Atlanta Trails

The southern end of the Blue Ridge Mountains, cloaked in green foliage and draped in tumbling waterfalls. The southernmost end of the Appalachian Trail. The majestic Smoky Mountains. Wind-swept coastal barrier islands, Spanish moss-draped swamps, coastal plains, and chiseled canyons. There’s a whole lot of outdoor beauty in the South, and we’re on a mission to inspire our community to get out, get active, and explore it all.

There’s a fairly common misconception that the outdoor culture isn’t strong in the South, and that the outdoor community is all about our nation’s other coast. We don’t believe that notion, at all. To our community, our forests and mountains and rivers and coastlines are not only local and easily accessible, they’re also remarkably beautiful.

2019 is our tenth year publishing Atlanta Trails. Since 2009, our site has helped over eight million hikers and runners find over THIRTY MILLION adventures. For free! We’ve got a serious passion for the outdoors, and want to share that passion with our growing community every chance we get.

We’re a small team of two with a shared belief that something special happens when today’s always-connected, high-stress society spends some quality time on a trail. Several hours or several days in the outdoors works wonders to melt away stress, whether it’s running a 5k, scoring a summit sunset, or waking up in a tent to the day’s first golden rays. There’s just nothing better than disconnecting from the internet and connecting back to the land that we’re so lucky to call home.

Eric Champlin is our founder, a former advertising creative director. Rob Sollie is our co-founder, a former landscape architect. We started publishing Atlanta Trails and Asheville Trails to share our favorite hikes with our friends over the past eight years. And we recently opened Trailful Outdoor Co., our hiking outfitter shop in the North Georgia Mountains near the Appalachian Trail.

Learn more about who we are and why we love doing what we do in our story.

Our goal is to help our community find a great trail and get the most out of every adventure. Our sites include features that most other publishers skip: interactive trail maps, directions, elevation profiles, original photography, and detailed trail descriptions. And throughout our sites, we include really important guidance on how to Leave No Trace, what to pack for each adventure, and how to practice good trail etiquette.

And in opening Trailful, our hiking shop in Hiawassee, we hope to not only outfit our community with the best gear and apparel for their adventures, whether they’re out chasing waterfalls on beginner-friendly trails or mid-route on their epic journey to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. We also hope to invest in our local community and give back whenever and however we can.

To us, it’s not just about getting people out. It’s about getting them out with as much information as possible, and a mindset to help preserve and protect the places that they love.

We donate a percentage of every sale, online and in our Trailful shop, to local and trail-related nonprofits. We donate our time to trail-related non-profits and advocacy organizations. We encourage our readers to support organizations like the Friends of Georgia State Parks and give back through trail cleanups and volunteer organizations. We sponsored the Atlanta BeltLine Running Series for a number of years, and have donated free race photography to a number of races and running events in Georgia. We were early sponsors and volunteers for the Georgia Trail Summit. And for years over, Atlanta Trails and Asheville Trails have been proud official partners with Leave No Trace, the official organization that aims to educate on responsible and ethical use of our public lands.

Let’s chat.

We’d love to chat with anyone who shares our passion for growing awareness of our state’s incredible lands and resources. Email us at hello@atlantatrails.com.

Atlanta Trails, Asheville Trails and Trailful Outdoor Co. are produced by Summit19 Studio LLC, 101 South Main Street Suite 8 #310, Hiawassee, Georgia, 30546.

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