Money on the trail

imported
#1

Planning a hike for 2005…open to any suggestions as to what form of currency works the best on the trail.
(Credit Cards, cash, travellers checks, etc.)

Gary

#2

Travelers checks. They rule. First and foremost, dont spend a ton of money on prepackaged stuff. The postage alone will kill your money. Send your self what you think you will need every town or so in the form of traverls checks, that way you can buy what you need, pay for showers or what have you, and not have a box of food that you dont need. Seen it happen a million times. You get to town, some people have five big boxes they keep sending themselvesm, thats a lot of money from town to towen, and sometimes they never use what they send. Hiker boxes are a greta way to find extra stuff if the funds are low in a speficic town, because all the folks who send boxes end up having a lot of food they are sick of, they toss it, and buy new stuff. Thats food cost, plus postage, plus new food…thats a lot of dough.

With traverls checks, you just buy what you need and roll.

LK

Lion King

#3

it all works. i always keep 50-100 bucks cash on me for unexpected deli sightings and the like. and having that buffer, most places take credit or debit, so its all gravy. i dont necessarily see any benifit or detriment to travelers checks. these people will take your money any way you would care to give it to them. its really not much of a concern.

milo

#4

My debit card worked well.except for that time in Port Clinton when I was going to rent a car to drive to Gettysburg. They wanted a credit card and nothing else would do. I was trapped in “corporate America” so I did the next best thing. I thumbed there. That also SUCKED !!!

Virginian

#5

Thanks for the advice. Also Lion King…was that your website WAlking with freedom.com? If it was, that was a kick a** site!!! Very informative and a gas to read at that!

Gary

#6

It’s good to have a mix of everything. Keep a comfortable amount of cash with you at all times, for small emergencies, mail the rest of it forward in the form of travelers checks, and keep a credit card for big emergencies.

Not all places accept credit cards, but everyone accepts cash.

bearbait

#7

I would suggest as diverse a variety of funds as you can afford. Many more places didn’t accept credit card than I was expecting, so I quickly learned to carry cash. There were maybe one or two hostels that I can think of that took CC, but in general they only take cash. Once you get north of Kent, it gets a little easier to use CC; in the Whites you can often pay the AMC caretakers with credit (they have a form, ask - this includes tent platforms, too).

Traveler’s checks are a good idea, although I did hear of one hiker who had to explain what it was to a storekeeper (the storekeeper did take it in the end). If you send yourself traveler’s checks in your maildrops, make sure you have some cash as a backup. A couple of my packages were lost in the mail; one was even sent priority.

As a side note, make sure to budget for equipment replacement on the trail. Some of your gear (boots, sometimes your tent, bite valves) WILL wear out. Also, don’t assume you won’t want to upgrade certain pieces of equipment while you’re on the trail. My rainjacket was utter garbage and if I hadn’t shelled out for the Precip, I don’t think I would have finished.

Oh, one last thing. Make sure that you bring cash to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in PA. There is a camp store near the halfway point where they have the “gallon challenge”; basically you try to eat a gallon of ice cream in as little time as possible. I didn’t plan on “competing”, but I was a little bummed that I didn’t have the cash to buy any ice cream :frowning:

Oreo

#8

Yup Gary, thats the same me. I am editing the thing now…GOD I JUST WANT TO GO HIKE!!! I have had enough of 'civil’ization for a while again. Maybe its time to sale everything and say ‘into the wild’…without the whole stupidity thing of die-ing in an old bus for no good reason. :boy

Lion King