South African needs help next year

[Mulungu]

My wife and I will be doing the trail from springer mountain to harpers ferry ( can't stay longer because of visa requirements) but wondered if there wer any kind folks who would help with dropboxes. It is to expensive to post from cape town south Africa.

[10-K]

What exactly are you asking for?

[Moose2001]

You can easily do your own drop boxes from the trail. Just buy, package and mail to a town up the trail. Not a big problem.

[Mulungu]

Some kind sole to post the dropboxes on to the required post offices. We will of course pack the boxes and will be happy to pay postage.

[Mulungu]

Would you be able to post them all from Atlanta and will they still be there a month and a half later

[10-K]

Well... what Moose says is a great idea.. When you get here just make up boxes and mail them.

And the truth is, unless you have special requirements you can hike the AT easily without mailing anything.

[Hitchin' Post]

When will you be on the trail?

[Moose2001]

Go to the home page of WB. On the left hand side click on the link for resupply info. It's broken down into 5 parts but is a great description of where and how you can resupply along the trail. As 10K said, it's not hard and you need no or a very small number of boxes.

[hikerboy57]

how do you intend to get the drop boxes to us in the first place?

[hikerboy57]

will you be paying by money order?

[10-K]

will you be paying by money order?

Careful, he might have a Sawyer In-Line Water Filter (SILWF).

[hikerboy57]

Careful, he might have a Sawyer In-Line Water Filter (SILWF).

i was hoping for spam singles. seems like theyre going around lately.

[Ender]

Honestly, don't worry about drop boxes. Just buy food as you go, and use a single bounce box to mail ahead to yourself if needed.

[TOW]

There is so much resupply along the trail you should not have to worry....

[Pedaling Fool]

Would you be able to post them all from Atlanta and will they still be there a month and a half later

Like someone else said you don't need mail drops. However, if you do want them, then how many are we talking about?

I wouldn't want to leave a box in a mail room for a 1-1/2 month. However, one option would be to send all of them to your first 2 or 3 maildrop locations (just because if you have, say 7 boxes I wouldn't want to send them all to one post office). As you get to your first post office just bounce the box(es) you don't need up a few towns. and continue that all the way up the trail.

It's important to know that you can bounce a box up the trail for free. However, if you accept the box than that's not an option, you must pay to send it up the trail. So make sure you only accept the box you need for that town.

[Don H]

One of the things he might be thinking about is what to do with his cold weather gear. If he has warm weather gear he wants to pick up at some point and drop off other gear it would cost too much to send the cold weather gear directly back to South Africa, it's cheaper to take it home in baggage. So maybe he needs someone to hold gear and send it to him in Harpers Ferry.

Since most Post Offices along the trail will hold a package for a month he should be able to send warm weather gear to Pearisburg, VA as an example and from Pearisburg send his cold weather gear to Harpers Ferry so he can take it home with him.

My German hiking buddy Mammoth ran into this problem last year. He ended up having multiple offers to send his stuff to be held by the family of friends he met along the way.

If we're talking only food just buy it along the way.

I suggest you get a copy of "The A.T. Guide" by David Miller and read the articles on White Blaze's home page. They will go a long way to answer your questions. Of course you can always ask here if you can't find an answer.

I can understand how this could be confusing to someone from another country.

[Kryptonite]

A lot of the post offices WILL allow you to accept the box, you just can't open the box before being able to bounce the box ahead.

Something I have noticed about bounce boxes is to be sure to fill them with more expensive items. I have seen hikers fill them with ramen noodles and pop tarts when these are very inexpensive in the stores. The items you might want to bounce are the dinners, etc. that are inclined to cost more in the trail towns.

[Odd Man Out]

If you are concerned about having a package sit in a post office for too long, another option would be to mail to hotels or b&b's or hostels or other establishments along the trail that cater to hikers. Contact them by e-mail before you leave and get the info on how to ship (each place may have different rules, fees, etc...). Do all your shopping and shipping from Atlanta and then you won't have to worry about timing your shipments just right or having to rendezvous with your package at a post office.

Or just resupply as you go, as suggested above, or a combination of both.

[Mulungu]

Hi
thank you for all your great ideas. We will leave cape town middle of April and will hopefully start around 25 or 26 April. Our reading tells us that we should not require serious cold weather gear. Just good rain gear.

[scree]

Are you bringing biltong? Love that stuff.