Budget

If you’re gonna do a thru-hike you’ll need to like hiking obviously, you’ll need a fair amount of time because it’s a long adventure, you’ll need adequate training and you’ll need resilience. But you’ll also need money. If you’re asking a thru-hiker, out of the blue, how much they spent on their PCT, they’re likely to give you a figure roughly around $10.000… But how much does it cost exactly? Is that figure compressible or not? And can you hike the PCT on a shoe string? That’s what I’m addressing on this page. First I’m sharing my own budget, every single expense to the dollar, and then I build 2 additional scenarios with modified expense patterns to see how much a PCT could cost if hiked by someone else than me.

The two main outlays on a thru-hike are gear and food. They both weigh about the same and amount to roughly 80% of the total budget.
Food means resupplies, that is the food you’re gonna buy in town to eat on the trail, plus restaurants where you’ll eat while in town. We’ll see how much margin we have here for savings.
Gear means all the equipment you’ll need on the trail, including shoes which are a – very costly – consumable you’ll need to buy as you go (4 to 5 pairs if you’re hiking in trail runners). Personally, I bought all of my gear (except maybe for some pieces of clothing) specifically for the PCT. It was relatively expensive as you’ll see in my budget, because I always went for warm and light. Of course, if you already have all your gear, don’t buy anything extra for the PCT, and use old-fashioned hiking boots, which may very well last you the whole trail (I’ve seen people do that, they were fine), then the “Gear” expense can virtually drop down to nil.

My own budget on the PCT

What I’m giving you here is each and every single expense I have incurred to hike the PCT. It should be quite precise and reliable since I’ve taken note of every spending made before and during the trail, including the very small, deceptively harmless ones, like $1-soda cans or candy bars by the unit.
The one thing I’m not including in this budget is the equipment I have bought, tested, and then decided to discard. For example: I first bought an MSR single-person tent, but after testing it I found it still too heavy and I replaced it with a Zpacks tent, which I bought before the start, and which I hiked all the trail with. So what I’m factoring in this budget is the Zpacks tent, not the MSR, which never went on the trail. If I included all of the gear I have bought and tested in preparation of the PCT, then the “Gear” area of expenditure would be dramatically higher.
On the contrary, I’m including the gear I took with me and replaced as I was already on the trail. For example: I started out with a Valandré sleeping bag but for as good as quality was, ergonomics soon proved inadequate for me. So in Kennedy Meadows I bought a Western Mountaineering sleeping bag and mailed the Valandré to Portland (where I had a logistics base). I also switched backpack towards the end of the trail. All of those double expenditures are accounted for in this budget.
Here and there I’m also including beers I’ve bought to friends along the trail. One could argue that a beer I didn’t drink is not a direct cost to me, but I paid for them and buying drinks to friends is an integral part of the experience, so I’ve left those in the budget (one could also argue that this expense is far outweighed by all the drinks people bought me…)

The 2 tables you can see below contain the exact same figures, displayed in different manners:

In the first table I’ve split expenses in 2 categories: “Pre-trail” and “On the trail”. Pre-trail expenses are in EUR and on-the-trail expenses are in USD, converted to EUR at the rate of 1.13. Then at the bottom of that section I take both sub-totals and add them to have the total budget, in EUR.
In the second table I put all expenses together, no matter if they were incurred before or on the trail, and I make totals by categories, and then display them in descending order. To build the second table from the first one, I’ve simply put “Plane tickets”, “6-month visa” and “Insurance extension” in the “Logistics” category and “Initial equipment” in the “Gear” category. This is the table used to draw the pie-chart presenting the hierarchy of expenditure categories.

Comments about my budget:

I bought my plane tickets with Air France miles, meaning I only paid for airport taxes. Hence the relatively small amount for that item. Depending on where in the world you need to fly from, your air fare is likely to be significantly higher than the €208 displayed here.
As I said already, I’ve purchased all of my gear specifically for the PCT, and I didn’t compromise on weight or quality. Once on the trail, I replaced my shoes every time it was necessary to keep my feet as comfy as possible.
While in town I’ve never hesitated to indulge myself by going often to the restaurant or even going to somewhat fancy hotels every now and then.

Comments about my budget:

I bought my plane tickets with Air France miles, meaning I only paid for airport taxes. Hence the relatively small amount for that item. Depending on where in the world you need to fly from, your air fare is likely to be significantly higher than the €208 displayed here.
As I said already, I’ve purchased all of my gear specifically for the PCT, and I didn’t compromise on weight or quality. Once on the trail, I replaced my shoes every time it was necessary to keep my feet as comfy as possible.
While in town I’ve never hesitated to indulge myself by going often to the restaurant or even going to somewhat fancy hotels every now and then.

Tentative standard budget

So the question is the following: is my budget representative of what an average hiker could expect to spend or not? At about $11,000 it’s a bit higher than the $10,000 I was mentioning earlier. So I tried to build another budget, for someone who wouldn’t make the exact same choices as I did but who would still want to enjoy the experience and maintain some level of comfort. Here are the things I’ve changed to build this scenario:

I’ve taken the flight fare back to a normal value for someone who wouldn’t have air miles available. I chose €700, which is about the price of a return flight to San Diego from a European capital city (for me that would be Paris), around May 1st, booked reasonably early. Of course if you need multiple connections to make it to San Diego, or if you book your ticket at the very last minute, this figure can be way higher. Cost differential vs. my budget: +500€
I didn’t include the gear that I replaced as I was already on the trail. In other words, I considered someone who would hike the whole trail with the same backpack and sleeping bag. What’s left in the category “Equipment bought” are consumables: mostly shoes, a dry sack here and there, a pair of new gaiters, straps to secure the bear can on the top of the pack… only small things. Cost differential vs. my budget: -650€
I drastically reduced spendings in hotels & lodging. On a few occasions I really, really indulged myself by going to very nice hotels in order to escape the trail’s routine and get a good night’s rest in a bedroom of my own. That kind of extra obviously has a cost and, for as lucky as I was to be able to afford it, I understand that other people may not be in the position to do the same, or simply don’t want to. Cost differential vs. my budget: -930€

Still, I have maintained the following elements:

I kept the same budget for gear purchased pre-trail, giving priority to weight and quality, and considering that all equipment had to be purchased starting from nothing, just like I did myself.
I kept the restaurant budget intact. When arriving in resupply towns, most hikers want a break from their tortilla-and-peanut-butter routine and a juicy burger, a pizza or anything else that contains calories and is not dried food is close to the Holy Grail. Going to town and sharing meals/drinks with people you’ve met on the trail is also a social ritual that is part of the PCT experience. Hence I considered that, provided you can afford it, you will go to restaurants in resupply towns just like I did, and just like most hikers do. No fancy restaurants, just regular joints.

So how does this budget look compared with mine?

A tiny bit above $9,500 (€8,500), the total bill is in line with the theoretical $10,000 (it’s even somewhat lower).
That’s almost $1,500 below my budget. Those $1,500 mainly reflect the cost of replacing gear on the go and going to hotels and lodges every once in a while. That can be considered a luxury, I realize that, and I’m grateful that I could afford it. But as you can see, it’s very possible to hike the PCT in comfortable conditions without such expenses.
Considering this scenario the “standard” PCT budget, and knowing that I hiked about 140 days, it takes the daily cost of hiking the PCT to about $36 (€32) per day on the trail – that is excluding all pre-trail expenses.

So how does this budget look compared with mine?

A tiny bit above $9,500 (€8,500), the total bill is in line with the theoretical $10,000 (it’s even somewhat lower).
That’s almost $1,500 below my budget. Those $1,500 mainly reflect the cost of replacing gear on the go and going to hotels and lodges every once in a while. That can be considered a luxury, I realize that, and I’m grateful that I could afford it. But as you can see, it’s very possible to hike the PCT in comfortable conditions without such expenses.
Considering this scenario the “standard” PCT budget, and knowing that I hiked about 140 days, it takes the daily cost of hiking the PCT to about $36 (€32) per day on the trail – that is excluding all pre-trail expenses.

Hiking the PCT on a shoe string?

For most people, $9,500 is still a lot of money, even for the adventure of a lifetime. On a 5-month trip, it represents almost $2,000 per month. So I’ve tried to assess which expenses could be reduced , and by how much, to minimize costs and go on this adventure even on a very tight budget. Here are the modifications I’ve made to reach this low-cost scenario:

Main source of savings: I’ve taken the gear budget down to nil. That’s not to say such hiker would go on the PCT with no gear at all: I’ve only considered someone who already have all their gear from previous hikes, and who would by absolutely no equipment specifically for the PCT. That is completely possible, but be careful with that “false” saving: if you already have your gear it means you bought it at some point in the past, so the expense is not zero – it was just incurred independently from your PCT preparation. You can also borrow gear, and maybe you’ll even find a good soul to gift you some, even if I’m not sure that’s very realistic: at the very least you need to have your own shoes and backpack because those need to fit perfectly, and I’m not sure someone would lend you their ultra-light tent knowing that it will spend 5 months in the wilderness and probably come back half-destroyed.
Then I removed all restaurants from the budget and replaced each of them with the cost of a meal taken on the trail. It’s a coarse calculation that probably requires some fine-tuning, I just wanted to have a general idea of what can be spared here. Careful though: I have removed ALL restaurants from the budget, including beers taken with the meals but also on the side, alone or with friends. This assumption means that for 5 months, all you’re gonna eat is dehydrated food and all you’re gonna drink is water. So not a lot of culinary pleasure or fun along the trail in those conditions, and I’m not sure that’s a very realistic hypothesis. But still I took it for the sake of the exercise.
I reduced Hotels even further by replacing all nights spent in shared motel rooms by nights in campgrounds. Local authorities usualy ask a participation of about $10 a night, sometimes even $5.
No insurance. I removed it for this scenario, although I really see that as a desperate move. by not contracting an insurance for your trip you will save $100 or $150, but you may lose much, much more in case something goes wrong during the 5 months you gonna spend in the wilderness. If you haven’t read it yet, I suggest you check the page on healthcare and accident insurance, and why you need to have one.
All extras (sodas, snacks, candy bars) have been removed. They don’t weigh much in the budget but I removed them so I need to mention it.
I replaced the item “Resupplies & boxes” by “Resupplies”. This means I considered that all resupplies would be done locally, without sending any boxes up the trail, neither to Kennedy Meadows nor to anywhere else. This applies not only to food but also to gear: in this scenario there is no sending gear on the trail, no sending gear back home from the trail, no shipping shoes in advance etc. You’ll need to buy anything locally or get it shipped by vendors. Theoretically it’s feasible. It may mean some degree of discomfort, but nothing that’ll keep you from hiking the trail. In practice, I would still send a box to Kennedy Meadows and one to Stehekin (there’s a page on resupply strategy coming soon where I address this question).
I removed some small gear I bought here and there on the trail and that can be considered secondary.
Likewise, I removed the purchase of new clothes from my budget (a pair of shorts, a second-hand shirt) that were mostly cosmetic and hence not crucial to hiking the trail.
I removed one pair of shoes, making it 4 in total instead of 5. That is really an attempt to take the global budget down. It will mean less comfort and less foot-care, but it’s feasible.
I removed the item “Healthcare”. For me healthcare meant going to the chiropractor’s 3 times (twice in Warner Spring, CA and once in Portland, OR) because my knees were locked solid. One might consider that it was linked to my own physical condition and that another hiker wouldn’t have the same issue(s) I had. I practice, MANY hikers have to face medical expenses on the trail, sometimes way higher than those I had to face myself.
I removed the item “Showers & laundry”. Not considering that one would spend 5 months without cleaning themselves elsewhere than in mountain streams (in fact that is completely feasible) but considering that the few showers taken over the whole trip would be at Trail Angels’. Some ask for a donation, others don’t. Here I’ve considered that someone traveling on a budget would only stay where Trail Angels don’t ask for a donation.
I removed some specific travel costs: bus from Bend to Sisters, train from Portland to Tacoma, train from Seattle to Portland… Attentive readers may say that those trips are specific to my case, and that they should have been removed from the previous scenario already. True enough, but what I’ve seen on the trail is that a lot of my fellow hikers were making such trips using public transports, and more than once for a lot of them. Sometimes they would be flip-flopping, sometimes skipping a section, sometimes going off-trail to visit friends and family, or to attend a festival and then come back on the trail… so there are traveling costs. They might not be the exact same as mine, but they are there for sure. What I mean but removing this item from this scenario is that someone traveling on a budget will do no trips, long or short, other than hitch-hiking.

Still I have kept the following items:

The plane ticket and the 6-month visa. They are mandatory for whoever doesn’t come from within the US. There’s no way to avoid that cost.
I considered a hiker who would still eat hot meals on the trail, so I kept the fuel cans in the expense list.
I kept the purchase of Guthook’s PCT app. Knowing where you are on the trail is an absolute must, and having an app on your smartphone is both the lightest and the cheapest option for that. (Coming soon, a page dedicated to navigation on the PCT). True enough though, I assumed that the hiker had a smartphone.

The least one can say is that the total bill drops dramatically! At just below $4,000 totals and barely $22 per day on the trail, this is way less than the so-called “Standard” budget. In this scenario, once the plane ticket has been purchased, food consumed on the trail is the main expense. But be very careful with the hypothesis I took to build this budget: meeting all of those conditions to reach the resulting $4,000 seems rather unrealistic. Erasing the cost of gear in particular, gives the false impression that this item is non-existent, while in reality money has been spent for it, only on a previous occasion. Considering you would never go to the restaurant or never have a beer with your friends is feasible but quite unrealistic too: doing a thru-hike is a lot about fun, pleasure and socializing. Of course hiking is a great pleasure in itself, but everything that goes around it is very important too and, unless you really can’t afford it, I think it would be a pity not to enjoy it.