Hiking participation in 2025

Participation growth continues: Bushwalking continues to be one of the strongest contributors to keeping Western Australians active. 451,120 adults (18.3%, or 1 in 5.5) participated in bushwalking during 2025, a slight, but significant increase (~0.9%) on 2024  and above the averaged national level of 17.5% participation. Participation in WA is  significantly higher than for NSW, Victoria and Queensland (ranging 15.6-17.4%).

High ranking:  Bushwalking, nationally and in WA, maintains its place as the third most popular activity out of 142 sport and non-sport activities in terms of adult participation, ranking only behind Walking (first place) and Fitness/Gym (second place). Participation in Running/Jogging (at 17.3%) ranks just one place behind bushwalking and also increased. Trail running is not identified separately from Running/Jogging in the survey.

Intensity of participation: Australia-wide, ~24% of bushwalking participants took part in the activity at least once per fortnight and 11% at least once per week. ~32% of participations were for walks of two hours or more. 40% were for walks of three hours or more.

Participation by age in WA:

Informal versus organised bushwalking: 88% of adults participating in bushwalking in WA do so mostly informally – with friends or family, or solo – rather than as part of organised groups. ‘Participation expenditure’ data also indicates that ~85% of bushwalking participation is payment-free (~85%).

Gender participation: The gender imbalance in bushwalking participation in WA continues, with 55.4% female:44.6% male; slightly more pronounced than the national ratio of 54% female:46% male.

Barriers to participation: Walking and bushwalking are accessible activities for people of all fitness levels and ages, even those who are ageing, but non-participants rank “poor health/injury” and “increasing age/too old” as the two main reasons for not participating in any physical activity..

Participants with Languages Other Than English (LOTE): Australia-wide, ~16.4% of LOTE adults participated in bushwalking.

Participants with disability: Australia-wide, ~12% of adults with a disability participated in bushwalking.

Injuries: Australia-wide, only 3.9% of adult participants experienced any injury while bushwalking and a high proportion (~80%) of injuries were relatively minor, such as sprains, blisters and cuts. Serious injuries (eg head injuries/concussion) were very rare i.e. 0.07% of participants, or 1 in 1276; compared with ~1.6% (1 in 63) for Australian football, 0.77% for Cricket (1 in 130) and 0.27% for Cycling (1 in 370).

Non-sports versus sports activities: In WA 33.8% of adults participated in non-sport related physical activities only, compared to 12.6% in sport-related activities only. 40.5% participated in both.

Survey margins of error: The AusPlay margins of error for the latest survey are ~2.5% (~90,000 +/-) for the national participation estimates and 6.5% (~30,000 +/-) for the state estimates given above.