World's Trails Conference 2022
During the last days of September, the biggest hiking event that has taken place in Greece in recent years, the World Trails Conference, took place in Skiathos. The various activities had already begun on 18 September in order to allow international and domestic visitors to get to know Greece better with organized hiking trips to various areas. However, the conference officially started in Skiathos on 26 September and lasted until 1 October.
On the occasion of the inauguration of Skiathos Trails, a project implemented by Paths of Greece in cooperation with the Municipality of Skiathos, the largest meeting of trail experts in the world was held. The conference, lasting 5 days, with 228 participants from 5 continents and 32 countries, is the 8th in a row organized.
The Social Co-operative Entreprise Paths of Greece was founded in 2010 with the vision to help Greece become one of the top 10 hiking destinations in the World!
Caius participated with its members George Mendrinos and Marios Glytsos who presented the basic idea behind the "caius paths" project to keen reactions. The interest of the participants was great with international and Greek institutions making proposals for cooperation to our team, thus continuing the constructive dialogue.
The Greek participation was proportionally small but dynamic. In terms of trail management in Greece, apart from Paths of Greece, only Kythera Trails, the Hellenic Society for Environment and Culture, Ios Paths and Chania Trails attended, while among the foreign participants we had "heavyweight" names such as Appalachian Trail (USA), Bruce Trail (Canada), Trans Canada Trail (Canada), Bibbulmun Track (Australia), Jordan Trail (Jordan), Culture Routes Society (Turkey), Jeju Olle Trail (N. Korea), Great Himalaya Trail (Nepal), Bhutan Trail (Bhutan), Brazilian Trails, etc. as well as many companies and organizations in the field and representatives of universities.
The conference featured many interesting presentations and discussions on specific areas. Topics such as the sustainability of trails in the long term, technology, health, construction, promotion, etc. were developed.
The conference also included an International Trails Film Festival and an introduction to the Green Flag Trails certification mark. Finally, congratulations are of course also due to the Municipality of Skiathos, that even though this was their first World Congress, the organization was exemplary!
