Yea honestly I think a reasonable fear (at least I can relate). I have been van-life the past year and have seen my fair share of ticks.

Just general advice that has been effective for me (I’m sure you can probably find this online)

Before any hike, deet or other repellant on your skin and clothes/shoes. Know where they hang out and try not to go into deep grass. After a hike, shed all your clothes and shoes carefully and wash it all. Take a shower and either have someone check you out or do a self inspection.

Some places, like desert climates, I have never seen any. One of the worst hikes I’ve encountered I was in Idaho by a river and must have seen 100. I literally turned around and stopped the hike. I usually start by looking at the tips of grass blades hanging over the trail. As you walk you kinda just scan and after a while you might see them just hanging on the very end with their arms extended. If you don’t see any, there probably isn’t much to worry about.

Ive avoided a bite so far but I also obsess…

DEET on skin and permethrin on clothing and shoes is more effective. With the right kind of clothing and thorough permethrin treatment, any ticks that get on you will be dead before they find their way past the clothing to bite your skin. Just don't use it on skin, and keep it away from your cats. DEET can also do nasty things to clothing made from synthetic fibers, which are generally some of the best clothing choices for hiking.

This is what many hunters use. Permethrin adheres so well to clothing fibers that it lasts through several wash cycles.

I'm not sure about Alpha-gal Syndrome, but thankfully in Idaho you won't contract Lyme disease from tick bites.

I'm originally from Idaho but recently moved to Virginia. I've been far more cautious about ticks here than I ever felt the need to be in Idaho because you just don't get Lyme disease there.

When I go hiking here I treat my clothing with permethrin, wear long sleeved shirts and pants, and use 100% deet on any exposed skin. So far I haven't seen any ticks on my body.

Also avoid passing under low hanging branches. Ticks will hang out on a branch and wait for animals or humans to pass by underneath and then drop off onto them.

This is a common misconception. They don't drop onto you from trees.

https://thehikingauthority.com/do-ticks-fall-down-from-trees...

Ticks: The Drop Bears of the Arachnid family: https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2021/04/drop-be...

Given that figuratively all the causes of death in the Western World are directly caused (strokes) or heavily correlated (depression) with a sedentary life style, I am quite sure that regular hiking will massively improve life length and quality.

I sometimes wonder what the world would look like if people cared about the things that actually kill. Like, what if we would invest 300 trillion dollars into fighting prostate cancer instead of "terrorists"? What if we would design an entire education system around healthy sport instead of the prevention of "stranger danger"?

I feel like it is necessary to be scared of it an amount proportional to how bad it is times the expected chance you get it. And as bad as these are, they're just not likely, and even less likely if you're careful at all.

Agreed- the psychological and physical health benefits attributed by several studies to regular exposure to wooded and rural outdoor spaces is almost certainly worth the risk.

Worth the risk of being food impaired for life? Don't know about that.

There's a much greater chance you could die in a car accident, do you also avoid the highways?

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. You can never 100% insulate yourself from all harm. But you can choose to reduce it where you see fit.

Personally I'd rather die than give up one of the main joys in my life.

Technically, you always have the choice to convert the latter into the former.

No thanks.

Completely fair enough. But that seems to contradict your earlier statement that you'd prefer to die.

You get used to diet modifications after a while, took me a year at least before I stopped 'mourning' my old diet so to speak. There's plenty of other delicious foods out there and it may go away eventually.

There's plenty of outdoor spaces that are treated for ticks prevention to enjoy too, to get the best of both worlds.

I disagree as someone who spent all my time outside up through age 18 or so.

> never hiking outside

I still do very long hikes each summer, but now I'm obsessed with ticks and constantly scan and dodge grass blades.

I refuse to apply nasty chemicals on myself though.

I’ve never heard of ticks anywhere in western Oregon or Washington. I’m sure there are other places without ticks also.

Various species (specifically the brown dog tick) are all along the west coast from California to British Columbia.

In this study it mentioned the Lone Star tick specifically though ("In the United States, the condition most often begins when a Lone Star tick bites someone"), and apparently it's not present in either of those states or Canada as far as I or the internet appears to know.

I guess it comes down to your risk aversion - assuming it can come from any tick, there's no 'safe' place to hike in most of North America. Personally I've been outdoors a lot all of my 35 years and ticks haven't been an issue here on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The Pacific Northwest is probably safe enough.

As someone else mentioned, being outside and exercising is well worth the risk pretty much anywhere. Just be cognizant of the risk, check yourself and hiking partners if you're in a high risk area, etc.

I’ve had a couple of ticks here in Washington. They’re more common in Eastern Washington.

You can come hike in Denmark. Over the last decade it has apparently become more efficient to keeps the dairy cows inside and harvest the grass for them. Feels completely wrong, and I never figured out what changes in rules or technology triggered this.

Then you just need a TBE-vaccine and a daily tick-check to make sure you don't get lyme -- and you are good to go exploring our great nation which includes e.g. the one and only "Sky Mountain" [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himmelbjerget

you know you're in a flat country when "one of the highest natural points" is 147m!

Wow. Denmark reportedly has the lowest amount of corruption in the world if I am not mistaken. What a special country. Does your culture have a “directness” to it like the Dutch? What is your opinion on the immigration backlash of late?

> Denmark reportedly has the lowest amount of corruption in the world if I am not mistaken

Lowest _percepted_ corruption, which is quite a bit different than what you suggest, maybe us danes are just completely oblivious ;)

Danes do have the same directness that you speak of.

You should also ask about gross vs net salary.

Both, in general, and specifically when talking about Scandinavian countries.

Spending time in the wilderness on the east coast is not worth it anymore.

I agree. I’m never leaving my mom’s basement. Too scary out there.

Just wait. Sooner or later you will learn why the basement is horror central.

Black mold comes to mind...

Radon gas.

This, Radon tests are cheap. Get one if you have a basement or exposed dirt crawl space under your main living/sleep spaces.