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treeofeeywa
03-28-2011, 10:59
I'm planning on a nobo thru-hike starting March 2012. I just got a job and anticipate making about $100 a week. I anticipate making about $4,500 to $5,000. Will that be enough?

My list of expenses:
backpack
hammock tent
sleeping bag
food
transportation to georgia (from NH)
transportation to get back home afterwards
stove and cooking necessities
trekking poles.
money for zero days spent in town

Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks! :)

Trailbender
03-28-2011, 11:05
Way more than enough, depends on how much you like sleeping in the woods and how much self discipline you have.

Look into dirtbagging(making your own gear). You can make a ton of things yourself, like a stove, ect. I would spring for a really good sleeping bag($200-300) as it will be well worth it. Besides a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tarp or tent, and a pack, you can pretty much make everything else you need besides clothes. For clothing, get synthetic, you don't need "hiking clothes", anything synthetic will work, you can get most of it at a thrift shop.

I already had most of my gear, and my thru cost me $2400, and I splurged a lot.

garlic08
03-28-2011, 11:29
I agree that's plenty of cushion for a "normal" hike including decent gear purchases. I already had my gear, but my hike, including plenty of town comforts and cross-country travel, cost $3500.

Blissful
03-28-2011, 13:07
$4000 is a good amt for a hike minus gear purchases though.

4eyedbuzzard
03-28-2011, 13:31
Should be plenty. Just don't buy a lot of stuff that isn't needed and doesn't get used. You should be able to equip yourself gear wise quite nicely for $1000 if you research your choices well and look for sales and used gear, etc.

garlic08
03-28-2011, 13:57
And if you can't make your own, start shopping now for gear. Subscribe to steepandcheap.com, look for sales at Campmor, etc. Look at homemade alcohol stoves--very popular on the long trails and better than free because you take some trash out of the system. There are some high quality inexpensive shelter and pack options at Gossamer Gear, Tarptent, and other similar cottage industries. For example, you could get the Campmor 20 down bag for $120, Tarptent Contrail for $200, and Gossamer Gear G4 pack for $125. This stuff is light, durable, and doesn't have to be expensive. There are also on-line gear swaps around--I think backpackinglight.com has something.

brian039
03-28-2011, 18:54
I spent $4,500 on my thru-hike not including gear except replacement footwear and a down jacket that I bought in VT. I stayed in just about every hostel there is, ate at restaurants, and drank bear liberally. There are certain places to avoid but for the most part you will have a very good time. One suggestion is to camp a few miles outside of town and you can hike in by breakfast, pay to stay one night, and linger in town most of the next day if you want and practically have a zero. I mastered this art!

Try to take your zeros in the cheap towns, there a several down south and even a few in the north despite what I had heard prior to my thru. Lots of towns have free camping as well. Look into Glascow, Waynesboro, Corn Crib, Garden Center, camping across from the Inn at the Long Trail, Toymakers Cafe, and places like that. They should be listed in your guidebook. Cheap hostels are where it's at too. Avoid hotels except the ones in Franklin, The Grand Prix in Gatlinburg, Pearisburg, Buena Vista, and Daleville. Hostels are more fun anyways!

Land_Shark
03-28-2011, 19:58
One can hike this thing on the budget of instant food or u can be like the Aussies last year and spend over 10k no bull**** folks Special Needs went crazy those who there know. So the moral of the story is do not go into towns they will suck the money out of your pocket. And to the Aussies thanks for teaching us cricket last year.

sbhikes
03-28-2011, 22:04
The moral to the story is if you want to party hard, hang out with Aussies.

Ox97GaMe
03-28-2011, 23:09
you can hike the trail comfortably for between $1.50-2.00/mile or $100-125/week average over the long haul. The issue is with how much your original gear cost is, and what expenses you might have in repair/replacement of gear along the way. Decent gear can be purchased for between $1000-1500. Top of the line, ultralight, namebrand might run a bit more.

It also depends on your lifestyle when you get into town. The party crowd is burning money like there is no tomorrow and usually find themselves having to leave the trail early. Budget wisely. Some weeks you will travel further and spend less. Some weeks you will travel less and spend more. The trick is to set an average spending rate and try to stay close to that target. You will know at the 1,2, and 3 month points how you are doing against that budget.

ScottP
03-29-2011, 13:42
$4,000 to $5,000 isn't a whole lot for a thru hike once you factor in purchasing all of your gear and getting to/from the trail, especially if something unexpectedly expensive happens (illness, gear breaking, etc). I'd try to pick up another shift if I were you.

jbsbestfan
03-30-2011, 20:06
Does that 2,500-4,000 range include the expense of flying in some Aussies to keep you partying?

Papa D
03-30-2011, 21:04
I through hiked in '85 on a budget of $2,000 including gear - the rate of inflation since then is 105.7% so that money now would equal just over $4,000 now.

I hiked the LT last year and spent $450 or so - about $350.00 on hostels, shuttles and food and about $100 on misc gear. that would be about $ 1.64 per mile, so that times 2180 = $3,575.00 - don't know how much gear you have, but let's say you drop $650.00 more - that would put you at $4,225.00 -coincidently about the as I calculated above.

Given this, I would say that the average thru hike costs between $4000 - $4500 total for the whole show - some do it for a lot more - lots of hotels, slack-pack services, luxury, etc. and some do it for about 1/3 that at about $1,500 - this would be a really spartan hike though.

If you make some of your own gear and get thrifty and stay out of towns you will save a bunch of $$, but I think it sounds like you are on the right track for paying for a good fun well balanced hike.

Compare this to spending 4-6 months anywhere else - including rent, food, bills, etc. and it is still a great bargain.

brian039
03-30-2011, 22:53
Compare this to spending 4-6 months anywhere else - including rent, food, bills, etc. and it is still a great bargain.

Yeah, you could easily drop that much money by going to Europe for a couple weeks vacation. An AT thru-hike is a bargain!

fredmugs
03-31-2011, 07:49
I have 8 years to figure out what I'm going to do after I retire. One thing I'll be able to do is sell back all of my unused vacation time and this thread had me wondering if that sale would fully fund a thru hike. Based on a 150 day hike I would have to get by on $54 a day. I could even afford the AMC huts.

Thanks for giving me more to think about while I'm at work.

joshua29
03-31-2011, 12:36
all these responses confuse me so much.i started runnin with this idea four months ago and here is how its worked. A) never hiked before. B) had to purchase 1000 in gear. C) had to pay the rent for the four months i am on the trail = 2000. D) how do i eat, well i am a cook so the answer deffinatly wasnt gas stations and mcdonalds, shame on you people, so i borrowed two dehydraters and went to work.200$ for bulk supermarket food enough for 9 maildrops of 7 days worth of food, and seven days of food is 8.8 pounds not including water. plus 9x the postage i think was 100$.E) it cost 125$ to get from mass to springer.april 22 i will leave springer and walk for 107 days until i reach great barrington mass, that leaves 44 days that i will need to resupply estimated cost is ten dollars a day and that includes fuel and the occaisional shower and beer.thats 3865$. oh and my bag of weed and bottle of scotch. yup i gues it make sencse now i thought it was alot cheaper on my end guess i havnt really thought about it this much. but minus my rent and gear and im hiking 1410 miles for about 1000 dollars, and that is eating very well.i gues what im saying is the hike itself does not need to be expensive, i think im a newbie.

Trailbender
03-31-2011, 13:16
all these responses confuse me so much.i started runnin with this idea four months ago and here is how its worked. A) never hiked before. B) had to purchase 1000 in gear. C) had to pay the rent for the four months i am on the trail = 2000. D) how do i eat, well i am a cook so the answer deffinatly wasnt gas stations and mcdonalds, shame on you people, so i borrowed two dehydraters and went to work.200$ for bulk supermarket food enough for 9 maildrops of 7 days worth of food, and seven days of food is 8.8 pounds not including water. plus 9x the postage i think was 100$.E) it cost 125$ to get from mass to springer.april 22 i will leave springer and walk for 107 days until i reach great barrington mass, that leaves 44 days that i will need to resupply estimated cost is ten dollars a day and that includes fuel and the occaisional shower and beer.thats 3865$. oh and my bag of weed and bottle of scotch. yup i gues it make sencse now i thought it was alot cheaper on my end guess i havnt really thought about it this much. but minus my rent and gear and im hiking 1410 miles for about 1000 dollars, and that is eating very well.i gues what im saying is the hike itself does not need to be expensive, i think im a newbie.


I definitely wouldn't pay rent at a place I am not living at, seems like a total waste of money.

ScottP
03-31-2011, 13:28
You'll lose a TON of weight trying to make 8.8 pounds of food last 7 days.

Bare Bear
03-31-2011, 17:03
This thread has been discussed to death several times.