Cost of Hike Threads

[Mugthumper]

I haven't hiked any of the trail north of NY, but I'm fairly certain that if utilizing mail drops, one could hike the trail for less than $1500 if they could hike it in less than 4 months. (total doesn't include cost of gear, travel, or injury) This doesn't require dumpster diving or being a hobo either. If you get in and get out of towns there just isn't anything to spend money on once you are back on trail.

Avoid zeroes. In towns, eat, resupply, recharge, shower and wash and get walking on out of there. This can be tough when others are trying to convince you to stay.

Avoid excessive alcohol. For me hiking causes me to lose the taste for it. I know this isn't the case for most anyone else.

Prepackage dehydrated meals made at home for mail drops at post offices that are close to the AT. This takes planning, a loved one to send you boxes, and the willingness to hike bigger miles when necessary to made a deadline. It also saves a ton of time shopping and repackaging. Muesli/Oats (not single serving packs) tortilla PB/squeeze jelly, TONS of cheese, quinoa, couscous, salmon packets, beans and rice (I'll never get sick of it), #10 cans of mountain house can be divided up into 4-5 servings, these occasionally drop to $12-13 a can, some like beef stew can be used as a good base to add other ingredients to. Bulk 48 boxes of snickers only cost $28, ship yourself 24 each resupply, way cheaper than Cliff bars or buying Snickers individually. So many ways to save money on food.

For on trail resupplies, when possible avoid gas stations and hitch to a town that has a walmart or grocery store for higher quality, less expensive food.

Plan for longer stretches between resupplies. When convenient, instead of resupplying every 3-4 days, plan to do so every 5-6 days. This helps cut out unnecessary town stops, reducing temptation to spend money.

Hike more hours each day. The less time the hike takes, the less it'll cost.

These are some of the biggest money savers that I've noticed in the time I've spent on trail. I'm convinced that it can be done for $1500 or less without being a mooch but it would take a lot of self control and discipline. For others that like to sample each town along the way I think it would cost quite a bit more and as others have stated a $1000 a month would be a good baseline.

Keep in mind you do occasionally have to Treat yo self.

[MuddyWaters]

Buying small portioned, individually wrapped foods, ziplocks, etc at resupply I spend $10-12/day on food. Minmum. Theres a waste factor too. Sharing among people cuts that down .


Do maildrops, you eat up $500 in postage alone so you can buy bulk. Eats up any savings.

Some have claimed to done it in recent years. I tend to think they had a whole lot of mooching and hiker boxes involved. You can do the math on calories , cost, and days on trail. Neglecting everything else it's hard to keep just trail food cost under $1,500 when a single 220 calorie Snickers bar runs a $1.25 with tax. Maybe $1.5 at a convenience store.

And you have to have copious town food to make up for the calorie deficit you run on trail food during the days on trail. It's not optional. I cant carry enough food for 20 mpd. On zero days glycogen stores have to be replenished, and fat added back. As much as possible. In a Nero, dinner breakfast and lunch before hitting Trail the next day, I'll spend at least $50 on those 3 meals and snacks. And that's one day a week on avg. I've spent $35 just on lunch before. Hamburger, fries, Shake, apple pie, tip.

[nsherry61]

But then again, if you take into account the money you can save by canceling your car insurance, home internet and cable TV subscriptions, and add in the money you don't spend on gas and entertainment (that you would have spent if you weren't hiking), you might make a profit.

And that's why I always buy the most expensive item I can find during any sale event with a percentage discount. That way I can save the most money.

[Cheyou]

And have your gear dialed in , not needing new ,warmer , better fitting, lighter, gear. Some recommend shoes don’t last long and cost $100. A pair.

Thom

[BuckeyeBill]

The best advice I ever got was not to take any zeros unless medically necessary. If I hit town at 5:00 pm, I would find a place with a shower, do laundry and a place to crash for the night. Get something to eat. Wake up the next day get a good breakfast in me and buy resupplies. Then get back on the trail. This also works for mail drops at PO, as you don't have to rush to get to town before they close, unless it is a weekend. Hostels are not that expensive and most offer the amenities mentioned above. I am normally back on the trail by noon if not sooner, refreshed, clean and ready to move on.

[Runner2017]

dumpster diving and using hostel services without paying cross a line for most hikers.

You can just pay for hot shower (normally $5) or tenting ($10) in hostels. Another interesting thing is that at one dumpster in Hot Springs, they found a humongous piles of expired beer and wine thrown away by a liquor store that went out biz a year earlier tho.

[trailmercury]

Another interesting thing is that at one dumpster in Hot Springs, they found a humongous piles of expired beer and wine thrown away by a liquor store that went out biz a year earlier tho.

Sooooo maybe in Hot Springs they didn't have to pay to get drunk, but how does this really affect how much the overall hike would cost?
Yay, they saved 50 bucks in Hot Springs. Great! But they aren't gonna find a dumpster full of booze in every trail town.

Most folks consider a Thru hike a vacation.
Give yourself enough money so that anything extra you might desire along the way, you just simply buy/pay for it. no matter how frivolous.

Let's not encourage folks who truly can't afford it, to go on a thru-hike. The trail is already crowded in Thru-hiker season.

[nsherry61]

. . . . Let's not encourage folks who truly can't afford it, to go on a thru-hike. The trail is already crowded in Thru-hiker season.

That's rather judgmental, arrogant and elitist.

Everyone has a right to push their limits, and for some, that is pushing the lower limits of a workable budget.

Poor people have a right to seek adventure also!!!

[Runner2017]

Sooooo maybe in Hot Springs they didn't have to pay to get drunk, but how does this really affect how much the overall hike would cost?
Yay, they saved 50 bucks in Hot Springs. Great! But they aren't gonna find a dumpster full of booze in every trail town.

Most folks consider a Thru hike a vacation.
Give yourself enough money so that anything extra you might desire along the way, you just simply buy/pay for it. no matter how frivolous.

Let's not encourage folks who truly can't afford it, to go on a thru-hike. The trail is already crowded in Thru-hiker season.

The motto is to hike your own trail.

For example, I've seen older thru-hike folks pampered by support teams all the way. A team normally consists of one or two vans that carry all the gear, hot food/snacks, cold drinks, folding chairs and etc for them. Vans will meet them at next road across so they just carry a very lightweight daypacks with some water and etc. And at the end of the day, vans will drive them to hotels in a nearby town. Is there anything wrong with this type of thru-hike?

There ain't just one orthodox way to do it.

[trailmercury]

The motto is to hike your own trail.

For example, I've seen older thru-hike folks pampered by support teams all the way. A team normally consists of one or two vans that carry all the gear, hot food/snacks, cold drinks, folding chairs and etc for them. Vans will meet them at next road across so they just carry a very lightweight daypacks with some water and etc. And at the end of the day, vans will drive them to hotels in a nearby town. Is there anything wrong with this type of thru-hike?

Absolutely not, they can afford it!
In order to HYOH you actually have to be hiking, I'm simply advocating for saving plenty of money for a thru-hike budget before getting out there.

These "how much does it cost" threads always drift into folks arguing like this, I can't believe I got suckered into it, not the OP's fault however!

Peace Folks, I'm ignoring myself from this thread!!!

[johnnyjohnson2043]

If it's worth anything, I absolutely don't plan on dumpster diving but to each his or her own. I want to try to avoid overdoing it in trail towns, however. I know that is easier said than done when there's a tempting buffet or an air conditioned hotel calling out your name but I'm going to try my best. If I succeed, great! I was able to not only meet my expectations but also discover what I truly can live without. If I don't succeed then it's not the end of the world. As for this being a vacation for me, it is not. I want to find my own limits. I want to push myself. I don't plan on beating the FKT but I'd like to see how far I can make it. The Appalachian Trail has been calling to me for a very long time. The first attempt I found out that I was carrying too much weight and hiking too fast for my body to handle so this time I'm cutting out a ton of "luxury" items and slowing down the pace a bit. We'll see how it goes. My feet are itching to get out from behind this desk and out onto the trail again. Thanks for all of the advice so far. I truly appreciate it.

[BuckeyeBill]

I am so glad I gave up drinking (11 years now) and smoking (3 years) all of which went either down the drain or up in smoke with nothing to show for it. If you do the math and realize how much you spend a year on either one or both, by quitting you just added more money to your Thru-Hiking fund.

[BillyGr]

It seems that, in this case, the "profit" is simply the difference.

In other words, if the cable, car insurance, internet, gas, entertainment that you paid at home cost $1,000 per month, but you can hike for a month and only spend $800 on hiking expenses, you've saved $200 and that is what is referred to as profit.

Not counting what (if any) money you aren't making while hiking by not having a "regular" job.

Perhaps.....if you had no income at that time whilst incurring those expenses.

But then again, if you take into account the money you can save by canceling your car insurance, home internet and cable TV subscriptions, and add in the money you don't spend on gas and entertainment (that you would have spent if you weren't hiking), you might make a profit.

[Mugthumper]

Buying small portioned, individually wrapped foods, ziplocks, etc at resupply I spend $10-12/day on food. Minmum. Theres a waste factor too. Sharing among people cuts that down .

Do maildrops, you eat up $500 in postage alone so you can buy bulk. Eats up any savings.
Some have claimed to done it in recent years. I tend to think they had a whole lot of mooching and hiker boxes involved. You can do the math on calories , cost, and days on trail. Neglecting everything else it's hard to keep just trail food cost under $1,500 when a single 220 calorie Snickers bar runs a $1.25 with tax. Maybe $1.5 at a convenience store.
And you have to have copious town food to make up for the calorie deficit you run on trail food during the days on trail. It's not optional. I cant carry enough food for 20 mpd. On zero days glycogen stores have to be replenished, and fat added back. As much as possible. In a Nero, dinner breakfast and lunch before hitting Trail the next day, I'll spend at least $50 on those 3 meals and snacks. And that's one day a week on avg. I've spent $35 just on lunch before. Hamburger, fries, Shake, apple pie, tip.

I did lot of calculating on this for a hike last year. Postage would run closer to $250-$300 using 13-16 large flat rate boxes each consisting of a 5-6 day food supply, which cost around $19 each. You would have to ideally cover somewhere between 100-120 miles of trail after a drop box resupply. At other times one would resupply on trail when you have access to a real grocery store. I'll admit I was carrying over 12 lbs of food leaving town after a resupply, but my base weight (11lbs) was low enough to offset that. Daily calories were consistently around 3,500-4,000. Daily cost of food including shipping was less than $10/day.

The cost of the food is where buying in bulk really makes it worth it. I don't necessarily advocate eating this many candy bars, but it helps me make my point. Snickers at bulk cost $.58/bar. Store bought Snickers on average $1.25-$1.50. That is a saving on average of $.80/bar. Multiply that by a 5-6 day resupply worth of 24 bars and it comes out to $19, which is exactly how much your shipping cost is in the first place. So only counting some snacks, and already at even. Everything after that is where the real savings start. Rolled oats, muesli, chia and NIDO are cheap when bought in bulk, same with rice, beans, couscous, Natures Valley bars, dried fruit/veg, almonds/walnuts, and even occasionally mountain house. Then their are things like batteries, ziplocks, leukotape, guidebook pages which I would want to send myself anyways.

When it comes to energy I think a lot of this depends on what hikers use for fuel. Lets face it, the eating habits of many hikers are complete garbage. I've come to the conclusion that pop tarts for breakfast and little debbies for snacks are the worst fuel ever. My body just doesn't run right when fueled that way for a weeks at a time. This doesn't mean I won't carry a family size bag of Doritos out of town, but it also doesn't mean snack crackers, pastries and ramen are the best idea for the bulk of ones calories either. Many get so caught up on their weight that they carry too little food and end up running such a deficit that gorging in town is a necessity to keep their heads above water. I think properly fueling the machine is more important than people realize.

Regarding glycogen stores. When you eat is almost as important as what you eat. The best thing one could do to keep their glycogen stores up is eat their largest meal at the end of the day. Personally I found that a good 1200+ calories right before bed is the way to go. This is where rice and beans and a big block of cheese comes in handy. A good balance of carbs/fat/protein before bed will do wonders for energy levels the next day. If the body is fueled correctly it will adapt to these sort of situations.

A $1500 budget would cut out how much one could eat in town, but hopefully that wouldn't be as big of a necessity. It isn't much but $25 could still be budgeted weekly for food in town. Fresh fruit, 1/2 gallon chocolate milk and a large pizza is maybe 4,000-5,000 calories and $25 well spent. Then the occasional buffets or fast food allow for a lot of calories for cheap. Showers and laundry are not a weekly necessity in my opinion as long as one practices good hygiene. It all stinks the next day anyway. A peri bottle makes an amazing backcountry shower. A bucket or cut off jug makes a good wash basin.

A 110 day hike could run approximately $1100 for trail food/postage @$10/day which leaves $25/week to spend on town food or whatever else. The cravings will be intense and it doesn't leave much room for error but it I don't doubt that it is possible. I also don't think it would be the most enjoyable hike giving up all the luxuries and forgoing town life, but I can see how some people do it. Anyone who claims they do it for less without being a total mooch, I'm calling BS.

I actually agree with your first post Muddy that 1k/month is reasonable for most. I just think there is credence in the claims of some who have done it for less. Smart food choices and being frugal make it possible, it just takes a good amount of planning.

[BuckeyeBill]

Just as a reminder, nacho Doritos can also be used as a fire starter.