Another silly question

[Pajj]

I spent so much time stressing about the logistics and planning every day before I even got on the trail trying to figure out exactly what day I would be in which towns, where I would camp each night, etc. Eventually I realized it was impossible to plan these things, and being on the trail only confirmed that. Part of the adventure is not knowing. Thru hiking forces you to live on a day to day basis, that's one of the things that made the trail so beautiful for me. One week you might feel like doing a bunch of 20's back to back, then the next week the terrain might get tougher or you might get lazy and feel like slowing down. My advice would be to plan out which towns you're sending maildrops to (if you are) and get those set up, I even went as far as to plan each town that I was going to stop in and carried a piece of paper with them and how many miles they were apart with me which I pretty much stuck to. Other than that, go with the flow and enjoy the trail

[Jakesdad1]

I planned out every step of my 2013 hike. Once on the trail the planning had been a complete waste. I agree with the previous post, plan when, where, and which direction. Then hike. Buy food as you go.

[George]

for an off season hike, a little bit of research/ planning is in order as some resupply sources are not available

[squeezebox]

I think the planning is helpful, so that you've thought about options, gear option places to sleep mileage, etc. Without planning it's too easy to fall into bringing too much stuff, the wrong stuff, starting with bad decisions. With planning you'll start with a better knowledge base. Then start you 1st fire with your spread sheets.
Accept the lightness the trail gives you!

[colorado_rob]

I do plan with a spreadsheet, mostly just because it's fun to do. My spreadsheet was uploaded on my phone, and all you have to do is update a cell or two when you get ahead or behind, and the spreadsheet refreshes with all new dates, times, places, etc. So I disagree when folks say that if you make a plan that pretty soon the plan will be useless. All you have to do is have a "smart" plan, meaning it updates itself automatically.

One main reason I did this is because I was meeting folks at various places and various times along the trail, hence I needed a "running update" to inform them or approximately where I'd be when. Or to tell my wife where to mail a box and when. Easier to update one cell in a spreadsheet (my current place and date), rather then slave over AWOL, and then know where I'd be in a week or ten days pretty accurately. To me this is all extremely easy, because I was engineer for a few decades, using spreadsheets all the time, all the way back to good old Lotus 1-2-3 in the mid 80's.... Yikes...