How to Fund a Thru Hike

[4eyedbuzzard]

...To me a vacation is a escape from real life, a thru hike is real life and becomes real life and helps one define what is important in real life. Many have expressed that a thru hike is more real life then their off trail life, which is a fundamental difference.

So, and apologies if you are independently wealthy enough to not work or have a business to generate the income required to buy gear, food, transport, lodging, etc, how (or how long) would you survive just hiking and doing nothing else? The true fundamental difference is that only one, what most of us refer to as the real world - the one where you generate an income to feed and clothe and sustain yourself and family, can exist independently from the other. So which one is truly real? It isn't realistic to live hiking in the woods with no source of income. Never has been, never will be. Going off hiking is a recent, modern recreational phenomena. It's not a return to the past nor is it a sustainable existence. The trails we know were blazed specifically for recreation, on lands sequestered for conservation and/or recreational purpose, most as an escape from the modern industrialized world. The gear that enabled us to do so was designed and manufactured from materials brought to us by modern industry. Historically, people took short walks to be sure, but the only reason people went off on LONG hikes into the woods or wilderness was because someone with money paid them to do it to explore for land or resources or glory - or to hunt for homesteads or food. Very few did it just for the fun of it. Not so long ago, the wilderness was not a comfortable nor forgiving place - it's only the handiwork of the real world that made hiking a pleasant recreational endeavor.

I think thru-hiking or backpacking for some length of time is a tremendous service to mankind. Just think---the hiker is off the grid so is not using electricity or heat thereby reducing coal burning; he/she/it/they is not driving a vehicle therefore not polluting our air and buying gasoline; is not in consumer mode and purchasing more and more useless black friday crap; is not flying in airplanes ruining more of our air and causing noise pollution; and is not spending beaucoup amounts of money when actually out on the trail. His/her carbon bootprint is minimal.

Except for the carbon bootprint of getting to and from the trail by plane, train, bus, shuttle, etc; the manufacturing of the gear and clothing; the processing of all the processed food; the burning of firewood and stove fuel; and then add in the footprint left by creating and maintaining the trail and park infrastructure. It's not as small a footprint as some might contend. Hiking is a consumer activity.

When I leave on a 21 or 24 day backpacking trip I start with a dollar in my trail wallet and end up with that same dollar at the end.

Except that you simply spend the money required for subsistence in advance, rather than day to day.

And we all depend on charity when backpacking---the charity and gift of our national forests and wilderness areas, the charity of trail workers who keep the trails open, the charity of car drivers when we need to hitch---and of course the charity of the always open Dumpster.

Real life to me is the time I spend in the woods---either backpacking or sleeping outside or living in a Tipi etc etc.

The escape from real life to me is our current indoor life with conveniences and gainful work and all the rest. Therefore such a life could be considered the real vacation from the outdoor life.

The charities you speak of are only partially from charity - the tax dollars of US Citizens have paid for most of our parks and trail system and their maintenance. Typically that hitched ride doesn't really represent a high value to the giver either. And while dumpster diving for discarded food and gear as you suggest may appeal to some, I don't think most would find such a life very fulfilling nor meaningful - if more people did so, that resource (brought forth from the world of food producers) would not remain so easy to find. While you may be able to live this way, it isn't a model that can be sustained by large numbers of people, even if they wanted to.


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Hey, there's nothing wrong with thru-hiking. And if one can afford to, there's nothing wrong with doing nothing but hiking and living in the woods if that's what someone likes. But spinning a hike financed by income, using equipment, and on lands and trails that are all products of the REAL world into something more than what it really is just isn't a very believable argument.