Walkabout Trail

The Walkabout Trail is Rhode Island's most celebrated multi-day hiking circuit, a classic loop through the northern highlands of George Washington Management Area that has been a rite of passage for Rhode Island hikers and scouts since its establishment in the 1960s. The trail was designed and built by a group of Australian sailors stationed at Quonset Naval Air Station who modeled it after Australian walkabout routes—hence the distinctive name. The orange-blazed outer loop circles through 8 miles of mixed hardwood and pine forest, passing the shores of Bowdish Reservoir, the 375-acre impoundment that forms the heart of the management area. The reservoir offers excellent fishing for bass, pickerel, and perch, and the trail provides numerous overlook points across the open water. The forest traversed by the Walkabout is characteristic of Rhode Island's northern highlands: rocky terrain mantled in chestnut oak, red maple, and white pine over an understory of low-bush blueberry and huckleberry that produces prodigious fruit in late July and August. Stone walls, cellar holes, and old road traces throughout the forest document the area's agricultural past. The trail crosses several cold, clear streams on wooden footbridges and passes multiple backcountry tent sites that remain available for permitted overnight camping, making the Walkabout one of the few backpacking options in Rhode Island's public lands system.