Is food included?

[BeeMarieVarner]

So i'm planning to have around $5000 saved for my 2017 thru hike. The only thing that I am slightly confused about is if that should be higher because I don't know if people usually include their food resupplies in their overall budget or if it is something that they stock up on before hand? I plan to complete the hike in 5 months and i've gathered that $1000 per month is generally a good way to base ones savings, should I save more if I haven't started stocking up on my resupply food for mail drops?

[TNhiker]

I would think food would be a big chunk of a thru hike budget........

[Malto]

I would think food would be a big chunk of a thru hike budget........

It was by far for me.

[Puddlefish]

It depends of course how detail specific people are. I've seen a few people who claim to have hiked cheaply, and it turns out they had a lot of support from relatives and friends along the trail. There's also the occasional "I met a superfriendly guy on the trail who paid for my lodging for a few weeks" story. I'm not judging these people, it's just that their method may not be applicable to your hiking style. There's no set accounting method that anyone is required to follow.

My trail amount per month is about $1,000, it includes initial food and supplies, postage, resupply food, a hostel or cheap hotel about once a week, replacement of lost/broken gear, the rare shuttle and the occasional fee.

It doesn't include my phone data plan (which I upgraded for the trail), the cost to get someone to mow my lawn, transportation to and from the trail, nor general gear.

I lasted exactly two months on the trail. $800 the first month, and $1,300 the second month after I took a pile of zeros and slowed down a whole lot from an injury. I wasn't moving particularly fast the first month, but I was moving.

[trailmercury]

So i'm planning to have around $5000 saved for my 2017 thru hike. The only thing that I am slightly confused about is if that should be higher because I don't know if people usually include their food resupplies in their overall budget or if it is something that they stock up on before hand? I plan to complete the hike in 5 months and i've gathered that $1000 per month is generally a good way to base ones savings, should I save more if I haven't started stocking up on my resupply food for mail drops?

Are you planning any food maildrops at all? If not I would say have at least 1000 more...especially if your are starting early (Feb. or March), as you may be holed up in town/hostel awaiting terrible weather to pass...

[Suzzz]

What is a good estimate of price for one night in a hostel/cheap hotel along the trail? Nothing fancy but a clean bed and a hot shower. And do they usually have laundry facilities or do we have to go out to clean our clothes?

[scrabbler]

What is a good estimate of price for one night in a hostel/cheap hotel along the trail? Nothing fancy but a clean bed and a hot shower. And do they usually have laundry facilities or do we have to go out to clean our clothes?

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/hostels-2016.php

[gracebowen]

http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/hostels-2016.php

Ive looked over the list. I see plenty for $20. Some even less. I dont know about laundry.

[garlic08]

Most trail budgets include food, including that mailed ahead. Food was over a third of the cost of my hike, close to half, including the relatively expensive town meals I indulged in. It's certainly possible to cut that expense.

About laundry: When I hiked, a load of laundry cost at least $4, probably $5 by now. If you don't share that with someone, it adds up. The few hostels I stayed in had laundry for a fee.

[Hikingjim]

$1,000/month is enough for food. Just budget accordingly. It allows room for a bit of hostel, etc

Should count on some gear replacement in your budget.

if you have more then that just allows you more flexibility if you run over 5 months or want to spend more

[Starchild]

It does include food, well the $2/mile standard does. $5000 should work for a thru. If you do maildrops outside of that budget you have a very nice cushen.

[Water Rat]

While $1000.00 a month has been a good rule of thumb, you might want to keep in mind that costs (equipment, food, lodging) could increase between thru hiking seasons.

Services and food that cost a hiker $1000.00 a month in 2015, might cost another hiker more in 2017. Sometimes hostel owners have to increase prices based on what they are having to spend to shelter each hiker. It's always good to budget a little more than you think you will need for those unexpected surprises. That way when you hit hostels that were $25 last season, and are now $35-$40 the year of your hike, it doesn't cause a strain on your budget or cause you to worry about money during your hike. It all adds up.

[BeeMarieVarner]

Thank you! Yes I have a few maildrops planned already. I was just a little unsure as to if the majority of thru-hikers bought their food in bulk beforehand and had plenty of mail drops or were saving the majority of $5000 or so to use for their food resupplies. This clears up a lot!

[Another Kevin]

Thank you! Yes I have a few maildrops planned already. I was just a little unsure as to if the majority of thru-hikers bought their food in bulk beforehand and had plenty of mail drops or were saving the majority of $5000 or so to use for their food resupplies. This clears up a lot!

Since 75% of would-be thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

If you're sensible, you can do a lot of resupply at grocery stores. Never worry about full-water food if you're going to eat it the same day. If you want to carry some fresh fruit or veggies, or something else full-water, just don't load up the water that you would otherwise have used to reconstitute dried food.

Me, I do most of my stocking up at the grocery store, plus dried vegetables from Harmony House (which I have maildropped on one section hike). Dried vegetables, herbs, instant rice or dried potato or couscous, and some string cheese or pouch tuna or pouched or canned chicken or summer sausage or .... is better food, and better tasting, than virtually all packaged trail food. A lot of my trail dinners are things like:

• tomato sauce from Harmony House ingredients, plus abruzzese sausage and/or string cheese, over couscous.
• curry from Harmony House veggies plus dehydrated coconut plus dried fruits, with chicken or cashew nuts or chickpeas or tofu, over rice and lentils.
• dried cabbage from Harmony House plus onion plus caraway plus some vinegar (Subway has it in packets) plus summer sausage, over tiny noodles (get a kind that cooks in at most 7 minutes, they'll be done after 15 min in a freezer bag cozy).
• pouch tuna and dried mushrooms and dehydrated peas and dry milk and a little cornstarch to thicken, over rice or noodles.
• Spam, hard cheese, dried mushroom, dehydrated potato, dry milk.

Itty-bitty aluminum cans don't weigh all that much as trash, so I don't mind using one every couple of days, so canned chicken or shrimp are definite possibilities. Tuna and salmon usually are available in foil pouches.

The trick here is that I don't have to make a food plan and stick with it, because most of the stuff has a long shelf life, and I'd have most of it in my kitchen even if I weren't hiking. And there are no hydrogenated oils, very few simple carbs, more sodium than my doc would like but the way I sweat on trail it isn't a problem, exactly as much fat as I want (add EVOO according to cravings), a decent amount of fiber (particularly since there are likely to be whole grains all the rest of the day). Since I do short mileages, I can even bring the makings of steam-baked muffins and start the third or fourth day (when my morale is low) with fresh baked goods. A lot better nutrition than Little Debbie - and as far as I'm concerned, better tasting too. So what it it takes me an additional half hour to get going that morning and my pack is a couple of ounces heavier so that I can carry a couple of foil muffin cups and another ounce of alcohol?

My longest hike has been about 138 miles, so I don't know if I could keep this pattern up for a thru. On the 138-mile trip, I had two supply stops, one in a town and one maildrop in a town without a grocery store (although I picked up some odds and ends at a quirky convenience store). For the supply stop without the maildrop, I simply carried enough of the veggies, spices, coffee, and so on to use through my next stop - well less than a pound - and replenished with small boxes of instant potatoes, instant rice, and instant oatmeal.(I gave half of the potatoes and rice to a local who was curious about what I was doing as I repackaged stuff.) The other purchases were some whole-wheat flatbread, a couple of carrots, a couple of oranges, a little pack of porcini mushrooms, the ingredients for some more gorp (raisins, pretzels, nuts, M&M's), a pouch each of tuna and salmon, a little can of shrimp, a tin of sardines, a little can of chicken, a couple of sticks of cured sausage, and some string cheese. That gave me another six days of good food (the hike divided into segments of 4, 6, 3 days). I spotted a 'just add water' muffin mix that didn't have horrible nutrition numbers and threw that in my pack as well - it made two mornings' breakfasts, which meant that I wasn't having oatmeal every morning.

The food was a little on the heavy side, but as I said, I carried less water because I ate the oranges and carrots on the first day-and-a-half. About three days in, I also had the opportunity to beg a car camper to dispose of some trash for me, so I got rid of three or four tins. (I'd had the sardines for lunch one day.) I ate well, kept the bowels open and the morale up, and lost weight on the trip.

I think most hikers fall into a pattern of grocery store resupply. I like to think that I eat better than some of them. It's doable, particularly if you can do a maildrop on every third or fourth stop for the things you like that small-town grocers don't carry.

[Hikingjim]

Since 75% of would-be thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

This is very true. A friend of mine went two weeks on the AT and had about 3 months worth of food that his girlfriend was going to mail out as instructed. He bought a lot of bulk stuff and got it all ready... probably spent twice as much time dealing with food and logistics than he did actually hiking.
It has been a great source for cheap trail food for me though. I have bought a few hundred worth of food off of him at a heavily discounted price!

[Dogwood]

Thank you! Yes I have a few maildrops planned already. I was just a little unsure as to if the majority of thru-hikers bought their food in bulk beforehand and had plenty of mail drops or were saving the majority of $5000 or so to use for their food resupplies. This clears up a lot!

For the AT, if this is you longest anticipated hike to date and you foresee yourself doing additional longer hikes IMO the hybrid resupply approach as you're doling it mailing just a few boxes but mostly buying provides a good basis for resupplying allowing for options.

This is your hike. You own it. You make decisions for yourself based on your hike your situation. You might consider what the majority of AT thru-hiker attempters do but give the most consideration to what you will do. HYOH means being responsible for your decisions.

The largest single category of financial expenditure for my 2006 AT thru(April 13-Oct 15) and another completion accomplished as a long section hiker was food. It still tends to be the, or one of the, highest expenditures no matter where or how long I hike.

[Dogwood]

Since 75% of would-be thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

This should more accurately be written: Since 75% of would-be (AT) thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

[Another Kevin]

Since 75% of would-be thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

This should more accurately be written: Since 75% of would-be (AT) thru-hikers wind up not going as far as they planned, buying trail food in bulk is a high-risk proposition, unless you'll eat it at home. (Also, a lot of people's tastes change radically on the trail.)

Touché. Some of the other major trails have a higher success rate because they're harder - there are fewer early bailouts because the totally inexperienced don't attempt them.

[BeeMarieVarner]

Thank you Another Kevin, for taking the time to share with me! Everyone has helped a ton and I'm very thankful for all of the advice given! Luckily foil tuna packets and oatmeal are already a large portion of my diet so it makes it easy to buy things like this that I know I will eat after the trail as well.