Post Office Or No Post Office

[EverydayJourneyman]

With scheduling my mail-drops, I assumed using Post Offices would be the easiest.

But reading the AT re-supply info article here, it seems to suggest otherwise.

Does anyone have a preference or advice when dealing with Post Offices? Or a particular Post Office you would recommend/definitely not recommend? Or should I avoid Post Offices completely?

Thanks in advance :)

[Lone Wolf]

buy food along the way. mostly. use maildrops for gear and such. POs are a PIA

[fiddlehead]

Port Clinton PA
Glencliff, NH
Bear Mtn, NY
are 3 that i would recommend. YOu can buy food around Bear Mt. but it's the most expensive food on the trail from what i found.

Oh, and maybe Caratunk, ME too.

[EverydayJourneyman]

buy food along the way. mostly. use maildrops for gear and such. POs are a PIA

PIA getting to on and off the trail? dealing with the 8-4 business hours?

[bigcranky]

PIA getting to on and off the trail? dealing with the 8-4 business hours?

The hours. By sending your food drop to a PO you are tied to their schedule. If you arrive in town Saturday afternoon, you have to wait until Monday to get your food.

If you must do maildrops for some reason, it's often easier to send them to a motel or hostel where you plan to spend the night.

[EverydayJourneyman]

The hours. By sending your food drop to a PO you are tied to their schedule. If you arrive in town Saturday afternoon, you have to wait until Monday to get your food.

I'd thought that might be an issue (the weekends).

[Lone Wolf]

PIA getting to on and off the trail? dealing with the 8-4 business hours?

PIA with them being closed, PIA planning your hike around them, PIA your drop won't be there, etc., etc.

[bigcranky]

I'd thought that might be an issue (the weekends).

The trail has changed in the last twenty years. Lots of development in nearby towns, and plenty of new people, which means new grocery stores and other services are available that weren't an option in the past. It's gotten a lot easier to simply walk or hitch into town, hit the grocery store, resupply right there, and get back on the trail. This is an option every 3-6 days, depending on where you are on the trail and how far you want to hitch/walk.

There are a few places where a maildrop would be nice. In that case, it's easy to buy extra groceries at the previous town stop, and mail them ahead to yourself at a hostel or a P.O. Check Baltimore Jack's resupply article on the main page of Whiteblaze.

In my mind, the only reason to send mail drops is if one requires a very specific diet that can't possibly be purchased in town. Contrary to popular wisdom, maildrops aren't cheaper (postage is expensive), they aren't easier (you have to do all the work ahead of time anyway, plus you have to rely on someone else to mail them for you and on the P.O. to deliver them), and you may end up having to eat the same boring cr@p the entire trail. Finally, imagine buying 6 months of food at Costco, boxing it up, shipping half of it, and then blowing out your knee on the Approach Trail.

(Not that maildrops aren't useful sometimes. I use them for section hikes, when I want to maximize my time on the trail. Shifting the work/time of buying and repackaging the food makes sense for a one or two week hike, in my experience.)

[EverydayJourneyman]

I am a strict vegetarain which limits things a bit.

After hearing all the comments from you fine experts, I think I'm going to use the first few drops as test runs (Franklin, Hot Springs, Damascus) and re-eval the pros/cons from there.

The logisitcs on the backend seem to be sorted quite well (getting them shipped from home) and some of the food is actually being donated so its cost effective in that regard.

[Jack Tarlin]

Everyday:

The markets in the South might surprise you: Hiawassee, Franklin, Gatlinburg, Erwin, and Damascus all have large supermarkets. The Outfitter at Hot Springs has a surprisingly large number of vegetarian/natural items.

The places where re-supply are somewhat limited in the early days of your trip are Neel Gap; the Nantahala Outdoor Center; and Fontana Dam, tho you're probably OK with Neel Gap and they offer a very reasonable shuttle service to the nearby town of Blairsville which has a supermarket. Small food drops to the NOC and Fontana may be a good idea, tho.

I would tend to agree with the folks who advocate buying most of their food while actually en route for any number of reasons:

*You won't get stuck with boxes of food you no longer want to eat
*You can be more spontaneous with your shopping and buying decisions
*You'll save $ on postage
*You won't have to deal with Post Office hours, weekend closings, etc.

Good luck, whatever you end up doing!

[peakbagger]

I used to live just down the road from the Gorham NH postoffice and would drive by there every Monday morning. During through hiker season, I would frequently see folks waiting outside for the post office to open. I saw it occasionally during the rest of the week but Mondays seemed to be the bigger day. I would expect that since the post office was closed all day Sunday, that folks got into town and missed their package. Probably a good excuse to do a zero in Gorham but a PITA to some.

[Blissful]

The hours. By sending your food drop to a PO you are tied to their schedule. If you arrive in town Saturday afternoon, you have to wait until Monday to get your food.




Which never happened once to us and we had a bunch of them - I think 15 went to POs.

We did arrive a few times on Sunday and then got it Monday AM and just started a bit later in the AM. It's not that big of a deal. I mean this is a hike, enjoy it. People make a bigger deal out of the mail drop issue than need be. I liked it because I liked having good dinners and I sent myself medicine. It's better too if you have someone back home to pack your boxes. We had that and had a great variety of food. If we had extra it went into a hiker box. I think you end up with the same ol' thing when you have to rely on the same stuff on store shelves like ramen, potatoes, liptons IMO, unless its a big chain store. And then you have to spend time figuring out days out, 3 meals, etc.

There are pros and cons to both methods.

[Blissful]

All the Pos were fine to deal with, btw. The gal was kind of gruff at Port Clinton, but I think you need a drop there.

If I had to have a drop - I might drop at: NOC, possibly Fontana though Robbinsville has a good store, Harpers Ferry at the ATC office, Port Clinton, DWG, Unionville (they may have a store there, the PO was easy to get to), possibly Dalton or Cheshire (Cheshire is easy), Inn at Long trail unless you go into Rutland which is pretty easy via the bus but spread out) Glencliff, Pinkham notch at AMC center, Caratunk

[garlic08]

I am a strict vegetarain which limits things a bit.

Are you vegan? If not, you'll have no problem with an ovo-lacto diet on the AT, buying along the way. I just did a veggie thru-hike with zero mail drops. Cheese works well on the trail, and some of the best cheese in the country can be found in VT. Personally, I think carrying meat and its packaging is more trouble than it's worth. Good luck on your hike.

[prain4u]

IF someone really "needs" to do mail drops--then mailing things to a hostel, hotel, or similar business is probably the "best" way to go (based upon people's posts on various WhiteBlaze threads). Why plan your hike around the limited operational hours of the U.S. Postal Service if you can somehow avoid it? My local post office in Illinois doesn't open until 9:00 am Mon-Fri. The post office is closed for lunch (11:30-noon) and closes for the day at 4:15 pm. Saturday it is only open from 9:00-11:00 am. It is closed on all Sundays plus eleven additional holidays. The operational hours of post offices in most trail towns won't vary too much from this example.

[EverydayJourneyman]

I guess I've always thought hotels and hostels were less likely to hold your package if you weren't a guest, even those located along the AT.

[bigcranky]

I guess I've always thought hotels and hostels were less likely to hold your package if you weren't a guest, even those located along the AT.

If you send a mail drop to a hostel, that generally means that you plan to stay there. If you end up changing your plans, it's nice to offer a few bucks to the hostel owner for his or her trouble picking up and storing your package.

[EverydayJourneyman]

If you send a mail drop to a hostel, that generally means that you plan to stay there. If you end up changing your plans, it's nice to offer a few bucks to the hostel owner for his or her trouble picking up and storing your package.

Good to know.

On average, I usually spend about 40-45 weeks a year on the road (for the past decade) and I'm used to getting mail at hotels, hostels if I'm backpacking overseas. But I've also always have a reservation in place as a pending guest.

Never occured to me that they would hold it even if my name wasn't in their registry.

[bigcranky]

Never occured to me that they would hold it even if my name wasn't in their registry.

Oh, sure, that's generally not a problem. Because you won't know your schedule more than a few days in advance, it's hard to reserve rooms far in advance. The mail drop signals your intention to stay. Just make sure they accept mail drops (it's in the guidebooks, and you can call first.) Some smaller places you'll want to call a few days out, when you have a better idea of when you'll arrive, to make sure you have a bunk space.

[Blissful]

Put on the box - "hold for AT thru hiker" and your intended arrival so they know also.

[Blissful]

I guess I've always thought hotels and hostels were less likely to hold your package if you weren't a guest, even those located along the AT.


We had a box sitting at Inn at Long Trail and din't end up staying there, but they were booked up anyway. But agree, a few bucks to a hostel for holding your package is a nice way to say thanks to them if you don't plan to stay there. But hopefully you are planning to stay at the same place. :)

Be sure to send your box priority with delivery confirmation.

[ga2me97]

As others have mentioned I vote for buying food along the way. I thru-hiked 12 years ago and food stops were plentiful for almost all of the trail. It could only be better now. I could not even count the amount of hiker boxes filled with half of a mail drop due to fellow hikers getting sick of the food. Buying food along the way allows you to change things up and try what you see others eating. You could always use a mail drop here and there, just communicate with your support back home and have them mail something to you every once and awhile to a trail town week or two out.