From the mid-19th century, hiking, skiing, and tourism societies were very successful in Alsace. After the annexation of the region by Germany in 1871, their German counterparts (particularly the Austro-German Alpine Club and Wandervogel), which were very active in the rest of Germany, were not able to expand their activities to the new Reichsland, where a dense network of organizations already existed. In this paper we demonstrate that the Alsatians, who were actually very open to hiking in the Vosges mountain range, were opposed to the spread of these German societies in their region. This is especially explained by the differing perceptions held by Alsatian and German organizations on the notion of borders and regional particularities.