Stoves? Food? Hunting and Gathering?!

[Walkintom]

Here's a couple of things that you should take into consideration that I didn't mention earlier:

You can hike or you can forage. You can't hike and forage. You won't achieve much of either if you try to do both.

You mentioned starting in July. Unless you start in Maine, you won't be able to finish. You see, they close Baxter Park every Fall no later than October 15th. You won't be able to walk there from GA if you start in July. Especially if you're not able to just buy food as needed.

I saw a couple in 2013 who were doing the whole tight budget thing to an extreme. The last I saw of them they were holed up in a shelter outside Franklin, TN. They were sick but wouldn't go into town because of funds. No one wanted to enter the shelter because other people were getting sick from coming into contact with them. Every time Ron drove a shuttle out to the trail head he'd check up on them and I know a couple of times people offered to pay for a hotel stay for them and he offered a room gratis but as far as I know they just sat there in the shelter and festered.

As we progressed North I heard from other hikers that they were still holed up for several more days. I never heard of them after about a week after that.

My assumption is that they finally got sick enough that they were convinced to leave the trail. So much for their grand plans of hiking on a shoestring and not going into town.

Being prepared for real trail conditions is a good way to be successful.

Frankly, you have a lot to learn before you try this. Get busy researching - and do some overnight camping before you try something so big and so far from home.

SWFMD has lots of very accessible property near you with camping and trails and very few people go camp on it because not many seem to know about it. Free as far as I remember and great place to get started.

[Fredt4]

If you're hunting and gathering, you ain't thru-hiking. Just not enough hours in the day, plus if you're thru-hiking you'll need way more calories than one could possibly gather even if you gather food all day long.

Hiker boxes and trail angels will get you a ways down the trail but that's unreliable. I would take what few dollars you have a buy a good medivac service as you'll likely need it if that's your plan.