I am planning a 2008 thru-hike, and my current plan is to bring a phone card and use pay phones or hostel phones.
My quick question: How available or hard to find are public phones in trail towns, at post offices, near trail heads, at hostels, etc... ?? Anybody have good or bad experiences depending on them?
Qualifying info...
I need phone access to help contact family back home who is helping mail my resupply packages. Calling them to coordinate will help minimize the time my packages are taking up space at the various destinations they're sent to... plus I can request last minute changes if I decide some food item is terrible ;-)
The other alternative is a cell phone, and while I'm indifferent to philosophies about technology in the woods, I'm choosing not to carry one because of the extra weight and added logisitical requirement of bouncing the charger.
As a matter of being practical though, I do want phone access, so I'm interested in how readily available public phones are near the trail.