how to maillll droppppp

[letmebefreee]

another question for you good folks out there i couldnt find the answer to this even though i know its prolly here. just curious if you have to have someone send your mail drops to you as you go? or can you send them all at once and they will say... hold the package you sent to maine for 5 months. thanks :P

[YoungMoose]

I dont think hostels would hold it for 5 months. Thats a long time. I think you should send it as you go. I think that they wouldnt mind holding it for less then 2 weeks. The ATC wouldnt mind holding it for a month or so i bet.

[Blissful]

Need to find someone to mail them out for you.

[Spokes]

Consider a bounce box. One of the most common lessons learned by thru-hikers is they really didn't need to do so many mail drops in the first place!

[Pootz]

You will have to have someone back home send them to you, I would recomend a couple weeks in advance. If you mail them to a post Office you mail them to:

Your Name
c/o General Delivery
City State Zip

And Put "Hold for AT hiker" and your expected arrival date on the package.

That being said you do not need to do maildrops. Food is pretty easy to get along the AT.

Good Luck, and enjoy your hike

[Tennessee Viking]

Both. You would only do a mail drops if you are wanting something from home or when really need them. Or receive stuff from home; candy and letters are popular.

Usually you want to send the next town/hostel or two the maildrops of food, snacks, necessities that you don't want to carry extra of, hard to find along the way, or local prices are steep. Power bars, trail mix, batteries, canned goods, fuel.

You can direct most mail drops to yourself in the c/o post offices or hostels in their addresses. Just note on it: HIKER MAIL DROP, TENTATIVE PICK-UP DATE: whenever. Just make sure the place does accept maildrops, and you might need your license/ID and maybe some bucks because some places charge.

With the trail become more popular, more stores are showing up.

[letmebefreee]

thanks only reason i am doing mail drops at all is that me and my wife are vegetarian and I didnt know that every town would have a big selection of vegetarian goods... especially down south in small towns and farther up north in the smaller towns. we're doing i think only 4 or 5 but thanks everyone for your input

[ShelterLeopard]

Vegeterian on the trail will be easy- you'd start to run into problems with being vegan (and not doing maildrops), but plenty have done it.

I'm doing maildrops just for the first month and a half, and at Unionville, NJ. (And getting things from my family at Harpers Ferry). After that, just resupplying in towns. Good luck, and see you on the trail!

[Blissful]

I'm doing maildrops just for the first month and a half, and at Unionville, NJ.

Unionville is over the border in NY. Just FYI for your address label.

[bigcranky]

thanks only reason i am doing mail drops at all is that me and my wife are vegetarian and I didnt know that every town would have a big selection of vegetarian goods... especially down south in small towns and farther up north in the smaller towns. we're doing i think only 4 or 5 but thanks everyone for your input

You'll likely be pleasantly surprised. There has been a lot of development in the Southern mountains in the last twenty years, and most towns have a good grocery store with a wide selection of national brands. Sure, you're not going to get great food at the gas station convenience store where the trail crosses a dinky two lane road, but the larger towns will be fine. That's been my experience from Springer through southern Virginia, anyway.

[The Flatulator]

I was a vegetarian on my first thru-hike (lacto-ovo-veg) in '77. There was plenty of food choices along the way even back then. In '82, I noticed more "health food stores", so check out the various guides to make note of which towns have this type of store. A "bounce box" is a good choice when you come to a good store. Post offices along the Trail generally hold boxes for longer than they are required to, but not for 3-5 months. Have a family member or friend send you what you need. I bought in bulk and had everything packaged and in the boxes with the addresses already on them. I just called and had whatever else I needed to be added. Lots of major supermarkets along the way and many of these have natural foods slections available as well.....

[ShelterLeopard]

Unionville is over the border in NY. Just FYI for your address label.

Argh, that's what I meant. Really, really tired today.

[ShelterLeopard]

That guy was supposed to look sleepy, not annoyed.

[Spot In The Sky]

Sooo is it a better idea to have a huge package mailed to you at your first pick up spot and then you take what you need from it and mail it yourself to the next stop, or do you have packages mailed directly to each spot you think youll need to stop?

Im getting mixed opinions about the mail drop system but it looks like the most important things to mail are gear for changing of the seasons, is that right?

[Lone Wolf]

Im getting mixed opinions about the mail drop system but it looks like the most important things to mail are gear for changing of the seasons, is that right?

yes. no need for food mail drops

[Lillianp]

I'm not planning on doing many mail drops-just a bounce box and one in about Pearisburg to switch from 'winter' gear to 'summer' gear. ie, sleeping bag and sending home some clothes. I'm going to go over where I think I should get my resupplies and probably do a few food oriented mail drops along the way-in places I should resupply but amount of options for vegetarians are limited. Probably mostly in Maine from what I can figure out.

[BrianLe]

Five mail drops for me, no bounce box. Two mail drops are larger "send things back and forth type", one in Pearisburg like Lillianp, the other in Glencliff. In Pearisburg I drop about 3 pounds of baseweight, mostly clothing, and in Glencliff I get some of that stuff back before going into the Whites.

Spreading the 5 boxes out, of course, trying to pick optimal places to get trail runners, prescription meds, guidebook sections. And where possible putting those boxes in places where there's no ready LT resupply option near the trail. Will be nice infrequently to get a few food items that I might not find readily buy in stores --- protein shake powder, EmergenC, refried bean powder, dried ground beef (I wonder how common it is to find TVP in the larger stores near the trail?).

[letmebefreee]

ummm ok, how do I estimate the day that the sender needs to send the package to the town so that its close enough that the post office doesnt throw it out or send it back... im not carrying a cell phone so do i write them ahead of time like a certain amount of miles before the town telling them to send it? or use a pay phone and call them ahead of time.... i figured i could just guess for the first box because its only like 120 miles in but after that i dunno HELP ME!!!

[RichardD]

I used a bounce box once and it was a bad experience.
I used one on the Colorado trail, shipped it to Frisco, picked it up then shipped it on to Salida. Plans changed and I went to Gunnison instead of Salida. I called the PO in Salida and asked them to send it on to Creede. They said that they could not do that, I would need to go to Salida and show identification. After much discussion they said all they could do was to send it to my home address in Texas. I told them to go ahead and do that. It never arrived, I lost quite a lot of good gear.
Perhaps I was just unlucky.

[BrianLe]

"how do I estimate the day that the sender needs to send the package to the town so that its close enough that the post office doesnt throw it out or send it back... im not carrying a cell phone so do i write them ahead of time like a certain amount of miles before the town telling them to send it? or use a pay phone and call them ahead of time...."

Pay phone --- I'd carry a calling card with a fair number of minutes on it (can buy this along the way), call at a town when you estimate you're, say, 10 days away from the town you want to get your package in. Even parcel post across the country (I live in WA state) tends to be around 7 days if I recall correctly. If use the 12 x 12 x 5-1/2 (or x 8) white priority boxes via USPS it's likely less than that.

Perhaps others will disagree with the "10 days ahead", that's just the rough rule of thumb I'm working on.