So, what is ‘Frostbite’s Guide to Thru-hiking in the USA for International Hikers?’ If the search engine optimised, painfully-specific title hasn’t given it away? Well, it started as a way for me to cling desperately to unemployment after I finished my thru-hike of the PCT. And I hope, has become a wealth of information for anyone who wants to know how to hike long trails in the USA as an international hiker (I’m looking at you Aussies, Kiwis, Germans, Canadians, Brits and the Dutch). At a minimum, I hope I’ve made some stuff a little easier for anyone who is trying to do this heaps cool and overwhelming thing (that is, walking over long distances in the USA).

It was at the Cajon Pass McDonalds, in the middle of the desert during the PCT, that I decided I wanted to write this guide. Hot, sleepy, starving and irritated that I didn’t know before right then that I, without an American bank account, couldn’t use Venmo to pay the Americans who had just bought me burgers, milkshakes and chips. The usual refrain of the trail ‘Venmo me’ did not apply to me. And look, Halfway Anywhere has well and truly covered the field on how to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, including gear lists and resupply and random facts from his epic survey, and I would strongly recommend reading every article on his site (I certainly did, at least twice). But I wanted to write something specifically for international hikers. For non-Americans. Because jeez, there was some stuff I wished I knew before I started the PCT.

As I hope that you discover, Americans can be some of the kindest and most generous people on the planet, but they don’t always know what they don’t know (like the need for travel insurance), or take entirely for granted. Like how to navigate the baffling American postal system, for instance. Or clear information about what visa you need, and how to plead your case for an extension upon arrival to the USA.