Running 2,190 miles from the foothills of Georgia to the far-flung wilderness of Maine, the Appalachian Trail is a footpath for hikers, adventurers, and head-in-the-clouds dreamers, cutting through the tallest mountain range in the United States east of the Mississippi River. Since its completion in 1937, the trail has drawn people to its log-cabin escapism, top-of-the-world mountain peak views, and intimate wildlife encounters.

Sounds nice, right? Now imagine hiking the entire thing in one calendar year. Called a “thru-hike” in trail lingo, conquering the entire Appalachian Trail requires no specials skills or prior experience – but a good amount of equipment, cash, and time are essential. Here's how I did it.

Preparation

You’ll need roughly four months to complete your adventure and at least $3,000 to gear up, buy food, and splurge on town visits. And while you should know a thing or two about camping, hardcore survival skills aren't really necessary.

I had never seriously hiked or spent the night alone in the woods unless you count driving to a tent site in a National Park and milling around a campfire with a drink in my hand. The year and a half before I thru-hiked, I waited tables to save up $6,000. Then I quit a few months before I hit the trail and visited my brother in Albuquerque, New Mexico, to catch up, get in shape, and bum some of his gear.

I intended to hike the Sandia Mountains and jog myself into thru-hiking form. Instead, I dusted off double orders of breakfast tacos with my morning coffees, lounged around, prepared three-hour dinners, and guzzled down beers while working on my kill count in Black Ops. I would recommend getting into better shape than I did, but you can hike yourself fit on the trail.

When to Leave

You should leave Georgia in March/April as a Northbounder. Southbounders need to wait for the summer thaw in Maine around June/July. Don’t worry about the early crowds, because they’ll quickly thin. Plus, more people means more opportunities to meet hiking partners, socialize, and learn from others.

Pro tip: don't leave too early. I beat the mob and left Georgia in February. I got lucky because I met some great people right away, but there weren’t many of us on the trail that early on. It also meant I was hiking in the cold for longer. Spring comes slowly to the mountains, and I got roughed up in a nasty snowstorm in April right outside Damascus, Virginia. Scrambling across Whitetop Mountain in the snow and gusts, I lost the trail – and the feeling in my hands – a few times. And that was two months in.

What You’ll See

Every time you summit a peak, you’ll get a glimpse of the valley below. The gaps and holler of the Appalachian Trail are filled with streams, pastures, forests, and animals of all kinds: black bears, rattlesnakes, deer, porcupines, mice, hawks, and fish. You’ll run into Boy Scouts, day hikers, and drifters.

At first, I tried to capture every moment on camera and soak in every wooded clearing as if I were to concentrate hard enough, I’d get more out of it. But the most lasting memories I have from the trek occurred by happenstance, like the time my hiking partners and I relaxed on top of a mountain in Connecticut on a hot summer day and then watched the sunset. One day we came to a massive waterfall and swam for the afternoon. In Vermont, we slept inside a ski lift.

Since the trail can get repetitive – it's been called "the long green tunnel" – it’s the extraordinary that makes you swoon. The red spruce and Fraser fir forests at the highest elevations, for example, have a fairy-tale splendor to them. In Maryland, we ran into Civil War memorials. For one stretch in Pennsylvania, we hiked through farms for miles and miles, some of the flattest land in the whole 2,190-mile trail. Somewhere in Virginia, we fed cows. We ferried across a river in Maine.

As for wildlife: I came to the hike ready for black bear, but I wasn’t prepared for all the venomous snakes, particularly the rattlers. One of the only nights I hiked at night, under a full moon in Virginia, I almost stepped on a copperhead coiled up in the middle of the trail.

The Gear You Need

Don’t fret over decisions you make on gear. There will be plenty of time to correct mistakes on the trail by popping into local shops or planning mail drops. Go cheap if you’re uncertain. As for camping know-how, you'll learn everything you need to know out in the wilderness: steal the best ideas from your fellow thru-hikers.

Despite my advice to keep it simple, there are two items you will not regret spending money on: a lightweight, warm sleeping bag for cold months and a comfortable, well-organized backpack. The first time you sleep at 6,000 feet in March, you’ll be thankful for the money you spent on your goose-down sleeping bag.

Pro tip: there's no such thing as waterproof boots. Do you want dry feet? Stay at home. You'll be walking in the wilderness along the rainy East Coast and traversing rivers, rainstorms, and New Jersey bogs. Buy light, breathable hiking shoes called trail runners (low-cut boots if you must) and let 'em get wet – they'll dry quickly. No big deal.

Hiking Partners

The most important thing I’m going to tell you about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail is this: you’re better off starting alone and meeting hiking partners on the trail than you are trying to do this with a group of friends. Not everyone will want to hike the same pace as you, spend as much or as little money as you, or rest (i.e., take “zeros,” whole days when you don’t hike) as much as you. And those are key determining factors in finding a reliable hiking group.

I was alone for 30 minutes in Georgia before I met my hiking partner for the entire trail. At first, we just kept running into each other in shelters. Somewhere just past the Smokey Mountains, we decided to keep the same pace. By Massachusetts, we had ballooned to five.

Hiking partners don’t do that much actual hiking together. You keep each other company. There will be days when you only see them in the morning or at night. What the five of us did was plan how many miles we were going to hike and where to rest. It’s nice to catch lunch with your friends. We hitchhiked to town together, planned mail drops together, and took zeros together.

Water

The three most popular ways to purify water on the trail were filtration systems, tablets, or bleach. For the sake of speed, and to the possible detriment of my long-term health, I filled an eyedropper with bleach. A guy I ran into on the trail told me he learned about using bleach in survival training: two drops of bleach into one liter of water.

If you are high up at elevation, where water is far less likely to be contaminated, drink it straight from the source. I discovered a frosty spring on top of a low-slung, round mountain in Connecticut during a heat wave. It was the best water I’ve ever had in my life.

Food

Here is how you'll get your calories: Lipton noodles, ramen, peanut butter, Nutella, bagels, cheese, instant mashed potatoes, Cliff bars, granola, trail mix, Snickers, powdered Gatorade, beef jerky, tuna pouches, and all kinds of other junk. Just grab what you like to start off, and then buy what you want when you resupply. Your diet will evolve daily. It won't be gourmet.

I started off with Lipton noodles. Then instant mashed potatoes. By the end of the trail, I’d abandoned my gas stove and gone all cold food: bagels slathered in Nutella, tuna pouches, and dozens of white-chocolate Cliff bars. Your metabolism will burn like a pot belly furnace.

Towns

The biggest misconception of the trail is that it’s far from civilization. The lion’s share of your thru-hike is in the woods, yet road crossings are a daily, sometimes hourly occurrence. And convenience stores are usually just a short walk from the crossings. Towns may be six miles away from the remote where spot you cross a road, but you’re never truly far from a resupply if you’re willing to stick out your thumb and wait.

When you’re off the trail and want to reconnect with civilization, take advantage of buffets and cheap motels. Wash your clothes at laundromats and use a computer at the local library. See a movie. My weakness was 24-ounce beers from local gas stations.

And don't write this time off, either – you're not in the wilderness that people associate with hiking, no, but the Appalachian Trail runs directly through some rustic whistle-stops like Hot Springs, North Carolina, Damascus, Virginia, and Hanover, New Hampshire. It also winds through some of the poorest spots in all of the United States. I saw a slice of Americana that was brand new to me and fell in love with it.

The Appalachian Trail is a siren call for people who want to be alone in nature. Many of us wanted to test ourselves, too – to know if we could get up every morning and just keep walking. In a way, I think it’s the same thing. We wanted to return to a primordial human experience, out in the elements, exhausting our bodies, away from technology.

Thru-hikers are a sensitive bunch because everyone believes that their system, their methods, and their gear is best. But the freedom of the Appalachian Trail is that it’s forgiving: It allows you to learn what you need while you’re there, unlike a summit up Mt. Everest. It’s rarely technically challenging, but there will be days you don’t want to traipse up mountainsides, and it is a mental slog. You will live in your head for weeks at a time. I drudged up memories I thought long dormant: every ex haunted my brain. The solitude does that to you.

And throughout the trek, I met weirdos, PhDs, lifetime friends, couples, burnouts, fitness fanatics, and poets. And at the end, the best way I've found of summarizing it is that the best thing about the trail is the friends you make along the way.

How I Hiked the Entire Appalachian Trail