International Thru-Hikers Are Being Denied Entry to the U.S.

Published July 15, 2025 02:46PM

For hikers flying to the U.S., the most unpredictable stretch of the trip might arrive before the first mile.

In recent months, hiking hopefuls with valid visas and detailed itineraries have reported being pulled into secondary screening, accused of lying about plans, and being sent home before setting foot outside the airport.

Their experiences, shared across blogs, forums, and social media, have introduced a new layer of uncertainty to long-distance hiking in the U.S. As the stories circulate, they’re raising an uncomfortable question among would-be hikers worldwide: Even with your paperwork in order, can you still count on making it to an American trailhead?

High-level trend data is hard to come by because most leisure travelers don’t retain immigration attorneys unless they’ve already been denied. At the American Immigration Lawyers Association’s (AILA) annual conference in Denver mid-June, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official said that the rate of refusal at entry is lower than at the same time last year. (These numbers are not yet publicly available.) Yet, some AILA members report their clients are experiencing more difficulty getting into the country on a B visa, which is a nonimmigrant visa for entering the country on temporary business (B-1) or tourism (B-2).

“Thru-hikers can be particularly vulnerable to being turned away just because of the nature of a thru-hike hike: You frequently have to quit your job, save up a lot of money, show up with very few items in a backpack, and you may not have significant ties to your country,” says Amy Grenier, AILA’s associate director of government relations, whose hiking portfolio includes the John Muir Trail and the Appalachian Trail’s 100-Mile Wilderness. “If you’re a CBP officer, and you’re looking at this like on a surface level, that’s not much different than some people that would be trying to relocate to the United States.”

Inconsistent Experiences Spark Anxiety

Illustrating this uncertainty at the border are three of the international hikers who set out to walk the Arizona Trail this spring. All had valid paperwork, detailed plans, and a shared goal. One crossed the border with no issues. Two never made it past Customs.

Canadian hiker Natasha planned to fly from Calgary to Phoenix in March to meet her American boyfriend, professional long-distance hiker Carl “Professor” Stanfield. According to Stanfield’s Instagram post about the experience, the plan was to catch a basketball game, then begin a thru-hike of the Arizona Trail. (Because of the sensitivity of the subject, Backpacker is only sharing Natasha’s first name.)

Instead, border agents took Natasha aside as she went through U.S.Customs within the Calgary airport, where they held her for hours. She missed her flight before Customs ultimately denied her entry.

Natasha, traveling light, brought minimal gear. To border agents, such slight luggage for such a long trip was likely a red flag. She explained that her travel partner had all the gear and offered to show proof of their relationship, homeownership in Canada, as well as her Canadian bank account and vehicle ownership.

According to Stanfield, border agents accused Natasha of fabricating her story and dismissed her as a potential migrant. The officer allegedly refused to look at her paperwork and at one point in the interaction pointed to a photo of the sitting U.S. president, remarking, “There’s a new administration around here these days.”

U.S. customs agents shuttled her back to the Canadian agents. “With an apologetic tone, they told her that at 8:30 a.m. she was one of many that day denied entry” before waving her back into Canada, Stanfield wrote on Instagram.

Stanfield, who was still waiting to catch his flight, managed to retrieve their packs and cancel his ticket. Their AZT hike—months in the making—was over before it began.

“We were both shocked and devastated,” Stanfield wrote. After making his way to Canada, the two pivoted to hiking the North Coast Trail on Vancouver Island.

German thru-hiker Annika Ananias experienced an even more intense vetting by U.S. Customs. Ananias had legally entered the country twice before on B2 tourist visas: first to hike the Pacific Crest Trail in 2022, then the Continental Divide Trail in 2024. She documented both hikes in detail through blogs and social media, gaining a following under her trail name, Ravenclaw. But everything unraveled in February when she landed in Miami en route to the AZT.

Passport control pulled her aside, separated her from her American boyfriend, and took her into a secure interview area. What followed was 22 hours of interrogation and sleep deprivation, according to Ananias. Border agents accused her of intending to work illegally in the U.S. When she offered bank records, evidence of freelance work, and details of her hike, she said officials dismissed her.

“I told them how much money I have on my account. I offered to show them my bank account. They didn’t want to see that. I tried to explain to them that I did the hikes, I have a lot of proof: I have my Instagram account, I have blogs … But they didn’t want to see the proof,” she says.

She was ultimately deported and slapped with a five-year reentry ban on the grounds of a prior overstay. According to Ananias, she had applied to extend her B-2 visa after an injury on her PCT hike. She didn’t hear back at first, so she left the country a few weeks after the first visa expired, only to receive an extension approval after she left. At best, she says that means she didn’t overstay at all. At worst, she argues, her overstay amounted to 18 days, not nearly enough to trigger a five-year ban. She points to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services guidance that overstays between 180 and 364 days can result in a three-year ban. There is no mention of bans for overstays below that 180 day threshold.

When asked for a comment on Ananias’s case, U.S. Customs and Border Protection responded with a broad warning.

“Lawful travelers have nothing to fear from [increased security] measures, which protect our nation’s security,” a CBP spokesperson said via email. “However, those intending to enter the U.S. with fraudulent purposes or malicious intent are offered the following advice: Don’t even try. When statutes and visas are violated, travelers will be identified and subject to arrest, detention, and removal. A visa is a privilege, not a right, and those who respect and follow our laws will always be welcomed.”

With access to the U.S. cut off for several years, Ananias and her boyfriend have decided to get married in Germany this summer in order to be together.

“My immigration attorney said I should have a good chance for a waiver and therefore a new visa as this was a mistake, but of course we don’t know what the process looks like nowadays,” she said via email.

Not every hiker is getting flagged. For Canadian Triple Crowner Liam Cameron, who works at a maritime software company, a recent U.S. entry was completely normal. On March 31—just days before a new rule took effect requiring advance declarations for trips over 30 days—he breezed across the border. He didn’t yet have a return ticket. His hike was more than 30 days, but no one asked.

“I went to Vancouver, NEXUS line, and walked through,” he said. “They asked the purpose of my trip, and I just said, ‘I’m going hiking in Arizona.’ And they’re like, ‘All right,’ and they let me right through.”

His partner, a South African citizen, joined him in the U.S. a few weeks later to tour the Grand Canyon. Worried by media reports about customs, she showed up with proof of home ownership, employment, and a printed return ticket, but was waved through without needing any of it.

Even though they’re asking more questions at the border, Cameron says, “I’ve crossed it three times … I’ve had no issues getting back in.”

A U.S. Citizen Opts Out

Jack “Quadzilla” Jones is a U.S. Army veteran, former wildland firefighter, and experienced long-distance hiker: He completed a calendar year Triple Crown in 2022, the Continental Divide Trail in 2018, and the Appalachian Trail in 2016. Next on the list was a return to the Pacific Crest Trail, with plans to hike 1,776 miles as a protest against the new administration.

But his life was upended in a moment by an email he received while traveling in Vietnam in March: U.S. Customs and Border Protection had revoked his Global Entry status, with no explanation provided.

“Between the army, being a federal firefighter, and then Global Entry, I’ve had like five different federal background checks. And I have nothing on my criminal history,” says Jones. “My gut said this has something to do with me speaking out against Trump on social media, but I really had no real way to know.”

In the face of this uncertainty, Jones decided to fly from Vietnam to Germany in hopes of a permanent relocation.

“I don’t trust my American citizenship anymore,” he said. “I didn’t want to risk being detained at the border while traveling or even returning to the U.S. from a backpacking trip.” Jones says that is a real fear for him after watching the March video of masked ICE agents detaining former Fulbright scholar Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University. Öztürk faced no charges but because she wrote a pro-Palistenan op-ed in the school paper, her student visa was one of more than 300 that Secretary of State Marco Rubio revoked under the Immigration and Nationality Act. This allows the federal government to deport noncitizens deemed “adversarial to the foreign policy and national security interests” of the United States. She was ultimately released from a Louisiana detention center after six weeks due to a court order.

Öztürk’s experience hits close to home for Jones. Jones was born in China, where his father was imprisoned after the Tiananmen Square protests when Jones was just eight years old. Scared of what his life would look like as the son of a political dissident, his parents decided to arrange an international adoption.

“They literally gave me away to strangers on the other side of the world … I still am dealing with the emotional ramifications of that at 38, and now I have a whole new set of things I have to deal with,” Jones said.He spent the rest of his childhood in Missouri, becoming a naturalized citizen at 13.

“Growing up, I always had this sense that I had been given a second chance,” Jones said. “When I got older, I wanted to give back. I thought I had a unique perspective as an immigrant and as someone who had lived through an authoritarian regime. I thought I could bring value to the military by defending a country that had given me a second chance at life.”

Now he’s building a third life. His digital activism has cost him his business as a social media influencer since offers for outdoor brand deals have dried up despite skyrocketing views. And those PCT hiking plans? Cancelled. Instead, he’s enrolling in language classes in Germany with hopes of seeking residency and eventual citizenship.

No Drop in Trail Numbers, At Least Yet

Amid the swirl of headlines and social media anxiety, international visits to the U.S. are down 12 percent year over year. This is one of the sharpest drops ever recorded outside of the Covid-19 pandemic. The country is poised to lose $12.5 billion in international visitor spend this year, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council, making it the only of 184 economies the group analyzed that is experiencing a drop.

A similar trend playing out among international hikers could have an impact on trail visits and spending: Trail surveys indicate 24 percent of thru-hikers on the Appalachian Trail came from abroad in 2023, as do more than 30 percent of Pacific Crest Trail hikers every year.

So far, the drop in overall tourism has yet to reach the trails. According to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), international hiker interest remains steady.

“The number of international hikers who have registered their 2025 Appalachian Trail hikes via ATCamp.org is on par with the 2024 numbers,” said Ann Simonelli, director of communications for the ATC, via email. “We have also not seen a change in cancellation rates for hikers from outside the U.S. Those rates are similar to previous years.”

Time will tell if that trend holds. The majority of AT registrations are made well in advance. Many 2025 hikers locked in plans long before stories like Ananias’ or Natasha’s began circulating widely. Others may be quietly watching, waiting to decide whether their visas—and nerves—can survive a gauntlet at the gate.

Natassia Pomroy, an Australian business owner, had her sights set on a 2026 Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike. She had already done the John Muir Trail, fallen in love with the High Sierra, and was preparing to take a seven-month sabbatical to make the full PCT possible. Then the reports of denials and detentions started rolling in.

“You’re hearing of these things happening to people … that little seed of doubt,” she said. “Initially you go, ‘That’s just a random outlier.’ But then you start hearing more and more about it.”

She scrapped her PCT plans and pivoted to four-wheel-drive treks across Australia. She initially planned to postpone the hike until she knew what she could expect at the U.S. border, but the federal government’s military deployment in Los Angeles and continued stories of traveller detentions led her to decide she will not enter the U.S. until there is a new administration.

“When asked previously what needed to change, I said ‘consistency,’” she wrote in a message. “I still believe that. But I’ve come to realise that consistent authoritarianism is no better, probably worse. I’m postponing my hike not just for my safety, but because, ethically, I cannot in good conscience support what’s unfolding.”

Canadian backpacker Jami Imai, a third-grade teacher from Mission, British Columbia, feels the same. Eagerly planning a visit to the U.S. to hike a stretch of the John Muir Trail in June 2025, she had done her homework—secured permits, mapped the route, and assembled her hiking team. But in March, she pulled the plug.

“There was a girl from Abbotsford, where I work … she was put in three different prisons over two weeks,” Imai says, in reference to Jasmine Mooney, a Canadian woman with no criminal record working in the U.S. whose visa CBP suddenly revoked in March. “That was my first inkling of ‘maybe it’s just not worth it.’”

How Thru-Hikers Can Prepare for U.S. Customs

While there’s no “magic formula, being prepared can make a big difference,” says immigration lawyer and long-distance hiker Grenier. Here’s her advice for how international hikers can increase their odds of a simple customs experience.

There are several steps you can take before getting on your plane to help set the stage for a smooth trip.

CBP officers often make decisions based on quick judgments, and rarely know much about thru-hiking or backpacking. The more organized you are, the better. Don’t rely on your phone alone—bring printed versions of the following:

International Thru-Hikers Are Being Denied Entry to the U.S.: Here's What Backpackers Should Know

Inconsistent Experiences Spark Anxiety

A U.S. Citizen Opts Out

No Drop in Trail Numbers, At Least Yet

How Thru-Hikers Can Prepare for U.S. Customs