One thing about "advise" blogs that I do not like is that what you wrote is YOUR opinion and quite site-specific. I do not know your qualifications to be such an "expert". The first thing that strikes me is that the suggestion of 3 liters of water is absurd unless you are in the desert. And Multi-purpose tool? I have been mountaineering and hiking 45 years and never used one or needed one. And under "know your limits", in my opinion, if you have no experience at off-trail travel, perhaps you should not be going solo at all. Trails have a tendency to "go missing" and you may get yourself into a situation where off-trail travel is needed.

Hiking solo adds risk; a small addition in many environments or a big risk added in some environments. Anyone who refuses to accept this is fooling themselves. That is not to say that hiking solo is "dangererous"- it just has a few more added risk factors. Maybe you are young and healthy and have not yet experienced a truely incompasitating illness. There are times when a helping hand will truely save your life.

The most important requirement of hiking solo is experience. Experienced hikers have developed good outdoor judgement so they are able to assess risk and act accordingly. I backpack solo; I DID NOT backpack solo when I was starting out!

Blogs that encourage solo hiking without steering beginners to wait until they get experience, are, in my opinion, irresponsible. Even with my extensive experience, I do not solo hike in a strage environment until I have first done a trip with someone. For example, I have never done hiking in deserts and would not consider soloing until I went in a group first so that I gained some experience in this very different environment than my usual treks into the mountains.

Case in point- last week I met a young gal coming down a trail I was going up. She asked if she could hike with me because she haad just run into a bear and was terrified. We hiked together for a few miles but she wanted to camp farther along so continued when I stopped. Next morning here she comes down the trail again- she ran into another bear and spent the night thinking every little noise was some strange animal. She then told me she had never been backpacking! She had on trail running shoes and a light pack. We talked and she admitted that she needed to go with others until she knew what she was getting into. Her travel plans included 15-mile days with 5,000 feet of elevation gain totally unrealistic. It turned out to be several days of really nasty weather- not "beginner's weather". This was a very popular trail and part of her "plan" was to count on lots of others on the trail to give yer moral support and backup. This is NOT a good idea anytime! Who knows what prompted her to go solo with no experience-- too much glorified solo hiking stuff out there on the internet perhaps.