Accessible Hiking Trails

Project objective and activities:

The Coastal Hiking Trail and the Forest Trail are two popular cross-border hiking trails linking the Baltic states with the rest of Europe within the European long distance hiking path network. In Latvia and Estonia hikers' community is comparatively new and a growing one. Hiking in our countries is rather associated with young and fit people, while in Europe and Scandinavia this outdoor activity is much better accessible to a wide range of social groups and people in all stages of their life, including seniors, families with young children, and also people in wheelchairs.

The project team addresses the challenge to make hiking a more accessible and socially inclusive activity for these groups. The project also addresses school-aged youth by offering solutions for planning and designing self-guided hikes. As well, a methodology will be developed to address and prepare for hiking the people facing language and cross-cultural barriers such as foreign students, war refugees, and others so that they can discover hiking as an accessible and great outdoor activity while staying in Estonia and Latvia.

To reach the goals of accessibility and social inclusion, the project team will jointly develop and pilot a range of accessibility solutions for the mentioned social groups. Organisations representing them and experts will be involved to ensure that the accessibility solutions are relevant and useful. International experience  will be gained from ERA, the European Rambler's Association.

The accessibility solutions will be implemented by improving 16 sites on the Coastal Hiking Trail and the Forest Trail. These improvements together with relevant training for service providers, improvement of the Hikers' Friendly sign with accessibility criteria, and marketing focus on accessibility, will result in upgraded Coastal Hiking Trail and the Forest Trail as cross-border tourism products. The project team will share experience to help others uptake and adapt the solutions.

Link to tourism product’s website:

• https://baltictrails.eu/en

Link to a LP’s website:

• www.celotajs.lv