Peaks, parking lots, snacks, and topographical choices

Your experiential trail types

Me on a romp in July of 2021

This one is for all my sometimes, avid, been-on-a-trail-one-time hikers / runners / backpackers / and leisurewalkers. Inspired by an hour spent this weekend zooming in and out of a topo map, brainstorming backpacking routes for some friends headed out on a last-minute scamper into the Tahoe basin. 

When you’re choosing your route out into the woods, you have three main options: the out-and-back, the loop, and the point-to-point.

And, experience design being the design of a journey, there are things to learn from each. 

So put some bandaids on your blisters, lace up your shoesies, pack an overabundance of snacks, and let us explore them together.

The Out-and-Back

The out-and-back is your “pick a thing to go visit and then make it back to where you started” trail. Often the turnaround spot is something notable: a summit, a view, a lake, a beach, or a snackshack. 

Up and then down Thunder Mountain

Experiences that follow this pattern have something important or momentous or critical we are moving towards. We must go through other stuff to get there. And then we return via the same path to where we started. Think of a dinner party: you do all the prep and cooking, party party party, and then have to clean it all up to make it back to a clean kitchen. 

Here’s what we might take from the good and the hard of that: 

1. Advertise the highlight. Getting through a literal or metaphorical uphill slog is made easier when you have something to look forward to. How might you prep your participants for the big delight or delicious moment to come? How might you leverage anticipation to power them through the hard things they’ll have to pass in order to get there?

2. Consider the quit-anytime possibility. The wonderful and tricky thing about an out-and-back is that, at any moment, folks can decide they are done and turn around. Maybe this is ideal for your experience — you might want people to be able to exit out at whatever point they are like “Nope!” Or, this may be a possibility that you are trying to avoid. How might you design an experience where folks have the agency to choose how far in they go? How might you encourage folks to keep going when they can easily opt out before they get to the BIG moment?

3. Design for rest and refueling at the climax. When you get to the mountaintop or the glittering lake, nothing is better than plopping on a rock, eating a sammie, and taking in the view. But so often we miss this breath of slowness in designing experiences. How might you give your people time to quiet, re-energize, and notice where they are when they get to the peak, so that they have energy for the remainder (rather than pushing right through the moment to get to the end)?

4. Help folks shift perspectives on the way back. When you do something in reverse, it turns out it looks totally different. For the way out of your experience, how can you help folks see the same things in a new light? How has their journey equipped them to understand the context in a different way? Can you help them have the “Whoahhhh I can’t believe I didn’t notice that!” moments? 

5. Decide which way should feel like an uphill. Are you heading into a valley — where the first part of the experience feels easy breezy, but the way back is uphill? Or are you headed up a mountain — where the way up is rough, but the way home gives you gravity as an ally? Both have benefits and challenges.  What agency do you have to choose which section of your experience is more easeful? Easy now or easy later, and why?

6. Ask those on the way back how it was out there. Those you come across on your way out are on their return. And when you’re headed back, those you pass are just starting out. How can you help folks learn from the stories of those who have made the journey already? How can you help them be generous with their learnings once they’ve made it to the mountaintop? 

7. Celebrate the return to the start. The only thing better than a nice hike is when you glimpse your car in the parking lot. And the moment of remembering that you stashed an enormous bag of chips in the front seat. How can you encourage people through the last parts of an experience by showing them a peep of the end or letting them know they’re close? How can you help folks design a treat for themselves before they set out, as a reward to look forward to? How do you celebrate a return home? 

The Loop

The loop shares some things with the out-and-back, most notably the return to the point where you started. And, there are some key differences. Once you’re out, you’re out. And you travel in a single direction. 

A favorite loop of 5 lakes

Experiences that are loops have these moments of return, with a lot of things that happen in the middle. Think of going to a movie: you go in and out through the theater lobby, but have a wild, one-directional journey in between. 

Here’s what we can pull from loop experiences:

1. Create your own peak (or peaks). Con: loops may not have an obvious singular high moment, the way the out-and-back might. Pro: you can make your own (and have more than one!). How can you pick and design the moments for folks to celebrate, rest, and snack along the way?

2. Don’t eat lunch before half way. Stopping for your backpack burrito when you have more than half the mileage to go means that you come out of your rest with a taste of dread and beans. It’s always better to have less to do after lunch, rather than more. How can you ensure that the temporal, physical, and emotional distance left to travel after your big moment or your big rest is smaller than the lead up?

3. Savor the views, you only get them once. In a loop, we travel the path but once. And, the trail is not created equal in each direction — something could be a great uphill but a shitty downhill, or vice versa. How might you help folks cherish the moments as they pass? How do you strategically pick your direction, for the most impact and the most ease? 

4. Equip folks for the full journey. Once you’re en-route, often the only way out is through. How can you ensure folks have everything they need when they set out? How do you appropriately set expectations to ensure that people can (and want to) make it all the way?

The Point-to-Point

Our last trail type is the point-to-point. We have some overlap with the loop, namely once you set out, there’s no turning back. But in a point-to-point, you don’t return home, you end somewhere new. 

Many days along the John Muir Trail

Experiences that are point-to-points often leave you feeling as transformed as the context. You are not the same as when you began, nor is the environment. Think of birthing a child: the end is the beginning of a whole new chapter of life in which everything is different and absolutely bananas. 

Here are a few experiential tidbits we can gather from observing point-to-points: 

1. Design for a different end. We don’t exit through the entrance door, don’t arrive back at our minivan in the parking lot. Instead we have traveled somewhere new and unfamiliar. How do you design for a complete transformation — of self and environment? How do you move people through an experience towards something they can’t yet picture? How do you prepare them for an unfamiliar after? How do you help them understand what has changed when they emerge?

2. Don’t leave them stranded to hitchhike at the finish. Hurrah you’ve done it! Only you’ve left your car at the start. Must you now attempt to flag down a stranger willing to take your dirty self and all your crap down the road? How can you soften the emergence, and ensure folks are taken care of when they come out of the woods? Can you have a ride waiting, a friendly face, something familiar to help them onto the next stage of their journey? 

Now, your assignment, should you choose to play:

1. Consider something you’ve experienced lately: a breakup, a wedding, a novel, a podcast, eating a juicy juicy summer peach. Ask yourself: “What trail type did this feel like?”

2. Choose something you’re making. Noodle on this: “What type of trail might I want this to feel like (or what constraints are we working with)? And what might I design with intention to make the journey more [gorgeous, soft, rigorous, satisfying, transformational]?

Yours, Olivia