Complete Guide to Hiking the Appalachian Trail

This lesson examines the key considerations for deciding when (and where) to start the Appalachian Trail. We will cover seasonal weather patterns,  both terminuses,  and crowd levels to help you align your start time with your hiking goals.

We will examine the public transportation options for reaching both the northern and southern terminus.

Do you need to follow a certain gym routine? How crucial is working out prior to trail? We will tackle these common questions in this lesson.

A very real challenge to thru hiking is maintaining health coverage during a time of unemployment. If you are unsure where to start or  what your options are, you are not alone! This is a common problem for hikers. We give an overview of your top options at obtaining health coverage not sponsored by an employer.

Before starting a long-distance thru-hike, it’s important to review the everyday expenses and memberships you won’t need while living on the trail. Many regular costs—like memberships—can be paused or cancelled to save a significant amount of money during your hike. You’ll also want to set up autopay for essential bills and reassess services, such as car insurance. Lastly, consider following-up with a doctors/dental visit before heading out to trail. This is especially important for refilling prescriptions before you hit trail or have a change in health insurance.

Food, hotels, transportation, gear - we touch on it all! We explore the top spending categories for a thru hiker and give budgeting tips for each category.
After the lesson, download our budgeting spreadsheet to generate an estimate on your thru hike cost.

This lesson focuses on building a practical and efficient gear list. We focus on narrowing down the list to the items most crucial, which will save you money and weight!

In this lesson Maggie goes through her own thru hiking gear to explain what she most likes when choosing items and what has had the most success.

In this lesson, Erin highlights the actual clothing she wore on her AT thru hike. She touches on the items she loves and explains which things she would do differently.

In this lesson we look at the top two options for navigating the AT and give our recommendation on the most useful tool.

Short lesson on a powerful tool in FarOut! Planning a route allows you to see the exact distance, total ascent and descent, between two points on trail.

You are used to getting everywhere on foot - what happens when walking isn't an option? In this lesson we touch on the top 3 methods of transportation.

Hitch hiking does take a certain amount of skill! Learn our top recommendations for how to secure a quick hitch into town. We'll also touch on a few safety tips before getting in a stranger's car.

Before heading to trail, you'll need an idea of your first resupply stop. We dive into FarOut to explore the options for both North and South bound and give our recommendation on timing.

Even on trail you cannot escape chores! We cover everything from doing laundry to finding outlets to get some quick juice.

From our "Resupply & Trail Nutrition" course. Erin, thru hiker and registered dietitian,  walks through a full day of trail nutrition and explains the reasoning behind including different foods throughout the day.

Introduction and beyond to resupply boxes! The pros, the cons, what even goes in a resupply box all answered here.

You need a package but don't have an address?! Find out how to identify package locations and become an expert on the different options of package holds.

Receiving mail to establishments requires some extra steps when addressing your packages. You want to make sure that packages are held and held ONLY for you. This lesson gives instruction on how to address packages to any establishment on trail - private or PO.

Sometimes you need to order items straight to trail. We provide information on how to enter addresses into online stores to make sure your packages are held correctly.