5 Best Books to Read After Your Thru-Hike (When You’re Wondering What’s Next)
- Chloé Jacobs
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
You’ve walked thousands of miles, stared at endless horizons, and had more time than ever to think about what really matters. Now you’re home—and the big question lingers: what’s next?
Maybe your thru-hike sparked something deeper — a longing for a more meaningful direction in life or work.
If you’re exploring a career change after thru-hiking, these five books will help you find clarity, confidence, and authenticity as you navigate your next chapter.
Whether you’re returning to your old job with a new perspective or building something completely different, these reads offer guidance to help you design a life that aligns with who you’ve become since the trail.
How Reading Can Help You Navigate a Career Change After Thru-Hiking
Coming home from a long-distance hike can feel like landing on another planet. The simplicity, purpose, and freedom of trail life contrast sharply with the noise of the everyday world. Reading can help bridge that gap — giving you language, inspiration, and tools to translate your trail lessons into your next adventure, whether that’s a career change after thru-hiking, a creative pursuit, or a more intentional lifestyle.
Why it’s great:
This book applies design-thinking to your work life, not just your hobbies or side passions. It builds on their earlier work (with “Designing Your Life”) and gives practical tools to rethink how you show up in work: reframing problems, prototyping possibilities, and tuning into your energy, engagement, and values.
Reviewers note it gives a mix of stories + prompts, so you’re not just inspired, but you do work.
“You don’t have to quit your job to redesign your life — just start where you are.” — Designing Your Work Life
How Designing Your Work Life Helps Post-Trail:
After a thru-hike you’ve been out of the regular grind, seen things differently, maybe felt free of prior constraints. This book can help you channel that shift into designing what comes next—so you don’t just jump into the “next job” by default, but build work that fits who you’ve become. It offers ways to fix bits of your current job (if you’re returning to employment) or create a new role with intention.
Because you’ve been on trail, you’re used to navigating uncertainty and living with essentials—so using “prototype thinking” and small experiments in work makes sense.
Why it’s great:
Robbins explores how authenticity, vulnerability, and bringing more of who you really are into your work can unlock both connection and impact. For example: “When we stop hiding our true selves… our work environment is more enjoyable – and productive.”
His book encourages reflecting on what parts of yourself you maybe left at the trailhead (or left behind in a past job) and how to integrate them into what comes next.
“Bringing our whole selves to work means showing up authentically, leading with humility, and remembering that we’re all vulnerable, imperfect human beings doing the best we can.” - Bring Your Whole Self to Work
How Bring Your Whole Self to Work Helps Post-Trail:
Your thru-hike likely changed you: you may feel more alive, more aligned with values, more willing to lean into what matters. This book helps you bridge that personal evolution with your next work move.
It can help you consider: “How much of the new me do I bring back into work?” and “What do I want work to look like now I’ve tasted freedom/outdoor life?”
If you’re starting a coaching business (which you are, with “More Time Outside”) or shifting to work that reflects your transformation, this book gives you language and tools around authenticity and connection.
Why it’s great:
This book challenges the “grow-big” business paradigm. Jarvis argues that staying small, agile, and intentional can be not only viable but preferable. “Growth isn't always good… being small can be a goal in itself.”
Readers say it resonated strongly for those wanting freedom, simplicity, and a business built around their life instead of their life built around their business.
“In saying no to anything that doesn’t fit, you leave room to say yes to those rare opportunities that do fit—opportunities that align with the values and ideas of your business.” - Company of One
How Company of One Helps Post-Trail:
If the trail taught you that less is more — this book will resonate deeply. It helps you imagine a work life where you keep that simplicity alive: working for yourself, setting your own pace, and focusing on what matters most. Whether it’s coaching, freelancing, or starting a small brand, this book will make you believe it’s possible to make a living without losing your freedom.
Why It’s Great:
Blending Eastern philosophy with modern stories, Cope explores the concept of dharma — your true calling or purpose in life. Through examples like Thoreau and Harriet Tubman, he shows how aligning with your dharma leads to fulfillment and peace, even through uncertainty.
It’s reflective, soulful, and beautifully written — a book that helps you think about your purpose beyond titles or achievements.
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.” - The Great Work of Your Life
How The Great Work of Your Life Helps Post-Trail:
A thru-hike has a way of stripping life down until only what truly matters remains. You’ve likely had moments of clarity about who you are and what you want.
This book helps you translate those realizations into purpose — grounding your post-trail direction in something deeper than just “what’s next.”
Why It’s Great:
This short, illustrated book is both art and reflection. Luna explores the tension between the life we think we should live and the one we must live — the one that truly calls us. Her words and visuals invite you to pause, reflect, and make choices from the heart.
How This Helps Post-Trail:
A thru-hike is one giant “must.” You said yes to something wild, uncertain, and deeply personal — not because you should, but because you had to. This book helps you keep that spirit alive as you navigate your post-trail choices — in work, relationships, and life direction.
“If you’re not prioritizing the things you say you care about, consider the possibility that you don’t actually care about those things.” - The Crossroads of Should and Must
Bringing It All Together: Navigating a Career Change After Thru-Hiking
Each of these books offers something unique for anyone considering a career change after thru-hiking — from rediscovering purpose to redefining success.
If you’re standing at your own crossroads — unsure what comes next, but certain you want it to mean something — I get it. I’ve been there too.
That’s exactly why I created Post-Trail Career Coaching — a space to turn everything you learned on trail into clarity, confidence, and direction for the next adventure (career or otherwise).
Because the journey doesn’t end when the hike does; it just changes terrain.
P.S. If you’re still unpacking your thoughts after trail, join my newsletter, Wild Hearts Club, for cozy reflections, career insights, and post-trail mindset tips every week.
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