Thru-Hiking Journal

Spoiler Alert: You Probably Have Most of it Already! Getting into hiking can be intimidating. There is so much stuff out there, and some of it looks so technical. People from every direction are telling you to buy this exact outfit or use this exact water bottle; how do you decide what you actually need and what's just fluff? Fortunately, you likely already have the majority of items you need to begin your hiking journey! Until you have more experience under your belt to get

And I Wouldn't Change a Thing! Thru-hiking is one of my favorite exercises in minimalism. The practice is simple: if you want it, you have to carry it. If it's not worth the weight, it's not coming. After all, if the gear is coming along for thousands of miles, it has to be worth the ride. Ultralight backpacking has become increasingly popular in recent years. UL backpackers pare down gear to the basic necessities. The weight qualification to consider yourself "ultralight" is

This step-by-step guide shows even the most Type B traveler how to find free campsites on their road trips.

This journal entry-style post explores the author's first multi-day hike in Costa Rica.

Timed entry permits for some U.S. national parks have changed in 2026 from previous years. Read how to get the permits you need for your national park vacation this year.

Day 152: September 8th, 2025 Forward progress: 20.7 miles Total distance on trail: 2,391.6 miles Our plan to be hiking by 7:00 was immediately thwarted by... you guessed it... rain. It started drizzling around 5:30, pouring by 6:00. None of us were interested in starting our last day in those conditions, so we shouted through the walls of our tents at each other that none of us were going to start packing until the rain let up. By the time we had originally planned to leave,

Day 140 Forward progress: 21.1 miles Total distance on trail: 2,165.3 miles Well, I slept terribly. Not sure why. Perhaps the soda I had at dinner? But that's not unusual while I'm in towns, so I'm not sure why it impacted me so badly last night. I got under 5 hours of sleep, which is not ideal. But whatever. The guy who gave us a ride to Augusta also gave us a ride back to the trail. The drive was just as overstimulating as before -- despite changing seats, the dog still cho

Day 129 Forward progress: 10.0 miles Total distance on trail: 1,952.9 miles It would have been so easy to stay in town another day. There are so many ways to exit Butte, one of which would cut off 25 miles -- a full day, if we wanted to.  But we didn't. We did only have a short day planned today, so we hung around town until around 2:00. Vibes and I hoped to get Bushwhack and Zoolander to come out with us, but they wanted another day in town and are planning a different route

Day 116 Forward progress: 15.0 miles Total distance on trail: 1,701.8 miles I can feel my motivation slipping. Town feels too comfortable, hiking feels too exhausting, filtering water feels too annoying. We spent several hours yesterday mapping out the remainder of the trail. If you would have asked me even two weeks ago if I would consider taking the Big Sky Cutoff, which routes the trail such that it removes about a few hundred miles, including basically the whole part of t

Day 107 Forward progress: 16.7 miles Total distance on trail: 1,540.1 miles I really tried to sleep in. I did. But I hit 6:30 and simply couldn't stay asleep. The others slept longer. Since I'm by far the shortest, I had a weird spot on the floor in the corner, and I had to play Frogger to get around the two beds and two other sleeping pads on the ground to get to the bathroom without waking anyone up. The morning was hectic; since I had sort of been anticipating today being

Day 96 Forward progress: 15.4 miles Total distance on trail: 1,273.3 miles Even with blackout curtains, we were all still awake before 7:00. Habit, I guess. But none of us were willing to get out of bed for a while. Just felt nice to mindlessly be on our phones, not being social, not thinking about anything. After eating our money's worth at the motel breakfast, we had second breakfast/early lunch at a coffee shop. We only planned 15 miles for today, so no need to start too e

Day 83 Forward progress: 10.4 miles Total distance on trail: 1,032.1 miles Waking up inside is always a weird mix of comfortable and jarring. Comfortable because... duh. Jarring because my tent comes to feel like home, and it's always strange to wake up not in your home. Sarah agreed to drive me and Shadow back to the trail in the early afternoon, so we just had a bunch of time to kill. Vibes was going to come too, but his abdominal muscles have been spasming for the last day

Day 71 Forward progress: 11.6 miles Total distance on trail: 843.2 miles I didn't get out of bed until 7:30. I could have slept another hour at least, but I heard Gearhead making breakfast for all of us and I didn't want to be lazy while he was busying himself for us. He made German pancakes, which Goosebump and I are convinced are just slightly thicker crepes and the Germans insist are a totally different thing. Either way, they were a delicious way to begin the day. After c

Day 62 Forward progress: 8.8 miles Total distance on trail: 724.0 miles Packing up this morning was weird. I've been away from trail now for 2 full weeks. My legs are probably going to have to readjust and I'm no longer acclimated to the altitude. My pack has never been heavier; I'm carrying my winter gear (ice axe, microspikes, hiking pants, snow gaiters, waterprood socks), and since we're unsure of the conditions moving forward, we have 8 days of food for the upcoming 80 mi

This river trip was exactly what we needed to relax and let the snow melt out. I learned a new style of camping, saw some incredible views, and experienced the desert in a unique way. Our daily mileage breakdown is as follows: Day 1 (CDT Day 52): approx. 10 miles Day 2 (CDT Day 53): approx. 21 miles Day 3 (CDT Day 54): approx. 24 miles Day 4 (CDT Day 55): approx. 9 miles Day 5 (CDT Day 56): approx. 24 miles Day 6 (CDT Day 57): approx. 3 miles Day 7 (CDT Day 58): approx. 9 mil

Day 44 Forward progress: 13.7 miles Total distance on trail:  676.3 It feels like we did a million miles today for how much effort was put in. The whole day was hard. The first 11 miles were fun hard. The final 2.7 miles were brutal. I wanted to hit the SOS button and take an evac back to Chama. I actually meant to take today off, but I know the upcoming section is ripe with sketchy snow traverses, and I knew a lot of people were shuttling out, and there's strength in numbers

Day 31 Forward progress: 17.6 miles Total distance on trail: 530.7 miles I don't know if "happy" is the right verbiage for the day, but happy 1 month trailiversary to me! About half the hikers who were in town yesterday left. I was one of the later hikers to leave around 9:45. I didn't want to do big miles today, so getting an early start wouldn't have made sense. In classic New Mexico kindness, someone left coolers of beverages on the road walk back to the trail. Seriously,

Day 21 Forward progress: 16.0 miles Total distance on trail: 346.3 miles Pie Town was a weirdly easy town to stay in, even if we were confined to a diner, the room attached to the diner, and a hostel that could pass for a museum. Part of it is that the best option for camping on the way out of town is 16 flat dirt road miles away -- not enough to constitute a full day of hiking, which forces hikers to stay until at least early afternoon before leaving. If you run into friends

Day 11 Forward progress: 19.3 miles Total distance on trail: 177.5 Hiking out of town without Mitch today was really emotional. I feel so selfish, pursuing my dreams without him while he works and does responsible life things. I'm the one doing the trail, leaving home for months, causing both of us to cry. And he has the audacity to be supportive instead of angry. These past miles have been so fun. Since it was only a few days, we hiked together most of the time instead of hi

Day 6 Forward progress: 14.4 miles Total miles on trail: 98.4 miles Not to brag or anything but I slept in today all the way until 6:00. So... that's pretty huge! Given that we're still in the bootheel desert, we knew that hiking in the afternoon hours was not ideal, so our original plan was to leave around 4:00. We ended up hanging out in the hotel lobby until we got too antsy to stick around town much longer, and after a few last-minute chores and a late lunch, we got start