Updated August 8, 2025 01:23PM
With a few very narrow exceptions, hikers in the United States who need to call for rescue don’t need to worry about paying for it. Besides New Hampshire, which occasionally charges hikers for the costs of their SAR when the government feels they’ve been negligent, no state will ask you to pay them back for the rescuers who track you down, the medical care they provide in the field, or the helicopter that carries you out. (A few have laws on the books allowing them to, but they’re effectively never invoked.)
But that’s not true everywhere. One case in point: Italy, which frequently sends a bill to hikers who its SAR teams rescue. While citizens of the European Union would generally pay just a few hundred euros, visitors from outside the block can be on the hook for much, much more. Editor-in-Chief Adam Roy breaks down one recent incident in this video; get the whole story in our write-up.
