View Full Version : after your thru, how long did it take?
After your thru hike, how long did it take for you to "get back to normal life?"
btw, i did try to search for this, but couldn't come up with much...
Let me explain a little so this question makes more sense. I'm really trying to plan out my thru for next spring (2015) if at all possible and right now i'm looking at my finances. i haven't sat down and calculated anything yet, i wanted to hear some of your opinions first. after a rough estimate, i think i should be able to afford 4-6k for my thru, and i plan to be frugal with my money. very little time spent in towns, no partying/alcohol, and limited restaurants (i also realize that me sitting here typing will be very different from me on the trail for several months.) i figure i should be able to stick to that though, since i spent a few years in the army, and definitely had to put up with some crappy situations so i know i can handle it again.
anyway, the main thing i'm thinking about now is what happens after i finish (assuming i do). I think i should have enough money to get to Katahdin, but i don't know how much i need to plan to still have left at that point. so how many months of living expenses did you guys plan to have saved? or if money wasn't an issue, how long did you spend "recovering" before you tried to get back to life as normal? I'm not worried about finding a job or place to live right now, that'll be next on my list.
hopefully this all makes sense, and i look forward to hearing about your experiences!
Starchild
05-07-2014, 18:43
Though I have been to some post AT 'trail towns' and to some 'work for stays'. still following the white blazes in life since summiting Kathadin on 9-1-13.
Still waiting for me, but I do feel I have a path to get there.
It depends on what you're leaving. I took a leave from my job, and had a home and husband waiting for me. I arrived back at the house I had left six months earlier, and was back in my old office about 10 hours after I got home. My head wasn't exactly there, but my body was.
People who have to find new jobs generally put it off for as long as they can afford to.
hmm, sort of what i was expecting. i guess i just need to save up as much as i can and if possible, try and lock in a job for when i expect to finish. i feel like it would be nice to have at least a month off before i had to start working again, unless i got a job doing something dealing with the outdoors. if nothing else, i'm sure i could crash with some friends for a little while.
starchild, i like that answer. i definitely do not want to thru hike the whole AT just to come home and have things go back to the same thing. i don't think that's even possible for me! i want to come back changed, with a different perspective and different goals. being outside, whether it's hiking or camping or just being out there is so refreshing.
danil411
05-07-2014, 21:42
If you can save enough to give yourself a few months to search after returning, that would be advantageous.
My thru didn't lead to any change of heart regarding my chosen profession, but I still needed time to recover and rewire my brain. I had lost 27 pounds and I was physically exhausted. I had just completed a spiritual journey and my brain was not thinking the way it used to n corporate America. For example, before I started the trip, Sudoku was easy; it was difficult the first few months back. I couldn't remember all the relevant stories of MY work life to answer interview questions. it comes back but I am glad I didn't have the financial pressure.
OutdoorsMan
05-07-2014, 22:07
This might be of interest to you:
http://www.appalachiantrials.com/reconnecting/
you don't get back to normal life. You're surrounded by people who have no idea what a thru hike is, what it entailed and why you did it in the first place.
Starchild
05-08-2014, 09:12
starchild, i like that answer. i definitely do not want to thru hike the whole AT just to come home and have things go back to the same thing. i don't think that's even possible for me! i want to come back changed, with a different perspective and different goals. being outside, whether it's hiking or camping or just being out there is so refreshing.
I hiked the AT to change my life and also hiked it because I needed to change my life. It was the only path that appeared open to me. I have gotten so much out of my AT journey, things I was not even expecting (most notably as unusual I can remember people's names which I never could before). Others have not reported such changes. I feel it is you get out of it what you want to get out of it, and I did want and needed change.
After the AT I took the suggested month off. Over the winter it came to me to instruct ski school, the place I got the job was, I've found out, the most non-corperate working environment and they were very helpful and caring, I even used their equipment to instruct on all season. Pay was not great, but really it didn't have to be at this time of my life, rebuilding my self, but just getting experience on my resume of teaching people outdoors is worth quite a bit and I do help that will take me further. Before the AT I would never have considered this, but I do see how I most likely would have loved to do that and it would have fit in great with my pre-AT life.
This summer I have applies to work away from home, living on site, still waiting to hear if I got the job, but again I would have never considered such a thing pre-AT, now I look forward to experiencing living in a new place.
Good Luck
Pedaling Fool
05-08-2014, 09:35
There really is nothing to adjust to after a thru-hike that is really concerning, especially if you're prior military. This issue is something of a concern for new recruits that go on an overseas deployment (see here: http://www.military.com/spouse/military-deployment/reintegration/returning-to-home-life-after-deployment.html ) and even then it's not so much of a big deal, at least in my experience. Yes, there is some need to readjust and some things will not be how you imagined it when getting home, but really isn't a big deal.
After that first deployment (and I very much remember the coming-home feeling, which was unique) all other subsequent deployments needed basically very little readjustment period and coming home was never such as big a deal. Much less coming home after taking a vacation in the states.
Actually, WRT to "adjusting" it's the adjusting to being away from "normal life"; probably why so many quit so soon into their vacation.
you don't get back to normal life. You're surrounded by people who have no idea what a thru hike is, what it entailed and why you did it in the first place.
Sounds exactly like coming back from my time in the army, and especially my deployment. Like Pedaling Fool said as well, it seems to me like it won't be too difficult for me to adjust after my past experiences. I'm sure it will be different in small ways, but still with lots of similarities. I'll aim for about a month off before i go back to work and see how things go. is that about average from what you all did and what you've seen with other people?
Spirit Walker
05-08-2014, 22:13
A lot of the folks I hiked with took the rest of the autumn to get back into "normal" life. By December or January, most were either working or seriously looking for work. It depends in part whether you are going back to an existing job or if you have a skill that makes employment easy. Also whether you are going back to a home or starting over again. After my first hike, I went back to my mother's for a couple of months, worked for a couple of months to get some cash, then moved to San Francisco in February. On my second hike, I got a letter from a previous supervisor asking me if I would go back to help out as soon as I finished the trail. So I went back to work in less than a week and found a boarding house to live in while I looked for something better. After the CDT, we weren't at all ready to go back to ordinary life, and we had the savings, so we went out and hiked the PCT the following spring. After that, our finances required us to go back to work, and by then we were a bit tired of life on the road and ready to settle down for a while. Jim had a job by the end of October and I was working by December. We bought a house the following spring.
After every thru-hike I can never return to exactly who I was. Each thru-hike changes me therefore how I perceive what I'm returning to and WHAT I WANT TO RETURN TO changes. After more than 15 300+ mile thru-hikes and after each hike I've settled to assimilating how I've positively changed on the hike into my non-hiking life. Trying to go back to the same life or the same person you were before the hike is where I think some(many?) hikers get it wrong and find themselves floundering. Ask yourself, " can I really be the same person now as I was before completing this hike?" You might consider how you are changing as you are on the hike and how you changed on the hike post hike as part of reassessing to what kind of "normal' life" you are willing to return to. Usually, after a thru-hike your perspectives and priorities change somewhat. Completing a thru-hike often has the thru-hiker reassessing what matters most to them. In essence, after a thru-hike I do not recover to exactly who and what I was before the hike. I'm something new. Life is anew. A new life is awaiting.
The Solemates
05-09-2014, 21:22
After your thru hike, how long did it take for you to "get back to normal life?"
10 years and counting....
...regarding finances like you asked, it didnt take long at all. less than a few months. prepare well.
ChinMusic
05-09-2014, 23:00
you don't get back to normal life. You're surrounded by people who have no idea what a thru hike is, what it entailed and why you did it in the first place.
I have not found this to be true. Most of my friends followed my hike and were in some way with me. I have found my home environment to be very healthy. Getting back to normal life was without a hitch.
All I had to do was shave.
Thanks for your answers everyone! I don't think I'm any closer to an answer right now, but i do have more things to think about and consider. I guess now I'll just see what happens, and get out on a trail as much as I can!
4-6k is plenty of money even if you're not frugal, and I guess it depends on what kind of work you're doing when you get back. I got a job a week after I got back, but it was the same job (different boss) as when I left so it wasn't too much of a shock, and it was building houses so I was still outside working hard.
I did a 4 month hike, didn't finish...but when I got off the trail I was relocated to a new city and working within 2 months.
I was back to work within 8 hours of arriving back home. I took a leave of absence so I had a job to go back to. But that is far from the norm. Every person I hiked with had to find a job when they returned. I know it added a bit of stress to their hike.
Sunshine82
05-13-2014, 16:52
Once the way of living on the trail is in your system "normal" takes on a whole new meaning.the joy of simplicity replaces the wanting of anything society calls normal