How to Save Money during a Thru-Hike

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hey guys it's Darwin here with some tips and tricks on how you can save money during your next three hike [Music]

all right so hopefully most of you know by now through doing research that a thru-hike can be fairly expensive spending four to six months hiking through 14 states three states whatever trail that you choose to do is going to be a pricey adventure now obviously it's cheaper than living in a city and going to work every day and drive in your car and paying bills and staying in an apartment but it is still an expensive thing to undertake between 2015 and 2016 out on the 80 snuggles and I spent $10,000 on our entire hike now I know that sounds like a lot but if you split it up that's $5,000 a piece and that's for about six months five months three weeks and two days to be precise now obviously the smartest thing to do is saving as much money as possible before you hit the trail always factor that you're going to need more than what you actually plan on spending snuggles and I took almost two years to save that ten thousand dollars before we hit the trail in 2015 now a lot of people might think hiking four to six months in the woods and being in the mountains how can you spend that much money the reality of it is you spend a lot of money on doing town stops like resupplying staying in hostels staying in hotels buying gear that breaks down getting shuttles and then just on stupid stuff like fast food and beer and things that you're deprived of whenever you are out on the trail so when you get into a town you kind of go a little bit nuts and you tend to spend a lot of money in one sitting so because it can be expensive and you can go overboard while out on the trail I figured I would put together a list of tips and tricks on how you can save some money while you're out on the trail and make sure you get all the way to the end of your height so the first thing that you can do to save money while you're doing it through hike is something you can do before you even hit the trail and that's dialing down your gear make sure that your gear is dialed down you're happy with it it's at a weight that you liked and that you know how to use it a lot of hikers whenever they get out on the trail and those first couple hundred miles will do a lot out of gear changes mainly because they've discovered that their gears a little too heavy they're not exactly happy with how it performs or because they they bought some cheap gear and it's not holding up in just those first two hundred miles so they end up spending a lot of money and gear is a lot more expensive out on the trail at local Outfitters than it is it's a your local REI or buying it off the internet or something now I am all for supporting local Outfitters on the trail but it can be very expensive to buy your gear while you're out on the trail plus the whole point of planning it through hike is to get all of that stuff ready and to have that budget to be able to hike on and to live on not to get out there and the first 200 miles and kind of blow through your budget on a new pack a new stove a new tent so before you hit the trail get your gear dial down and make sure it's going to work for you and that you're happy with it and that will save you a lot of money right off the bat the second thing that you can do to save money while you're out on the trail is buying cheaper food now we all love those mountain houses and backpackers pantry and those gourmet freeze-dried backpacking meals but again super expensive now I do know a handful of hikers that have bought a lot of those in bulk before they hit the trail and they just ship them to them and that's a great idea but most hikers aren't going to do that most hikers are going to buy food on the trail and whenever you get into an outfitter or store you'll be tempted to buy those awesome backpacker pantry meals the problem is those things are like $10 so you can imagine if your resupplying on five days that's $50 just on that meal and just for a meal just for dinner

then you have to buy breakfast you start to buy stuff for lunch snacks so resupply can get fairly expensive if you plan on eating that type of food on the trail so buy cheaper food utilize things like a Dollar General a Family Dollar a Walmart a local grocery store out on the trail and buy things like noir rice sides like Idaho and instant mashed potatoes those are two things that are big thru-hiking staples and a hell of a lot cheaper than those backpacker pants so instead of spending ten dollars on a meal you can buy an or rice side and a tuna packet and spend like two dollars and fifty cents now are those backpacker pantries and mountain houses more quality sure absolutely but when you're doing a thru-hike it's more important to get quantity over quality when it comes to food you're pretty much just burning through those calories so make sure that the calories that you're getting are cheap enough because you're going to be eating a lot of it and whenever you're doing your grocery shopping on the trail if you're smart read your labels and count your calories a lot of times you can get more calories in that cheaper food than what you can get with those more expensive meals so speaking of food another thing that you can do to save money while on the trail is going ahead and putting yourself together mail drops and shipping them to yourself on the trail now some hikers will do this for the entire length of the trail and have a family member or a friend send those boxes out about a week ahead so they can pick their food up the problem I had with that is I got really bored with the types of food that I was sending myself whenever you're planning for the hike that type of food sounds great but like anything else your taste buds change while you're out on the trail and those things that you thought sounded good in the beginning aren't exactly what you crave anymore so if you're not into sending yourself food during the entire trail like I wasn't you can still utilize those mail drops and send just food to places that you know are going to be pricey so by doing research and finding out where resupplies are insanely expensive like Fontana Dam which is right outside of the Smoky Mountains on the 80 or Monson main a little bitty town right outside of the 100-mile wilderness in Maine on the 80 that way you can save that money ship yourself food ahead and not have to spend more outrageous prices the other thing is that a lot of those resupply spots they might just be kind of crummy resupply spots they might not have the types of food that you want to eat so by sending yourself packages to those spots you'll still get the food that you want and add a cheaper price so do your research figure out where those towns are and send yourself a box another thing that you can do to save money during your thru-hike is stealth camping on the outside of town now what I mean by that is whenever you come into a town to resupply pick up a package or get something to eat do your laundry there's a lot of temptation to want to stay in hostels and stay in hotels now we personally took advantage of that and we did that a lot but as you can guess it gets a little pricey so to save a little bit of money and still take that zero day you can come through town get what you need done do your laundry pick up your package resupply get all of that stuff done and then hike just a little bit out of town usually about half a mile or a mile and stealth camp and usually in most of those towns you'll find a stealth camp right outside on the edge now some towns you can't do that in and they're very strict on those rules so you might have to hike a little bit further and you should always make sure it's okay in the town that you plan on doing that in you might even ask somebody if they know where there's a spot that you can camp not something you have to do every time or you should do every time but doing it every once a while will definitely help put some more money back in your pocket and help you budget your thru-hike a little bit better now if you do plan on staying in town another trick that you can utilize is by splitting a hotel room with other hikers so instead of getting a hotel room all to yourself or staying in a hostel for the night you can take a hotel room that's about a hundred bucks and split it between a handful of hikers in 2015 snuggles and I split a room with four other hikers and there were six of us crammed in this massive room now were there a lot of people in the room absolutely but it ended up only being like 20 bucks a person to stay in this room plus we got a free continental breakfast we were closer inside of town we had a hell of a fun time and it helped us save money while we were out on the trail so snuggles and I could have just gotten a room together and paid like a hundred 120 bucks but instead we decided to split it and use that extra money on food beer and just having a good time while we were in town even if you just split a room with one other hiker most of the rooms that you're going to find you're going to have to bed anyways so just splitting a room with that other hiker is going to cut that price in half and put more money back in your pocket so the last tip that I have for you to save money while doing a thru-hike is to utilize your connections now what I mean by that is if you're doing it through hike let's take the Appalachian Trail for instance there's 14 States 14 states that you're going to be walking through chances are you know somebody in one of those states if not a handful of them whether it's a relative a friend a roommate from college a colleague that you used to work with that moved somewhere else utilize those connections on the trail and find out where you can stay for free or you can get a ride where somebody can help you out and don't necessarily be a moocher but most people friends family colleagues are interested in your hike and want to help and want to see you out there

so in 2015 when snuggles and I hit the trail we didn't really know anybody out there but through hiking the first few hundred miles with some certain hikers whenever we got into their hometowns we ended up staying with their family and their family that is took us out to resupply gave us rides and gave us a place to sleep so we were able to utilize those connections while we were out on the trail so do a little bit of research see if you know anybody out on the trail and then let them know that you're coming through town now again don't necessarily just ask them plan out but if you tell them that you're doing a thru-hike and you're coming through their home town chances are they're going to invite you to do something maybe give you a ride or even come out and do some trail magic for you so utilize those connections alright guys so hopefully this video will help you save a little bit of moola during your next through hike what are some ways that you guys know to save money during a hike leave them in the comment box below and let me know your thoughts if you haven't had a chance yet go over and check me out on Instagram I'm posting a lot of new photos lately of some of the things that snuggles when I have going on throughout the week plus some pictures from some past hikes so go check those up if you found any value in this video go ahead and hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you haven't already as always guys thanks for watching

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