into forest preserve for years, and they're trying to interconnect as many walking/bike trails as they can. What we don't have is the grand scenery (mountains, canyons, etc) that the places Ray mentioned do. They call Illinoisans "flatlanders" for a reason!
I would like to add to Denver that we have a ski train, i.e., a train that takes you from downtown Denver to Winter Park to ski for the day, which for the US is pretty unique.
Yes that is only a thing because the Winter Park resort is literally at the west portal of the Moffat tunnel. You can also time the lift opening time by when the California Zephyr emerges from the west portal, right at 10AM.
So glad you made this video! I’m an east coaster but 25 years ago bought a 3-month Greyhound pass to travel the country. After a month or so I ended up in the PNW because of the transit options. When I was in Seattle, I would catch an eastbound Greyhound every evening and ride it to Butte, where I’d disembark at about 2 AM and wait for a westbound bus back to Seattle. I guess a $15 hostel bed was too speedy back then. I also took a combination of ferries and local buses to the trailhead of the Bogachiel River trail in Olympic National Park (got off at Forks) and had an awesome public transit hike. Years later I caught a bus from downtown Seattle to awesome skiing at Crystal Mountain and another bus all the way up to Whistler. This summer I was back in the area and took a Greyhound from Port Townsend to Kingston. It still blows my mind, but crossing the Hood Canal Bridge, I saw a minke whale swimming towards the bus. I’ve seen plenty of orcas on ferries in Puget Sound before. If there is more epic nature accessible by public transit in the US, I’d love to know about it. It definitely deserves the #1 spot.
A city park, even a large one, is of course a welcomed addition to an urban area, but it pales in comparison to the impact that actual WILDERNESS has not just on humans, but obviously on the plants and animals that we share the world with and rely on. The Little Owl from this video needs a home range of ~10 hectares (~25 acres) to provide all the food and shelter it needs to survive. A single 10 hectare parcel will be exponentially better habitat than ten 1 hectare city parks. Preventing urban sprawl and adding density to cities, specifically for environmental protection, is in my opinion the most important and maybe the most unifying aspect of the urbanism movement. Of course there are the monetary benefits of less utilities and infrastructure to build and maintain, and the numerous benefits of living closer to destinations (time constraints, car dependency, mental health, etc) but as much as humans need social connections, we NEED access to nature. Less land used for housing people means more land for nature as well as for agriculture. As a Midwesterner, it pains me to see more and more of the most productive farmland in the world turned into subdivisions. But it's pretty hard to blame a farmer who lives on the edge of town for selling their land to developers for 50x it's agricultural value, which is why greenbelt initiatives don't see much support. There needs to be something in the Conservation Reserve Program specifically targeting land owners close to urban areas to keep their land as natural areas.
Nice timing. I rewatched an older video the other day, where you mentioned you were planning to do a video like this. It was from over a year ago, so I went looking for this video and couldn't find it. Now, a couple of days later, here it is.
The Colorado Bustang and Winter Park train connects Denver to multiple ski resorts, mountain bike parks, and of course hiking. I live in a foothills suburb, work remotely, and almost never drive my fuel guzzling truck since I cycle almost everywhere, including mtb singletracks. Wife and I moved here for the outdoors!
Atlanta is a city with plenty of beautiful trails and waterfall hikes within 100 miles / 2 hour car ride. However, none are accessible by public transit. That would be a game changer for Atlanta!
I told you it was a secret. Psst...East Palisades Trail and Bamboo Forest. And there's always the Silver Comet Trail. The Mavell Road Trailhead is about an hour from Arts Center Station. Take the Rapid 10 to Cumberland then the 20 to S Cobb Drive and Cooper Lake. It's a mile walk to the trailhead.
Not in the USA, but the Signal Hill trail in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada is a great example. Nothing else like it. A cliffside walk just 10 minutes' walk from downtown's main street. Not to be missed if you visit during the summer or fall.
In Atlanta we have a separated bike trail and bus service to Stone Mountain park. I believe we have bus service to Kennesaw mountain which is the gateway to Appalachia. If you’d like a tour of urbanist sights in Atlanta feel free to hit me up.
I know this list is US focused, but Madrid has a fantastic area called La Casa de Campo de Madrid that is bigger than many of the spots on this list and is directly accessible by Madrid Metro.
When I was growing up in Oregon we did so much hiking. I loved. Everyone decide to move to Arizona at the same time and that's when we ceased to be an outdoors family. I really miss tree- covered, pine-scented, mossy hiking trails.
Pittsburgh with 42% forest cover and a trail that goes all the way to the Watergate Hotel in DC from Dahntahn isn't mentioned? The Montour Trail goes 2/3 of the way around the city. Trails cover the banks of all 3 rivers for many miles.
Great Allegheny Passage doesn't make the cut for top 100 trails :( Though if it was, he'd totally mention that industrial dessert establishment along the way, next to the Hot Metal bridge.
My favorite is Pittsburgh to Connellsville on Amtrak then returning on the GAP. trail. Bus or light rail to the Montour tail is another good Pittsburgh adventure.
If you can afford to live here, San Diego County has decent public-transit access to beautiful coastal areas, mainly through the Coaster commuter rail line.
Even inland, you can ride the trolley and take the buses in east county to get close to the Mission Trails park and Mt Cowles trailhead. I did that one day for a morning hike. I definitely prefer the Coaster train, compared to LA's metro lines just terminating in Santa Monica and Long Beach.
@@GirtonOramsay The Coaster is pretty nice, but it's also contributing to even more sprawl. I'm up in Escondido. The Sprinter rail line here can also get you to some nice places if you don't mind walking or riding your bike for a bit from the stations.
@GirtonOramsay the trolley is only good in Mission Valley or near downtown. East County trolley gets you nowhere. You either have to take a bunch of busses or bike or take an Uber
@@Ignaciombr we at least have some form of regional rail to get across the county, then "rapid" buses to fill in gaps, like downtown SD to Escondido or Otay Mesa border crossing. Naturally you will have to hop on local buses or bike to get to specific destinations. It's what I do.
@GirtonOramsay well I live in East County and the trolley stops over here are horrible. If there was a rapid bus line here I guess it would help out a bit but the thing that's also missing is consistency, trolley should run every 7 min not 15
Philly is deeply underrated when it comes to access to nature: Schukyill river trail and Wissonoming Trail are literally in Philly but absolutely don’t feel like there in the city.
It's over a million as of 2020 (for the CMA anyway). Honestly mountain areas have such a huge advantage on this list because the slopes are hard.to build on so you end up with nature reserves basically everywhere.
Yeah, I was expecting Honolulu to be #1. It had to have missed out on consideration. The trails are numerous, closer and head-and-shoulders better in quality than anything else on the list. It should have at least gotten a mention for simply how obvious it is. It is like disqualifying Yellowstone on a list of best geysers.
The Appalachian Trail goes through Harper’s Ferry in addition to the national historical park mentioned. MARC train and Amtrak train stop there as well.
Sir I beg to differ. How can you leave out New York City? The Appalachian Trail is a 2220 mile trail that goes from Maine to Georgia. It is surround by state parks and there is access to a network of thousands of miles of trails. It is adjacent to hundreds of lakes and rivers. There are four great access points to The Appalachian Trail from NYC via public transit . All of them with plentiful service and an under 2 hour commute. Take the 197 local bus from The Port Authority (1hr 45 minutes) or the 196 express (1 hr and 15 minutes) to Abram S. Hewitt State Forest (Greenwood Lake Marina stop) and it is less than a one minute walk to a trailhead that will bring you up to the ridge and then onto the trail. The same is available in downtown Greenwood lake NY at the Chestnut street stop. For the third, in Greenwood Lake, stop at Stripers Way (Bellvale Farms Ice Cream) and the bus will let you off on the trail itself. The fourth most well known access point is Garrison NY on the Metro North railroad. From Grand Central Station take the train to the Garrison NY Stop, which is about 200 yards from the trail entrance. 1hr 35. I'll take my acknowledgement on air.
Yeah people forget just how many amazing trails are literally just north of NYC up in the Hudson valley, with transit access. There's some spots out on the east end of Long Island that aren't far from LIRR service either.
Metro North is not the LIRR. Both commuter lines are under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), as is the NYC Subway. I do agree that NYC is surrounded by great hiking trails, upstate and in New Jersey; all accessible by easy MTA or NJ Transit from, respectively, Grand Central Terminal (not “station;” there’s no through service) or Penn Station.
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH Absolutely. It was the first trail I accessed when I was new to NYC. It fits the criteria and should be counted towards the broader picture.
I dunno man, transit from Calgary to Banff or Edmonton to Jasper is absolutely pathetic given the size of the cities and how iconic those parks are. We've needed public trains on those routes for decades. Lots of Canadian cities have the proximity, but only Vancouver and Victoria provide decent transit in my experience.
@@Ramsayrider you’ve hit the nail on the head! For the most part it seems like Canada’s largest cities and metro areas like metro Vancouver have great transit. Anywhere else is setup with a barebones system. Out of metro Vancouver the Fraser Valley & Sea to Sky region have terrible transit systems. The second part to this has to do with the way the local govt supports public transit. Thankfully Metro Vancouver has a sweet setup with a MTA style govt run transit system that also receives funds from gas tax, property tax and tolls on roads and bridges(now defunct cause no tolls with the NDP). I think most regions should shift from a transit system to an all encompassing public transit agency that’s in full control of roads bridges and transit.
Being a forester who enjoys your humorous city-centric channel, I appreciate the occasional nature shoutout! Bravo figuring out a methodology for this! 🌿✨️👏
Haven't lived in metro Denver for quite a few years now, but in the early 2000's, I very much liked the Hayden-Green Mountain area at the west edge of suburban Lakewood. Easily accessible by ordinary city bus, spectacular views in every direction of the whole Denver basin from the summit. I was also partial to Mount Falcon Park, a Denver regional park in the foothills that feels more like being in the mountains than Green Mountain. Several worthwhile trails at about 7,000 feet. If you're local, no problem. If not, you'll need a few days to get acclimated to the altitude. My favorite - alas, being loved to death when I left Colorado - is the Brainard Lake area in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, adjacent to Ward, CO. Just over 50 miles from Denver's Union Station downtown. I'm not aware of any transit, but that might have changed in the 15 years since I left. It's true high country, and heavily over-used because it's relatively easy hiking to Blue Lake, Long Lake, Lake Isabelle, Pawnee Pass, etc.
Check out Omaha for this actually. Lake Zorinsky is a dense forest/lake area right in the middle of Omaha where you don't see any city buildings at all. It has deer, wild turkey and other wild animals. Trail has several suburban neighborhoods surrounding it with walk-able trail access. It's also bike-able.
From Vegas you can day trip to Utah - Zion, Bryce, AZ - Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, CA -Death Valley, Joshua Tree NPs. Red rock, Mt Charleston, and Valley of Fire in NV. Pretty unbeatable access.
“If weather permits” The city of Phoenix tries to close mountain hiking trails in city parks when it’s too hot outside (at least 100F), so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to try to hike there during the middle of summer anyways, unless you’re doing it early in the morning, which is the coolest part of the day. It takes a lot of work to try to rescue people suffering from heat exhaustion.
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Can you cover Jackson, Mississippi?
Please do a video on Santa Rosa California, it's a very car centric city. Iive in Cloverdale which is a small city so cycling is not that intimidating even with car centric design relative to what it would be if there was more car traffic, it's still bad but nothing compared to Santa Rosa California which is just horrible, I wouldn't even cross a crosswalk there much less ride a bike if I didn't have to.
Where do I get this cars ruin cities sticker??? 😂
if you do a smaller metros (under 1m) version of this. definitely include st. george, ut. zion is in our metro
Have you done a video on all the trails you can et to from NYC by train or bus?
There are also great places to go for a day trip outside of NY if you rent a car.
This video should be called "cities with car-free access to iconic hiking spots".
there is/was one car manufacturer advertising how nice and quiet it was, ignoring the fact the car itself causes a lot of noise pollution for everybody else. Cars ruin cities but also the "great outdoors"
Does that exist? Though you can get to the outdoors with mass transit, but you aren’t gonna get the top 100 trails , outside San Francisco and Phoenix and a handful of others
"cities with car-free access to over-rated hiking spots" -- if it's on the top 100, it's going to be overcrowded on the trail anyway. the Bear Lake area hikes mentioned in RMNP for Denver are decent, but there is far better stuff out there
or "the biggest cities in the west" lol
Man I REALLY struggled with finding a concise title for this
Before coming to the US I was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan's largest city (circa 2.5 million people), and the absolutely great thing about Almaty is the mountain ranges around the city with dozens of hiking trails. Pretty much all of those trails are accessible with local transit and there are your regular city buses going to the mountains as part of their route. This makes it very easy to go hiking pretty much any time and any season.
Yes, that area is stunning. I was fortunate enough to go up to Shymbulak and Big Almaty Lake, fish and grill shashlik on several visits. As a retired person, I could definitely live in Almaty as there's so much incredible nature nearby.
Very nice
Калайсын
Loved Hong Kong for this
Wow! I have a coworker from eastern Kazakhstan and she tells me the mountains there are gorgeous. Would be amazing to go hiking there!
I think relying on the top 100 trails list is a bit distracting from the goal of balancing city living with some great nature. There are many quality state and local trails that don't require as much travel to get to, whereas I would likely plan a multi-day trip to experience something in the top 100. But I can't blame you as someone who doesn't identifies as a hiker!
I agree. No one methodology is going to be perfect, but limiting this to only the top 100 hiking trails on an app that I'd argue isn't super reliable ignores a lot of metros with great access to nature. Cities like Cleveland, Akron, and tucson have a national park on their doorstep. Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and DC have national recreation trails and state parks within 50 miles. NYC, Baltimore, and Boston all have relatively easy connections to Appalachian MTN hiking and biking. Some have better transit than others, but taking a bus and bike combination can get you out to natural settings relatively easily and that doesn't even account for water-based recreation.
I like this video, but I don't think it'll be new info for most people. If someone is looking to move to a new city that has good outdoor recreation and good urban amenities and stumbles across this video, they'd likely miss out on so many great opportunities and see cities they already had in mind.
I think I agree with this, what's more important to me than a world-class awesome hike within 100 miles is some really natural-feeling parks within the city itself (e.g. Seattle's Interlaken Park or New York's Van Cortlandt Park). Having said that - I still think the list gets the order pretty much correct, with Phoenix/Denver/Seattle topping the list and San Fran/Salt Lake/Portland close behind. Maybe because cities that are sort of close to awesome nature have a citizenry of people that want pretty awesome nature to be even closer - but that's pure speculation
agree. for me it is not so much that the trail is ranked at 40 or 400. if it is a well maintained trail, meaning it is not tick-infested, well-marked, and most importantly, light on traffic ( after all aren't we trying to escape from the density by coming here?) then it is a good trail. on the contrary, nationally famous trails tend to be overcrowded, some even feel touristy.
Northwest Arkansas region is a good spot you can hike or bike within a short distance from town and then you have the Ozark mountains an hour south
Same I like nature paths in city’s I don’t wanna hike the entire Appalachian trail
Understand why your criteria doesn't capture this but in the Albany NY area the local public transportation is running "nature bus" service to area state parks, free of charge! Many surrounding communities are looking to replicate this, it's great to see the growing recognition that we shouldn't lock access to nature behind car ownership!
That sounds awesome
I'm from Sch'dy and didn't know this. Can you get to Thacher Park on transit?
... why your criteria (plural) don't* capture (singular = criterion)
That sounds lovely.
It's so funny you bring up Potato Chip Rock. When I was a senior in high school, I skipped school to go on a hike after my girlfriend broke up with me. I didn't have a car, so I took MTS all the way there and had to take an uber the last 4 miles. I ended up taking the trolley, 2 buses, and a shuttle to get there from Chula Vista. When I finished my hike, the bus was 30 minutes late so my mom ended up finding out and yelled at me haha.
This was back in 2015 and I remember telling myself "I wish there was public transit to just take me there." Brought back a funny memory when you showed the trip on google maps.
in this kind of case, the travel there is definitely part of the adventure. it's cool you tried it!
Somebody should tell Miles In Transit to do a Potato Chip Rock trip report video
Yeah Potato chip rock is definitely not accessible, unless you count going there as just reaching the entrance but the actual trail is not within public transit reach
touching on cities not being the antithesis of the 'natural world' is so important; especially when that narrative is largely pushed by suburbanites and NIMBYs who completely disregard the huge and negative externalities of suburban sprawl and scattering of amenities
I live in Boulder, Colorado. I can walk from my apartment, to the top of Mount Sanitas, to downtown Boulder, and back in 3 hours. It would be interesting to see a list with a lower population threshold. People from the Denver metro love to connect their identity to the mountains, but it is almost 100% only accessible by car. Every weekend, year round, I-70 is bumper to bumper traffic with 9-5ers headed to the mountains to ski or hike.
The warning early in the video is right: the methodology of top trails from alltrails is where this goes wrong, and then the end result isn't really salvageable. I'm an urbanite and a serious outdoor person, and it's more useful to have access to many trailheads/trails/public land than to have access to a particular top trail. As others have said, Metro-North & NJT are underrated for access to the ring of mountains around the NYC metro area. Metro-North even lets you bring your dog to the trail.
NYC has great service to mountains that is actually legitimate train service. Germany is also fantastic at this concept.
During my most recent visit to Munich, I took a day trip out to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The train was full of people headed for the ski slopes, with their gear neatly stowed in the ski/snowboard racks. As a skiier myself, I was so jealous!
New York City has amazing hiking upstate via Metro North train
What are your favourite trails that are train accessible? I've hike the breakneck ridge hike often but am looking for new ideas
@@joeyang7441 Take the metro north hudson line to Manitou. Get off there and it's a 15 minute walk to the appalachian trail. I really think NYC deserves to be on this list because from Midtown 7 days a week you can take a 1 hour train ride to the most famous and longest trail in the country.
@@joeyang7441harriman state park via nj transit
the people want a 'cities with the best public parks' video. give the people what they want!
He already made that video a couple years ago. Central Park in NYC was #1 of course. I think Forest Park in St. Louis was #2. Pretty sure The Presidio or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco were on the list too.
@@geisaune793 Eh, that's a 'best public parks' video. It's not about the overall quality of all the parks in a city. A city can have one incredible park, but if the rest of it's park system is lackluster or non-existent...that makes a pretty big difference. Especially in places like New York or San Francisco where housing around those parks is extremely expensive.
@@katiem.3109 You're talking about something more like a "Parkscore" which aggregates a city's parks overall and ranks cities based on these scores taking into account things like transit access, park acreage per resident, how well they're distributed around a city, amenities, etc? That would be an interesting video and could potentially have NYC not make the top 5 or possibly not make the list at all even with its mighty Central Park, citywide park access isn't particularly great given the sheer amount of people that live there.
Glad to see DC get a mention. I know a lot of what we've got doesn't quite fit your criteria, but the DC area has an amazing amount of trails, parks, and general nature. I love that you can get off the Metro at Rosslyn and walk for like 10 minutes and be on Theodore Roosevelt Island, where you can forget that you're in a major metropolitan region for a while. There are a lot of trails that wind through urban and suburban areas where, at least in the summer time when the leaves are full and green, you can forget that you're only fifty yards from someone's back porch or an office building's loading dock.
Apparently there's a bus that'll get you from downtown DC to Shenandoah, but it seems like a long haul, not very cheap, and I don't think it runs very often.
Completely agree! Also, in addition to the MARC commuter service, Harper's Ferry is serviced daily by Amtrak's Capitol Limited. It still wouldn't work for a day trip, but it's a perfect overnight!
Rock Creek Park can also get pretty woodsy and is in the city limits.
Yep, I did that Amtrak trip to Harper's Ferry earlier this year to stay for a few days and do a couple hikes. Years ago, I did that C&O bike trip to Harper's Ferry and back with an overnight stay. It would be nice if there were buses two or three times a day out and back to Harper's Ferry or even just to Great Falls.
@@WraithzulaUnited Also several regional parks have nice wooded areas such as Wheaton regional park where I am walking my dog at the moment
On Meetup, the Capital Hiking Club charters busses out of DC to do day trip one-way hikes
Methodology is a little weird on this one. Maybe top 100 trails is too narrow. As someone who's lived in both Denver and SLC, the access to nature in SLC is far and away better, especially via transit.
Yeah RTD doesn't run to any of the open space parks on the west side of the metro area. Even the closest bus stops are a long walk away. There are definitely some missed opportunities there. If RTD ran to the top of Lookout Mountain then you could use it to shuttle hike the Beaver Brook trail, as it starts on the top of lookout mountain, but the other end of it is a short walk from a RTD park & ride.
Top 100 trails is way too narrow. Instead, if you're stuck on using trails as a metric then maybe something like "Access to X number of trails with a rating over Y within Z distance/time" or something. Just having 1 top 100 trail isn't really indicative of overall outdoor access quality.
Yeah, as a current Denverite with friends in Utah, I think we lose to them. I figured Colorado would have been repped by Boulder or maybe even Grand Junction. I think the choice of major cities instead of smaller metro areas skewed things as well.
@@Celairiel I've lived in Grand Junction and currently live in the Denver Metro area, definitely feel that Junction has easier access to trails.
Definitely, SLC is Denver, only better in almost every way! (And I love Colorado!)
Seattle being intertwined with nature is something I don't take for granted.
As a longtime Seattle resident and frequent hiker, I love living so close to hundreds of day hikes in the Olympics, Cascades, Issaquah Alps, and urban parks! (I also love when Seattle ranks highly in many of CityNerd's lists!)
I ALWAYS took it for granted, and then I'm shocked when I go other places and there aren't huge volcanoes right outside the city
@@CityNerd same! I took it for granted so much as a teen. Grew up in Seattle and now a Phoenix transplant the past 10 years. The routine now is heading back to PNW each Summer when it's too hot here.
I visited Seattle for a few days in 2022. I took the bus from downtown to Discovery Park, which was a stunning park to hike around.
@@johnpolese6575 I would put Discovery Park up there with some of the Trailhead Direct destinations (although it is apples and oranges).
Worth noting that northeast Ohio is home to Cuyahoga Valley National Park, the closest national park to a major metro area. From Cleveland public square, you can reach it in 45 minutes on the 77 bus line. You can then get on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad to explore the park by train!
I think outdoors access is a lot more than 'top trails', much more about how convenient it is to get to nature in general. Then it's more activity centric. Rock climbing would have very different needs than say bird watching.
City Nerd's methodology definitely needs refinement. I'd much rather be five minutes from regular, uncrowded trails than one hour from a top-100 trail.
I agree.
I may be biased as someone who used to live there, but the SF Bay Area feels like it was way too low on this list. The populated parts of the bay area basically form two narrow strips between the bay and the mountains on either side, with the Bay Trail going all around the bay, and the Ridge Trail going all around the mountains, plus all the other trails in between, meaning that most of the bay area is within about an hours walk of a trail, not to mention how much is accessible if you use transit or ride a bike.
@@sophocles1198 totally! In San Diego, I actually don't recommend potato chip rock as mentioned in the video. It is far too busy and there are much better open spaces if you aren't after a silly instagram photo
Seattle also has great rock climbing near the city... It's the number 1 city for nature access for sure. Tons of nature spots in the city, and lots of spots if you wanna get farther away.
Denver/SLC/Seattle still probably top about any outdoor oriented list though
Car-free Downtown Denver resident here. I take the W light rail line to Golden for all my hiking, then scooter/bike the rest of the way to trailheads, of which there are lots in just the foothills. If you want to go further into the rockies for nicer hikes, there is bus service to tons of small towns throughout the rockies, but I do wish the W line extended further west. Look forward to you visiting in November- make sure to check out the bike network especially Cherry Creek, Denver transit kinda sucks (except commuter rail lines) but the bike network is underrated! I hope you host some event while here because it would be great to meet and chat about urbanism.
If Canada was included in this, I think Vancouver would have the number one spot on this list.
As someone from Denver, I often feel like my city doesn't appreciate how much outdoor activities we have at our doorstep. Growing up on the foothills, you only realize how great it is once you visit somewhere with nowhere to go like Dallas. We also have a large network of bike trails which you can access by train.
Also, we pronounce Estes as ESS-tuhs, but I have heard that Es-TEEZ is correct in other parts of the country so ehh.
Haha, I was gonna say that as well, I’m from Estes Park and it drives me crazy when people say T-estes park 🤮
@@bshelley234 I had a friend who pronounced it that way as a joke because of what it rhymed with
I almost spit out my drink when he pronounced it that way! Used to own property near Estes and still live in Denver. I'm surprised how high Denver got, considering you need a car to get almost anywhere here. Denver - you need to up your public transportation game!
RTD REALLY needs to run a bus service on weekends that does the circuit of the Golden/Morrison area open space parks, have it start/end at the Golden light rail station. At present you can bike to most of them from the light rail station without too much difficulty, but if you're planning to hike your bike won't be there by the time you get back.
Denver adjacent person here, and I can confirm that RTD leaves a lot to be desired. many of the local busses in my area don't even run on Sundays. The service patterns seem to be mostly built around work commuting. Driving is by far the best way to get anywhere, especially in the mountains or suburbs. RMNP also has timed entry and pretty solid busses. CDOT is looking to build out a train line to Steamboat Springs, which might push Denver to number 1 in the future.
It's not quite as bad if you're on a bike, you can pedal to most of the Golden area open space parks fairly quickly from the Golden light rail station, on bike paths not roads.
As a Denver guy I'm not too angry about missing the number 1 spot - our transit up to the mountains is pretty crappy. The ski train to winter park is pretty neat though more of a gimmick than anything.
I hope this changes in the upcoming decades. Sitting in traffic to go to all the beautiful places is such a pain and kills the vibe.
The main issue with the I-70 corridor is it is too steep to build a rail corridor, the feasibility study said Maglev was the only viable technology for that corridor, the existing rail line goes north of Summit county and most of the ski resorts, hence why the ski train only stops at Winter Park, since Winter Park resort sits right at the west portal of the Moffat tunnel. There is an abandoned rail line connecting Vail with Leadville, Buena Vista, Salida and Canon City that could be rehabbed though.
@@mrvwbug4423 in theory they can do it but just need $$$$ which CDOT and RTD and other agencies in the state didn't have; not to mentioned NIMBY
Honolulu, though a small city, deserves a mention. Though we don’t have great bike or public transportation infrastructure versus places like Portland or Seattle, so many residents here benefit from how close a trailhead is to any given point of the city (or the island of Oahu). The views are second to none.
In 2013 I visited the bay area car-free and went to Muir Woods on public transit. It was four hours but I met a lot of very nice foreign tourists along the way. Highly recommend.
Denver has shockingly little transit to the foothills, even to Golden. It's truly surprising given how much Denverites claim to care about the outdoors. And considering that Denver maintains a lot of parks in the Foothills!
Colorado does have the Bustang intercity routes, and is working on train service out to the northwest. Since many routes are all day hikes (or bikes) anyway, planning an overnight doesn't seem unreasonable, for access to so much amazing outdoor activity in stunning settings.
I think the Flatiron Flyer into Boulder is decent. You can bus up to Chautauqua and enjoy any number of excellent hikes. That said, I agree Front Rangers love to espouse eco-friendly values from their 4Runners and Tacomas blasting up I-70 every ski season weekend.
Too many NIMBYs in the burbs that don't want transit. There's even a public bus up to Evergreen that runs down in the morning and back up at night to make sure us poors can't day trip up there, and let's not mention the 3-4 mile bike ride to Golden, the lack of a bus to Idaho Springs, the lack of a bus to Red Rocks, the crappy bus to Cherry Creek res, the rail that stops about 4 miles short of Chatfield, and just how awful Denver chooses to be because they could easily fix these issue but choose not to.
@@jayzee4097 Yup, and the Evergreen bus just goes to downtown Evergreen. The main open space parks there, Alderfer 3 sisters and Lair o' the Bear are several miles out of town, decent bus service to Lair in particular would be a game changer given it's propensity for having a full parking lot every day. Though any bus going there is gonna need a big bike rack.
@@bearcubdaycare Most of the golden area open spaces are good for short day hikes and shorter bike rides. Car-free trail access is actually the best in Summit county, the summit stage bus service goes to most of the major trailheads that are off paved roads in summit county, that bus is also free. You can also take it to the Quandary peak trailhead in summer, the only 14er with transit access to its trailhead.
Not including Canada when Vancouver BC exists is criminal
Calgary, AB deserves a shoutout as well, with Fish Creek Provincial Park inside city limits and served by light rail and a number of different bus routes
I was thinking the same thing. You never know if City Nerd is going to do a NA list or just a US one. In any case, Vancouver is sublime for outdoor/nature access without a car.
Absolutely. Off the top of my head: Cleveland Dam, Grouse Mountain, Lighthouse Park, Pacific Spirit Regional Park, Stanley Park, Deep Cove, Horseshoe Bay, Belcarra Regional Park, and Burnaby Mountain Park are all transit accessible and much more than your typical urban park. Some of those are the edges of true wilderness that you can get to in 20 minutes from downtown on a bus every 10 minutes.
@@SeaToSkyImages He used to do way more North American content with Canada and Mexico included. It's what originally got me hooked, but he's been very US-centric recently. It's probably due to the challenge of getting getting clean and normalized stats from different countries, but it's still disappointing.
To be fair, when it comes to anything urbanism, including Canadian cities almost feels like cheating with how far above the US they are
If you look into this in the future, you may also want to check the transit in the night on the way back. Many times when hiking around the nation I've had to use a car because while transit is great in the morning, it's spotty or non-existent in the night.
The video I begged for a year ago when I had to leave South Korea! Yay!! Seoul and Korean cities in general set the world standard for allowing a city dweller to go hiking for a quick break. Yes it’s not really wilderness but it’s sooo refreshing to the spirit.
Main reason Korean cities have good hiking is simply bc the country is so mountainous. Even the biggest cities of Seoul and Busan have steep mountains in the middle of the urban density. Valleys full of people and transit lines-steep upper slopes of trees, trails and rocky overlooks. They lucked out geographically. And you can step off a subway in Seoul and there will be a trailhead 100 yards away. Also the circumferential Seoul trail! All easily accessed by subway. They will never be top trails on All Trails but there’s a reason Korea has the most hikers of any country. There’s always a mountain nearby and a local bus to take you there.
I started hiking when I was in Seoul. The subway takes you straight to hikes in the city like Achasan, or you can hit up the grand Bukhansan so easily with the subway and a short bus transfer. I also joined this hiking meetup group that would arrange transportation to and from hiking spots all over Korea that was SO fun and lovely since it wasn't a business trying to make money off of people who wanted to get outdoors!
@@regisphilbin222 Great memories. It’s truly amazing that Bukhan-San is right there and so accessible. And big thumbs up for group activities not run for profit!
As a Denverite, I was impressed with Seoul's access to nature. A car-free life is one thing that kept me there for several years. You can bike from Seoul to Busan on a trail! Then hop on the train back. In Denver I only use my car to access the mountains. The Bustang bus service can get you into the high country, too.
NYC should at least have received an honorable mention. Taking a weekend morning Metro North Hudson line is a great option to get out of the city and hike some exciting trails in the Hudson Highlands, such as Beacon Mtn and Breakneck Ridge. It's possible to get out at one station and hike to another with great views along the way. Also, on the Harlem line, there is an Appalachian Trail stop.
Sydney, Australia has the second oldest national park in the world, Royal National Park (Yellowstone is 7 years older). As the car had not been invented when it opened in 1879 a rail line was built right into it and picnic trains used to be run from Sydney. The picnic trains stopped when people got cars. But the old track is still used by the Sydney Tram (streetcar) museum. You can still get to the park by hopping off at several rail stations which are right next to it or taking a ferry from Cronulla.
You can also get up into the mountains from Sydney and do some decent bush walks over the cliffs between beaches. Great city minus the night life scene.
And the Blue Mountains are easy to get to by train too. Plus the Manly to the Spit, Bondi to Coogee, Cremorne Point, Middle Head, Watsons Bay, Barrenjoey Head, Homebush to Parramatta Riverside path are nice walks.
Philadelphia’s Wissihickon Park deserves an honorable mention as probably being one of the best places to hike entirely within a city (you forget you’re in a city) and the Lehigh Valley George deserves an honorable mention for its incredible views and the fact that you can take a tourist train to a trail head that you bike back to the station from along the Lehigh Valley
Philadelphia has some great parks!
I live in the LV and I can walk about 15 minutes to the woods and trails on South Mountain. Or drive 3-4 mins to the official trailhead down the road from me. It’s sooo nice!
As a Denverite, RTD doesn't really go to many trailheads, they really need to have a bus service in Golden that does the circuit of all the open space parks in Golden and Morrison, run it on weekends, and have it start/terminate at the Golden light rail station. If you're biking, you can pedal to most of the Golden area open space parks pretty easily from the light rail station (Golden's bike path system links up all the open space parks), the RTD rail system has decent bike acommodations, the buses only have a 2 slot bike rack that won't fit MTB tires. There is better transit access to trails in Boulder with RTD stopping at Chataqua park and also running a summer bus service up to Nederland and the West Magnolia trail system.
Another thing to consider - both DC (Amtrak) and NYC (Metro North line) have pretty easy access to the Appalachian Trail.
The results of the list totally match what I had in my head. But if I had one small critique as an avid hiker, I would say I generally avoid any trails popular enough to be in the top 100. But truth be told all these cities have less popular and less crowded options that are also very good.
totally. if it has a bus serving it, I'm not going there. the crowds will kill the experience
The top 100 hikes are genuinely gorgeous though. They’re busy for a reason.
I’d love to see this list with Canada included. I could see Vancouver winning it all, with Calgary and possibly even Edmonton ranking in the top 10 considering Elk Island National Park.
Hard to say while Canadian cities have fantastic nearby parks almost none of them are connected by any sort of transit. I'm in London, ON, 1 hour by car from 3 different great lakes and the only one I can get to by transit is by going to Windsor on Via Rail. Hamilton is 45 minutes by car from Niagara falls one of the wonders of the natural world, but no transit connection.
Winnipeg could also make the list too with Birds Hill Provincial Park nearby.
@@agilemind6241Maybe that's why Not Just Bikes calls it "Fake London"!! 😂🤣
Does Vancouver run bus service to the North Shore haha? I know you can take bus service from Vancouver up to Whistler and Squamish.
@@mrvwbug4423 Yes, I take the bus from Vancouver (not North Van) to go for hikes on the north shore regularly, there's one that stops 2 blocks from where I live and goes straight to Lynn Valley
If you’re really focusing on car-free access, I think you’re really sleeping on the Northeast. Philadelphia has the Wissahickon Valley, easily accessible by SEPTA bus and regional rail, NYC has a preserved old growth forest in Bronx Park and several nature trails in the Hudson Valley are accessible on the Metro-North Hudson Line, and Boston has the Middlesex Fells. Halibut Point State Park can also be accessed by Cape Ann Transit from Rockport, which is on the MBTA commuter rail. Sure, the Northeast has fewer preserved wilderness ares than the west, but there is still some nature left, and it’s all far more accessible than most of what you showed here (although not gonna lie, Seattle seems to be fantastic for car-free access to nature)
There's also Inwood Hill Park right under the Henry Hudson bridge at the northern tip of Manhattan, a short walk from the A train. I'm in NYC next month and plan on visiting it.
@@charlienyc1 I haven’t been to Inwood Hill exactly, but a close friend of mine lives in NYC and last time I visited her, we went to the Met Cloisters and walked around nearby Fort Tryon Park. It’s hard to believe you’re still in Manhattan when you’re there! It’s a really magical place, especially since it was a cloudy, misty day when we were there
@@dannygerth5785 It's similar to Ft. Tryon, but ~20 blocks north and it really feels nothing like NYC. On the W side of the hill, your view is dominated by the river & a beautiful dense tree-lined shores of NJ (which actually exists!). It's super quiet and relaxing and feels incredibly remote.
8:24 I was convinced he was gonna say "where you also get cool stuff like...a cheesecake factory"
UTA (Salt Lake's Transit Agency) really needs to run busses up Big and Little Cottonwood canyons in the summer (they run ski busses in winter). It would be so easy to hit a few major trailheads. The main reason I bought a car in SLC after 2 years car-free was hiking access.
DEFINITELY. Going up the canyons in Summer is the best. We're a few short miles from 100° rush hour traffic and 80° tranquil trails, but without a car you're S.O.L.
That’s one of the only reasons we own a car in the SLC area
I haven't watched the video yet, but I have to shout out my city, Burlington, VT. There are so many natural areas that I can walk, bike, and take the bus to from downtown. There's even a mountain that you can reasonably bike to. (Mt. Philo) One of the many reasons I love it here!! I walk out my front door and one way I see the Adirondacks over Lake Champlain, and the other way the Green Mountains. It's amazing.
Burlington is great for this!!!
Preserving nature is one of the most important reasons for building dense cities! Hmmm...if only there were already a video about this idea...😅
In all seriousness, love your videos. Keep em coming!
Love your content!
@City Nerd COLLAB W THEM
I left a comment (won't repost the whole thing) how denser cities = less land for people = more land for nature and farming. It's honestly my main focus when talking about urbanism
What video?
@@bkkeats I made a video about a year about farming and offhand mentioned how density protects nature.
I know that you focus on US cities, but I need to mention Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in this category. There are two big natural parks (Tijuca national park and pedra branca state park) that are basically inside the city and help to preserve the Atlantic forest biome. There are lots of trails, including ones to access the well know sugar loaf (specifically Urca's hill) and the Christ of the redeemer (corcovado hill), that have easy access to bus stops and metro lines. Even other cities in the metropolitan region have also preservation areas who you can visit without a car.
I agree! When I was in Rio de Janeiro, the relative ease of access to all the nature and geography the city is nestled in, was quite surprising, and I was also surprised at how safe it was walking about and how lush and vivid the landscapes were. I got to the pedestrian stair access to the Cristo Redentor using a bus that picked up directly from Botafogo, and was walking adjacent to the funicular, which was real neat. The geographical features of Rio are quite surreal
would you visit any of these besides corcovado on your own? early in the morning (when cooler)? i've been considering these but wondering about personal safety (preferably recently).
@@esgee3829yes. Some of them have more people, like the Morro da Urca (urca's hill), starts at a pedestrian path (Pista Cláudio Coutinho) that starts beside the Praia Vermelha beach. It's probably the easier to reach and shorter. That's also the Pedra Bonita, that is in the Tijuca national park and closer to the kite/parapent ramp, so there's people there almost all day. Tijuca's national park has control points so it's also safer. Personally I always did those trails in a group or with one other person at least, because it's more enjoyable rather of fear or safety.
Was just there this last July and did most of those hikes by myself. Did not feel endangered at all, but I did try to avoid any entrances near favelas. Regarding news stories about problems popping up on those trails: news stories become more popular the more shocking they are.
Not even a mention of the two metro-north stations named for trails.
Philadelphia has a massive park and forest system in Fairmount & Wissahickon. Hours of activity available in biking, hiking, canoeing, rock climbing etc. all without leaving the city limits and accessible by many buses
The Wissahickon is no doubt one of the most remarkable city parks in the country. It is more of a nature preserve than a develped park, and if you live near it you are most fortunate.
Came here to day the same!!! Philly has actually decent transit to good parks!
Boston has one of the the highest densities of inner-metro green space in the country! This includes the Esplanade, Dr. Paul Dudley White Bike Oaths, Arnold Arboretum, Franklin Park, Jamaica Pond and the Forest Hills Cemetery, which is, in and of itself, offers hundreds of acres of perfectly-manicured walking, running and cycling space.
Down the road, er rails, in NYC, while Central Park gets most of the fame for urban green space, the Bronx Botanical Garden and Brooklyn Botanical Garden both offer hundreds of acres of recreational space.
If that's not "real hiking" enough, for Boston, there is the Lynn Woods to north and Blue Hills to the south, both transit-accessible. For NYC, there are numerous "real hiking" opportunities accessible by Metro-North and the Long Island Railroad.
@@sophocles1198 If only there was an easy way to get there from South Philly or even Center City.
I think we all know that regardless of the criteria, Philly is going to be chronically underrated.
It's a bit outside the scope of this video, but talking about transit to natural places makes me think about Yellowstone. I'm from Montana, and we get TONS of folks from all over the world who fly in, rent a car, and drive to Yellowstone so they can sit in traffic for an hour trying to see Old Faithful or whatever. I'm of the opinion that if we want places like Yellowstone to be both worth seeing and accessible to people in the future, we need transit to and within national parks. I'm sure a train would be less destructive and more convenient than a billion personal vehicles stuck in traffic. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Zion NP has banned most cars from its main road and has a fleet of electric buses. It's a huge improvement! There's less road noise, less air pollution, and less land taken up by pullouts and parking . Plus, when you're traveling through the park, you can focus on the sights instead of the road.
That was the best pronunciation of “Coconino” I’ve ever heard after 30 years of living here. Well done, sir! Well done!
You’re only counting over 1 million residents, but Anchorage has the woods in everyone’s backyards. Growing up we had moose camp in our driveway and we as kids could be in the woods woods around Cheney Lake all year round.
The transit is straight up awful though. Same with Fairbanks. So yes, you can access the outdoors easily without a car, but if you want to access any part of the wilderness other than the part right by your house you have to drive.
@@Hahlen Juneau has a little better transit (for a city its size) and is very very close to nature everywhere in contrast to Anchorage's sprawl
@@reilandeubank I love Juneau, and the city just completed a reorganization of the bus lines and announced a downtown circulator service to start operation next summer. Downtown Juneau also has some very good urban fabric. I really believe Juneau feels more urban than even Anchorage which is 10x larger. Juneau’s trail system is a bit lacking though, at least from my point of view coming from Sitka’s fantastic network.
You can take a very expensive train ride to Denali national park and nature points south until you hit Seward. Pretty awesome option to have as someone looking to travel there w/o a car.
@@Hahlen Totally agree! I just got back from a trip to AK (a cruise, yes i know...) and TOTALLY fell in love. I'm a city lover, which is why I'm here in the first place, but Sitka and Juneau were both incredible. Juneau's downtown felt so much more real and urban than so many larger places I've been, and as you said their bus lines are suprisingly adequate.
Yay! Two of my favorite things: living in a car free city and hiking beautiful trails in nature.
Most of the cities were the ones I expected, but I was surprised to see Phoenix ranked so high.
As a resident of Flagstaff, I'm gonna need to playfully make fun of you pronouncing Coconino as Cocochino. Great work as always
9:40 sounds like an espresso drink
I might get shunned for this but as a native Detroiter living in the Bay Area. I truly believe the Bay Area has the best balance of weather, city, and nature access. I don't think any other comparable major cities can compare in the States. Its a very unique geographical location. I have yet to visit Seattle but my take is, nature and access is great 60-75% of the year.
Small correction. In the DC area MARC running to Harper's Ferry is a commuter train and not a bus. You were correct in that it is a Monday-Friday operation geared towards DC commuters.
While it's a much smaller metro area, I think Spokane WA deserves an honorable mention here. While it doesn't have these big name trails, it DOES have literal state parks within city limits (both Riverside and Mt Spokane), along with MANY other natural areas. Being outdoors is really part of the culture there. No, these aren't your "top 10 scenic trails", but they ARE not crowded at all, and instead of being a 1 hour bus ride, they're a 20 minute bike ride away. I'd argue they're more accessible/closeby than those in Portland. They are great places you'd go all the time, versus a destination vacation you do once a year.
Fair, but if you wanna pick a fight with Portland, you'll have to contend with Forest Park, 5200 acres of forest with loads of trails and walking distance from the city center.
2-hour bus ride? I can literally walk to the nearest state park from Spokane.
I can beat that--Minneapolis/St paul literally has a national recreation area running right through the middle of the urban area (the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area). Also from Minneapolis, it's only a short bike ride or light rail ride to the Minnesota valley national wildlife refuge.
Was honestly expecting Spokane to get a mention; guess it wasn't a big enough metro area.
Re: Denver. RTD is heavily skewed in catering to weekday commuters so transit access on a weekend tends to be poor. That being said, I knew a lot of people who had arrangements with their employer to swap weekend days with weekdays (specifically for skiing). Though access to Golden and Morrison are pretty poor from downtown Denver, access to Boulder is good via FF1 bus.
Hi, Denver folk here, and yes you've got us totally right, though we are working to improve transit access to the mtns with a rail option from downtown Denver and the bustang busses, but that's all 2+ hours.
Yeah, they're starting a train service to Steamboat, but RTD still won't even run a simple bus route of the Golden area open space parks haha.
I have to admit, I am a little surprised that the the NYC commuter train stop on the Appalachian Trail didn't merit a mention of some kind--particularly because it's the only train stop on the 2,100+ mile trail.
Metro North Hudson River line’s weekend service will literally drop you off at the Breakneck Ridge trailhead, criminally underrated
I kept waiting for it to be mentioned. This was a very Western-centric list. I mean The Appalachian Trail? Sorry it doesn't go through some dry desert rocky mountain but it's pretty great if you don't mind green.
Came to the comments to say this. I do get it though, it didn't fit the criteria of being listed on AllTrails as a top 100 trail - so it wouldn't be included in this analysis. There is a small part of me that would love to see two lists: one list of trails or "nature experiences" on either side of the Mississippi River since it probably splits the country in the most natural location for this type of analysis. Yeah the western US is beautiful, but we don't do too bad ourselves here on the East coast. :)
Sure doesn't feel criminally underrated when you get off the train with 100 other people @@patrickoshea4991
I’m shocked nyc didn’t make this list tbh. It’s so easy to take the metro north to towns around the Hudson valley that have great hiking trails.
They don't have any top 100 in All trails, unfortunately.
@@mariaansley1519 which really just shows that this methodology isn't that useful. You can also take New Jersey transit to the lakes and small mountains in the northwest of the state, and take Amtrak to Vermont and the Adirondacks.
It's so easy to get to the Appalachian trail from the metro North though. And you can even take a boat up there and enjoy Bear Mountain. Maybe not top 100 in the county but I think that area has some of the top 100 East of the Mississippi. I did grow up in the Rockies, so I get why the East Coast cities got the shaft.
@@charliesullivan4304so what is your method that is more useful? I'd definitely look at good trails on all trails for good city options, so it seems useful to me
@@charliesullivan4304 sometimes disappointing when citynerd uses third party sites rather than just google earth and his own metrics to make these
I get that you were just using top 100 trails which definitely trends towards mountains, but look into Cleveland on this topic as well. Cleveland Metroparks are frequently ranked as best in the nation. Easy rail, bus, and bike access to a lot of beaches, parks, and even a national park with a scenic train running through it. I can take a bus that has 15 minute frequency from Public Square to the 50 ft Mill Creek Falls. Bike, bus, or rail to Edgewater Beach/Park. Irishtown Bend is a new park being built right now that will be one of the best urban parks in the country. You can bike to Cuyahoga Valley National Park from Downtown or Edgewater Park on bike trails that are entirely separated from the road. And there are more improvements on the way.
You said what I was thinking- I get the beauty of mountains but there are other natural settings beside having to live in the West of near Grt Smoky Mtns. I love the mountains and enjoy being there on vacation but I live in Cleveland. Cleveland's park system is amazing. However, @CityNerd I always enjoy your content!
Another example is Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Mississippi National River and Recreation Area literally runs straight through Downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. And the Mississippi Valley National Wildlife refuge--a major hot spot for birding--is accessible both by transit (light rail) and separated bike paths from Minneapolis.
I am disspointed by the lack of Canadian cities on this list. Vancouver, Montreal, Calagary, and Edmonton would easily top this list.
Video hasn't even started yet and I came to the comments to see if Vancouver was on the list
@@Alpine1 Keeping it US only is so limiting. Vancouver alone has transit stops at great hiking locations.
@@RoyM-rq1nt Love my city
i wouldn't add any but vancouver for the transit bit to a canada/global list. can get from city to northshore trails in about an hour by transit. not the case for those other cities (mont royal doesn't count imo).
SLC has good trails starting at University of Utah, which is accessible by light rail. You can ride the train to the uni and walk 20 minutes through campus to a trailhead.
Yep, or a few near some bus routes in the Capitol Hill and Avenues areas
@@Kevbot6000city creek canyon is a gem, I don’t think there’s anything like it in any other U.S. city
accidentally walking down to memory grove park was literally the coolest part of my trip to slc from st. george. (which should be on the list of smaller us cities close to nature) but it just reassured me that i need to move to downtown slc
SLC is fantastic, as a former U of U student, there’s nothing like it. I don’t think our Trax system gets the love it deserves on any of the urbanism channels, aside from RMTransit, who actually does a great video about it
I'm guessing the Cleveland/Akron, Ohio area just missed for population, but you can practically take transit from downtown Cleveland and Akron to the edge of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which has very good hiking and biking trails. Also, in season the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad runs from downtown Akron and near Cleveland through the park and has a dedicated baggage car and coach for bicyclists for a flat, reasonable fee. This is one of only two national parks with a tourist railroad serving it (Great Smoky Mountains is the other), and both are among the top visited parks in the system.
I just made a similar comment haha. Cleveland has over 2 million so it meets the population standard, but I think only using the top 100 trails on all trails is what kept us off. Those top 100 are almost entirely mountain trails.
If Cleveland ever figures out the train extension from Public Square to Cuyahoga Valley, it will be an S-tier city for access to nature.
I get that this video isn’t considered small cities, but its still insane that Flagstaff, AZ isn’t mentioned when 95% of the city is less than 30 minutes by foot or bus from a trail that goes into the mountains.
I'd say Tucson is better than Phoenix, too, with Mt Lemmon, Sabino Canyon, Madera Canyon, and Saguaro National Park. Unlike Tucson, none of the mountains around Phoenix are high enough to be green and forested.
I live in Flagstaff but just spent the summer in Portland and one of the things I disliked about Portland is that all the hiking is so far away. Something you have to drive an hour to get to is a relatively close hike!
Also Sedona is quite far from Phoenix and AllTrails is smoking something, Devil's Bridge isn't even one of the best hikes in Sedona. (Though probably it is one of the most crowded.)
@@bethanyweber3989 Yep. Devil's Bridge is a Sedona hike we would never do again -- very crowded for a minimal payoff (a long line of people waiting to be photographed on the natural bridge). Yuck. But even with nobody on the trail, it wouldn't rate that high for Sedona.
I agree that Tucson has better hiking but the issue is lack of transit to those areas and that Phoenix has some great hiking right in the urban area which means better transit. Flag is just too small to be considered for this list. It might make best hiking near small cities.
Oakland, CA borders the largest regional park system in the US, with redwood trees, comparable to national parks.
I haven't watched it yet, but if Oakland/Berkeley isn't on the list that's fucking ridiculous.
@@ianbent0ndo they have over 1 million people? if not, that's why they are out.
@@cmdrls212 that’s why. the population center that borders the park system is greater than one million. But its divided into many cities, the most populous being Oakland at just under a half mil.
@@ianbent0n Berkeley and Oakland are part of the San Francisco “metropolitan statistical area” as defined by the Census Bureau. Maybe they weren’t mentioned due to time constraints?
Or if it’s because Redwood, Sibley, Tilden, and the other East Bay Regional Parks aren’t represented in AllTrails, that’s fine by me, they’re already plenty busy and popular enough 🤫
Metro North in NYC has a special stop for the Appalachian trail
Glad to see San Diego slowly make its way off the "Cities We (I) Don't Talk About Enough" list
Your pronunciation of Estes Park was creative. I've ridden my bike up there, and the downtown area there is decent for pedestrians but not bikes.
Estes is incredibly unfriendly to bikes, no real bike infrastructure in town, and no MTB trails in the area even outside RMNP. And the roads there are awful for road cycling, small shoulders, no bike lanes, and endless distracted drivers.
I'm in Edinburgh right now for vacations and the proximity to nature and great hiking spots is really awesome! I had never seen that before.
Yes, and from glasgow there's a line directly to the West Highland Way.
As a city-dwelling avid hiker/biker/climber, it's fun to see many different places I've called home or frequently visited. It's also fun to hear "Estes" pronounced like "testes".
Denver and Colorado are making a lot of strides in the right direction, like CDOT’s Bustang service directly into RMNP on the weekends, potentially reviving rail service through the Moffat tunnel to NW Colorado, and maybe a bus connection from the end of the W light rail to Red Rocks. However, Colorado doesn’t yet have the same attitude towards public transit as CA/OR/WA yet. Everyone here is from the Midwest and has no experience with the benefits of transit and wants to show off their $60k Tacoma/4Runner/van in I70 traffic :/ I love Colorado and it’s beautiful but it absolutely does not have transit accessible nature at the moment
Vancouver? Can’t think of a better example of a city in Nature.
Bus to Cypress mountain.
Cable cart to Grouse mountain.
Squamish, and more.
Innsbruck in Austria
@@bantolphbantir9605
Europe works hard to make wilderness areas available to people. It has to, because the ratio of people to wilderness is pretty much zero. Europe has people everywhere, I loved it when I traveled there from Vancouver in my 20s. Even taking the train through the alps, although beautiful, there was always evidence of habitation.
After a month or so, what I noticed, and started to miss, was that in Vancouver, 20 minutes from downtown, accessible by transit, you can go for a hike and never see anyone. If you go off the trail even for short distance, you can get lost, and find yourself somewhere no human has ever been.
And if you were prepared and knew what you’re doing, you could walk all the way to the North Pole, (2400kms, 1400 miles), never seeing another person, and crossing perhaps two paved roads and some gravel trails.
I just left the #8 city on this list for grad school in the environmental program at a rural university. When I described myself as an urbanist a couple of weeks ago, I was literally sneered at. Thank you for the great explanation of why cities matter!
Hey, my town got a mention! I never thought CityNerd would mention Estes Park, CO. There is a (long) bus ride from Denver and every bus/trolley in town once you get here is free to ride!
The main issue is, transit accessible hiking in RMNP doesn't run at the hours needed to hike the trails worth hiking there. Sure you can do a couple hour hike around Bear Lake, but if you're planning an all day hike you need to start very early there. If you're doing Black Lake, Sky Pond, Flattop/Hallet, Andrews Glacier, you need to start those hikes before 7AM, and if you're doing Longs peak (which is not transit accessible at this time) you need to start around 2-3AM.
Just want to shout out Chicago, where you can literally take a commuter train from downtown into a national park - the South Shore Line runs into, and stops at, Indiana Dunes National Park. Not a renowned hiking site, but pretty cool that you can do that!
The use of the All Trails list is problematic in that a) it's somewhat arbitrary unless you're in the 99th percentile of the hiking population and b) those trails are by and large remote from population centers. Thus, wonderful opportunities such as Indiana Dunes are simply invisible from this point of view.
@danielshlian There are lots of forest preserves and parks such as Chicago Botanic Garden and Morton Arboretum in the Chicago suburbs that are accessible via Metra rail and/or Pace bus. Lake County north of Chicago has been diligently buying up land and turning it into forest preserve for years, and they're trying to interconnect as many walking/bike trails as they can. What we don't have is the grand scenery (mountains, canyons, etc) that the places Ray mentioned do. They call Illinoisans "flatlanders" for a reason!
Most people outside of Chicagoland don't even know the South Shore line exists.
I would like to add to Denver that we have a ski train, i.e., a train that takes you from downtown Denver to Winter Park to ski for the day, which for the US is pretty unique.
Yes that is only a thing because the Winter Park resort is literally at the west portal of the Moffat tunnel. You can also time the lift opening time by when the California Zephyr emerges from the west portal, right at 10AM.
So glad you made this video! I’m an east coaster but 25 years ago bought a 3-month Greyhound pass to travel the country. After a month or so I ended up in the PNW because of the transit options. When I was in Seattle, I would catch an eastbound Greyhound every evening and ride it to Butte, where I’d disembark at about 2 AM and wait for a westbound bus back to Seattle. I guess a $15 hostel bed was too speedy back then. I also took a combination of ferries and local buses to the trailhead of the Bogachiel River trail in Olympic National Park (got off at Forks) and had an awesome public transit hike. Years later I caught a bus from downtown Seattle to awesome skiing at Crystal Mountain and another bus all the way up to Whistler. This summer I was back in the area and took a Greyhound from Port Townsend to Kingston. It still blows my mind, but crossing the Hood Canal Bridge, I saw a minke whale swimming towards the bus. I’ve seen plenty of orcas on ferries in Puget Sound before. If there is more epic nature accessible by public transit in the US, I’d love to know about it. It definitely deserves the #1 spot.
A city park, even a large one, is of course a welcomed addition to an urban area, but it pales in comparison to the impact that actual WILDERNESS has not just on humans, but obviously on the plants and animals that we share the world with and rely on. The Little Owl from this video needs a home range of ~10 hectares (~25 acres) to provide all the food and shelter it needs to survive. A single 10 hectare parcel will be exponentially better habitat than ten 1 hectare city parks.
Preventing urban sprawl and adding density to cities, specifically for environmental protection, is in my opinion the most important and maybe the most unifying aspect of the urbanism movement. Of course there are the monetary benefits of less utilities and infrastructure to build and maintain, and the numerous benefits of living closer to destinations (time constraints, car dependency, mental health, etc) but as much as humans need social connections, we NEED access to nature.
Less land used for housing people means more land for nature as well as for agriculture. As a Midwesterner, it pains me to see more and more of the most productive farmland in the world turned into subdivisions. But it's pretty hard to blame a farmer who lives on the edge of town for selling their land to developers for 50x it's agricultural value, which is why greenbelt initiatives don't see much support. There needs to be something in the Conservation Reserve Program specifically targeting land owners close to urban areas to keep their land as natural areas.
Nice timing. I rewatched an older video the other day, where you mentioned you were planning to do a video like this. It was from over a year ago, so I went looking for this video and couldn't find it. Now, a couple of days later, here it is.
in Boston you can take the orange line to Middlesex Fells reservation, nice hiking, except for the interstate running through it 😅
The Colorado Bustang and Winter Park train connects Denver to multiple ski resorts, mountain bike parks, and of course hiking. I live in a foothills suburb, work remotely, and almost never drive my fuel guzzling truck since I cycle almost everywhere, including mtb singletracks. Wife and I moved here for the outdoors!
Atlanta is a city with plenty of beautiful trails and waterfall hikes within 100 miles / 2 hour car ride. However, none are accessible by public transit. That would be a game changer for Atlanta!
I told you it was a secret. Psst...East Palisades Trail and Bamboo Forest. And there's always the Silver Comet Trail. The Mavell Road Trailhead is about an hour from Arts Center Station. Take the Rapid 10 to Cumberland then the 20 to S Cobb Drive and Cooper Lake. It's a mile walk to the trailhead.
Not in the USA, but the Signal Hill trail in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada is a great example. Nothing else like it. A cliffside walk just 10 minutes' walk from downtown's main street. Not to be missed if you visit during the summer or fall.
In Atlanta we have a separated bike trail and bus service to Stone Mountain park. I believe we have bus service to Kennesaw mountain which is the gateway to Appalachia. If you’d like a tour of urbanist sights in Atlanta feel free to hit me up.
Really cool content here! As someone from the Midwest, it’s unreal how much diverse and natural beauty exists in the West.
I know this list is US focused, but Madrid has a fantastic area called La Casa de Campo de Madrid that is bigger than many of the spots on this list and is directly accessible by Madrid Metro.
I'd say for Canada, Edmonton is DEFINITELY up there as cities with lots of car-free access to nature (if not the most of any North American city)
In Bonn Germany you can take the tram south of town and go for some great day hikes in the Siebengebirge. Wonderful spot!
When I was growing up in Oregon we did so much hiking. I loved. Everyone decide to move to Arizona at the same time and that's when we ceased to be an outdoors family. I really miss tree- covered, pine-scented, mossy hiking trails.
Pittsburgh with 42% forest cover and a trail that goes all the way to the Watergate Hotel in DC from Dahntahn isn't mentioned? The Montour Trail goes 2/3 of the way around the city. Trails cover the banks of all 3 rivers for many miles.
Great Allegheny Passage doesn't make the cut for top 100 trails :(
Though if it was, he'd totally mention that industrial dessert establishment along the way, next to the Hot Metal bridge.
My favorite is Pittsburgh to Connellsville on Amtrak then returning on the GAP. trail. Bus or light rail to the Montour tail is another good Pittsburgh adventure.
If you can afford to live here, San Diego County has decent public-transit access to beautiful coastal areas, mainly through the Coaster commuter rail line.
Even inland, you can ride the trolley and take the buses in east county to get close to the Mission Trails park and Mt Cowles trailhead. I did that one day for a morning hike. I definitely prefer the Coaster train, compared to LA's metro lines just terminating in Santa Monica and Long Beach.
@@GirtonOramsay The Coaster is pretty nice, but it's also contributing to even more sprawl. I'm up in Escondido. The Sprinter rail line here can also get you to some nice places if you don't mind walking or riding your bike for a bit from the stations.
@GirtonOramsay the trolley is only good in Mission Valley or near downtown. East County trolley gets you nowhere. You either have to take a bunch of busses or bike or take an Uber
@@Ignaciombr we at least have some form of regional rail to get across the county, then "rapid" buses to fill in gaps, like downtown SD to Escondido or Otay Mesa border crossing. Naturally you will have to hop on local buses or bike to get to specific destinations. It's what I do.
@GirtonOramsay well I live in East County and the trolley stops over here are horrible. If there was a rapid bus line here I guess it would help out a bit but the thing that's also missing is consistency, trolley should run every 7 min not 15
Philly is deeply underrated when it comes to access to nature: Schukyill river trail and Wissonoming Trail are literally in Philly but absolutely don’t feel like there in the city.
I have a hard time believing Honolulu isn't on the list.
I think his criteria was cities over 1,000,000 and the latest number I see for the Honolulu metro area is 989,408.
I was about to say this too! We have so many trails.
It's over a million as of 2020 (for the CMA anyway).
Honestly mountain areas have such a huge advantage on this list because the slopes are hard.to build on so you end up with nature reserves basically everywhere.
Yeah, I was expecting Honolulu to be #1. It had to have missed out on consideration. The trails are numerous, closer and head-and-shoulders better in quality than anything else on the list. It should have at least gotten a mention for simply how obvious it is. It is like disqualifying Yellowstone on a list of best geysers.
Is non-driving access good though?
Metro a north from NYC literally has an Appalachian Trail stop in the middle of nowhere! Definitely should’ve made the list!
Couple things: -it's pronounced "Es-tess" not "es-tease"
- As a native, I would be sad if any transit list had Denver as number 1 for anything.
Yup, it's not called "Reason to Drive" for nothing. It's only designed to cater to work commuters and people going to/from the airport.
The Appalachian Trail goes through Harper’s Ferry in addition to the national historical park mentioned. MARC train and Amtrak train stop there as well.
Sir I beg to differ. How can you leave out New York City? The Appalachian Trail is a 2220 mile trail that goes from Maine to Georgia. It is surround by state parks and there is access to a network of thousands of miles of trails. It is adjacent to hundreds of lakes and rivers. There are four great access points to The Appalachian Trail from NYC via public transit . All of them with plentiful service and an under 2 hour commute. Take the 197 local bus from The Port Authority (1hr 45 minutes) or the 196 express (1 hr and 15 minutes) to Abram S. Hewitt State Forest (Greenwood Lake Marina stop) and it is less than a one minute walk to a trailhead that will bring you up to the ridge and then onto the trail. The same is available in downtown Greenwood lake NY at the Chestnut street stop. For the third, in Greenwood Lake, stop at Stripers Way (Bellvale Farms Ice Cream) and the bus will let you off on the trail itself. The fourth most well known access point is Garrison NY on the Metro North railroad. From Grand Central Station take the train to the Garrison NY Stop, which is about 200 yards from the trail entrance. 1hr 35. I'll take my acknowledgement on air.
Breakneck Ridge might not make the "top 100" list, but it's highly rated and accessible on weekends via Metro North. 90 minutes from Grand Central
Yeah people forget just how many amazing trails are literally just north of NYC up in the Hudson valley, with transit access. There's some spots out on the east end of Long Island that aren't far from LIRR service either.
Metro North is not the LIRR. Both commuter lines are under the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), as is the NYC Subway.
I do agree that NYC is surrounded by great hiking trails, upstate and in New Jersey; all accessible by easy MTA or NJ Transit from, respectively, Grand Central Terminal (not “station;” there’s no through service) or Penn Station.
@@LiveFreeOrDieDH Absolutely. It was the first trail I accessed when I was new to NYC. It fits the criteria and should be counted towards the broader picture.
@@mrvwbug4423 I've been to Montauk/Hither Hills State Park many times. You can bring your bike on the LIRR. Wild camping is very doable.
I suspect Canada was not included because the Top 10 list would have only been Canadian cities 😂
Literally Metro Vancouver and TransLink connects cities to trails for a living. Transit to trails out here is so good and reliable I love it!
I dunno man, transit from Calgary to Banff or Edmonton to Jasper is absolutely pathetic given the size of the cities and how iconic those parks are. We've needed public trains on those routes for decades. Lots of Canadian cities have the proximity, but only Vancouver and Victoria provide decent transit in my experience.
@@Ramsayrider you’ve hit the nail on the head! For the most part it seems like Canada’s largest cities and metro areas like metro Vancouver have great transit. Anywhere else is setup with a barebones system. Out of metro Vancouver the Fraser Valley & Sea to Sky region have terrible transit systems. The second part to this has to do with the way the local govt supports public transit. Thankfully Metro Vancouver has a sweet setup with a MTA style govt run transit system that also receives funds from gas tax, property tax and tolls on roads and bridges(now defunct cause no tolls with the NDP). I think most regions should shift from a transit system to an all encompassing public transit agency that’s in full control of roads bridges and transit.
Being a forester who enjoys your humorous city-centric channel, I appreciate the occasional nature shoutout! Bravo figuring out a methodology for this! 🌿✨️👏
Haven't lived in metro Denver for quite a few years now, but in the early 2000's, I very much liked the Hayden-Green Mountain area at the west edge of suburban Lakewood. Easily accessible by ordinary city bus, spectacular views in every direction of the whole Denver basin from the summit. I was also partial to Mount Falcon Park, a Denver regional park in the foothills that feels more like being in the mountains than Green Mountain. Several worthwhile trails at about 7,000 feet. If you're local, no problem. If not, you'll need a few days to get acclimated to the altitude. My favorite - alas, being loved to death when I left Colorado - is the Brainard Lake area in the Indian Peaks Wilderness, adjacent to Ward, CO. Just over 50 miles from Denver's Union Station downtown. I'm not aware of any transit, but that might have changed in the 15 years since I left. It's true high country, and heavily over-used because it's relatively easy hiking to Blue Lake, Long Lake, Lake Isabelle, Pawnee Pass, etc.
Check out Omaha for this actually. Lake Zorinsky is a dense forest/lake area right in the middle of Omaha where you don't see any city buildings at all. It has deer, wild turkey and other wild animals. Trail has several suburban neighborhoods surrounding it with walk-able trail access. It's also bike-able.
From Vegas you can day trip to Utah - Zion, Bryce, AZ - Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, CA -Death Valley, Joshua Tree NPs. Red rock, Mt Charleston, and Valley of Fire in NV. Pretty unbeatable access.
“If weather permits”
The city of Phoenix tries to close mountain hiking trails in city parks when it’s too hot outside (at least 100F), so I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to try to hike there during the middle of summer anyways, unless you’re doing it early in the morning, which is the coolest part of the day. It takes a lot of work to try to rescue people suffering from heat exhaustion.
Tucson is better in terms of outdoor anything, hiking included of course.