The Appalachian Trail attracts people from all walks of life, from penniless college graduates to retired millionaires. Consequently, thruhikers have finished their hikes having spent very little, quite a lot, or somewhere in between. Some thruhikers have to quit because they don't have enough money to finish.
When Nepsis and I decided we wanted to thruhike the Appalachian Trail we had almost two years to make as much money as we could. We worked at Target, part-time, for a payment not too far beyond minimum wage. We took every extra hour we could to work as close to forty hours each week and lived frugally. If you want to know how frugally we lived in order to save money, you can check out my blog post about it here. By the time we set foot on the Trail we had saved about $14,000 and since we decided not to defer student loan payments or stop sponsoring a child in poverty, we had about $12,000 we could use. That made our budget easy. We could spend $1,000 per person per month, assuming we finished in six months. We realized pretty quickly we'd never be able to spend that much even if we tried. Here is the breakdown of what we actually spent:
Total Money Spent During Thru-hike: $7,705.89
Food to eat while hiking and small gear items like denatured alcohol/wet wipes: $1,282.44
Stays at hostels, motels, and hotels and Great Smoky Mountain permits: $1,861.21
Meals at restaurants, snacks purchased to eat/drink while on a break from hiking for a significant length of time: $3,286.64
Gear purchased during the thruhike: $698.33
Non-essential items purchased for the purpose of entertainment or non-Trail travel: $187.27
ATM cash withdraws spent on all of the above with no trace of what it was specifically spent on: $390
When I look at this data I am astonished by how little we spent. During the first month of our hike we were a lot more careful, and didn't satisfy every whim, but the last two months we certainly spent a lot of money at restaurants and on yummy treats along the way. We also spent quite a bit of money on motel/hotel rooms since we were a couple and wanted more privacy than the hostels offered. We didn't spent a lot of money on alcohol though, which can obviously drain money fast. Food for the Trail is mostly very cheap and the only really necessary expense so anyone can hike for cheap as long as they can resist temptations when in town, which is no small feat. At the very least you should expect to have to purchase a second pair of shoes, but we also had to buy trekking poles since we didn't begin with them. The non-essential purchases we made during the hike included books and round-trip train tickets to Washington D.C. and New York City, and even an umbrella when we were caught in rain in D.C. We spent five days in NYC with friends who lived there, but we did eat out for many meals which drastically increased our restaurant expenses. I felt like we ate at restaurants every chance we got and after the first and a half, stayed at a hostel, motel, or hotel once a week and yet we stayed way under budget. We were only on the Trail for five months and two days so that helped keep costs down as well, compared to other who were on the Trail a month or more longer. All in all, I think the take-away is that you one can thruhike on a couple thousand dollars quite comfortably, and even if you want to be able to spend more money in towns, a couple more thousand should be sufficient. I think it is best for anyone who is hiking to create a budget of how much money you can spend per mile hiked. If you're like us you'll find you can't spend nearly that much and will no longer have to worry about it anymore. If you're on a tighter budget, you will find lots of opportunities to save money by not staying overnight in a town or splurging on alcohol or a restaurant meal. You'll also find the best way to save money is when people give you a bunch of food, a hot meal, or even a place to stay the night!
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