Appalachian Trail Budget Breakdown

Hey y’all! Man have I been a busy girl since getting back from Europe. I had a few weeks off before starting work back at my favorite local hospital. A lot changed during that brief time.. but I think I’m finally starting to find my footing again.

Thankfully, Michelle reminded me that I never updated my budget for my Appalachian Trail trek last year, so I used that as a distraction from life to bring you this: my AT budget breakdown. Now, please realize that this isn’t exact and is most definitely probably missing things. Trying to go back to last year on credit and debit card records and remember what each line item was for was a bit tough.. either way, this is roughly it-and it’s definitely the total amount of money spent during that 6 months. I took the time to take out the meals, hotels, and car rentals for the times I was off trail with Andrea, my mom, and Lauren.. (I think I got them all out anyway lol)..

So. Here goes.

My grand total spent for the trail and my home bills for the 6 months (May-Nov 6, 2021) is $15,805. I actually thought it was going to be much more than that, because at some point I just quit caring and quit thinking about it. That may sound reckless, but you have to realize I had saved $20,000 for this trip, as a precaution for any unforeseen circumstances, and then I also had a little nest egg brewing for the European vacation I was in the beginning stages of planning for, so I wasn’t too concerned with my budget.

The way that I decided to break down the 15k is into 7 categories: Transportation, Accommodations, Town Food, Resupply Food, Gear, Miscellaneous charges, and then my Bills.

I’ll start with the bills I had while I was gone that still needed to be paid. This is the most difficult part for many people wanting to hike a long trail, because you not only need the money to buy the gear and to survive the trail, but you also have to save the money for things like your mortgage and car payments.. normal life stuff. I was lucky in that I was able to pay off my house and my car before the trail, so I didn’t have those two big payments that the majority of people have. What I did have though, and still do, is my property tax bill that comes in once a year in November, my home and car insurance due each January and July, and then my monthly things like keeping my water, power, and gas on, my cell phone bill, health insurance, and silly subscriptions like pandora and Netflix. I also had a $37/month Garmin bill for my Inreach device that I hiked with for safety (and for getting rides when I was bailing for the day lol). The total for all of my bills during that time was $6135.

Next up is transportation. Now, it came up to a total of $777.. but please know that I didn’t keep up with separating the hostel bills from the cost of the stay and the cost of my many slackpacking adventures on the second half of the trek. So, I’m sure that this number is technically more, but it’s been absorbed into the accommodations category. This $777 does include both of my flights to DC and the train and Ubers to Harper’s ferry. It also includes other Ubers from road crossings and venmo rides that I was able to confirm wasn’t for food. Lol

Accommodations include every hostel, hotel, or campground that I could find on my line items. This number includes some food, resupply and transportation from some of the hostels, as they would simply add up your stay, plus your shuttles, and they almost always fed me, too. The grand total for this category came to $2396.

This town food category should be embarrassing, but I’m actually pretty proud.. haha: $2130. I spent over two grand on food in 6 months, besides the food I packed to eat on trail-this is all from restaurants, DoorDash and breweries. Some of it was split with other hikers and they venmoed me back for their portions, but I didn’t take the time to sift through and subtract from the exact categories (after transportation, simply because it got way too tedious), I just subtracted the money coming into me from the total spent. I’ll also say, I enjoyed myself in town and I have no regrets! Hahaha

My resupply total came to $1404, but this is tricky because the resupplies easily got lumped in with the hostels at times and then also with the gear section too, because I’d almost always grab some dehydrated meals when at REI getting new shoes or a new air mattress when mine popped a leak and tried to kill my hips. So, while it seems lower than the other categories, it’s not 100% accurate. Everything in this category did include anything bought from a Walmart, gas station, grocery store, or dollar general.

My gear category is higher in my opinion than it needed to be-but, the way I saw it was that I had worked hard and saved money and if I could purchase something to make my time hiking even slightly more enjoyable, especially when it came to sleeping, I was going to do it. So, I ended up buying 2 new tents (Jesus, I know), both of which were pretty dang expensive (I did resell the first one I bought after I got home, but I didn’t subtract that money from this). Plus my multiple pair of shoes and my new air mattress, along with gas cans and the cold weather gear I got when I was getting closer to home. This category came to $2478.

The miscellaneous category includes shipping costs and things paid for that I couldn’t figure out what they were.. about $100 was in shipping, I still have no clue what some of the other stuff is, but I had to include it since it was money spent: $485 total.

So, with all of those added up, we get the grand total of $15,805 for the 6 months. As you can see, you can *easily* get away with doing this hike and not spending this much money. I tended to go overboard in town eating any and everything I wanted, and I liked to stay at nicer hotels at times, too. I regret not a single dollar spent, even with the gear- as it was all a learn as you go situation. I now know the tent I prefer, the sleeping pad I sleep best on, and the importance of staying warm at night..

I’m saving money now for the Pacific Crest Trail next year. I’m thinking I’ll be able to get away with spending considerably less money, as I shouldn’t have huge gear changes again while out there, and there are less towns along the way so I won’t have as many opportunities to eat my weight in Mexican food and margaritas. Don’t get me wrong, I will definitely still do that, but maybe not as often. I foresee my transportation expenses increase though, since trail towns are farther away and will probably cost more to get to places, but I don’t think there will be slackpacking opportunities either.. so maybe those two things will even out.

I’m hopefully going to be better at keeping track of my expenses while I’m out there, remembering this situation now, lol. We shall see. I’m hoping to do a flip flop again starting in late may or early June. Hopefully I’ll be able to do this trail a bit faster, 5 ish months is my goal, but I’ll still save for 6-7 months as a precaution.

And because I’m me and plan too much and overthink like crazy, I’m already considering where I want to go when I finish the trail as a celebration! I’m really leaning hard on Quito, Ecuador and then spending a week or so on the Galapagos Islands. Hmmm. Looks like someone needs to get to work! As it gets closer to start time I’ll give you more updates about the permit process for the PCT, my gear choices, and then my planning for after the trail 🙂

Thanks for following along.. I appreciate each of you so much! I swear I plan to also figure out a way to put my posts in easier to follow categories as well. Maybe I can manage that before too long 😉 *fingers crossed*