MONEY
HOW TO ORGANISE YOUR CASH MONEY BEFORE STARTING YOUR THRU-HIKE IN THE USA
You cannot thru-hike without cash monies. The Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail and the Appalachian Trail are all going to cost you. I think there is a bit of a misconception in the community that thru-hiking is a very cheap adventure. This is just not my experience, particularly as an international hiker. I encountered a number of people who had to get off trail because they ran out of money. Including flights and gear, I think I spent about $15,000 AUD on my six months in the USA. That was sharing accommodation in towns with other hikers, but also enjoying myself and not exclusively feeding myself out of hiker boxes.
Whatever your budget, you will need easy access to your foreign money. I say ‘easy’ because the last thing you’re going to have the brain capacity for is figuring out tedious online banking issues when you’re in a tiny trail town with barely enough service to update your Spotify playlists. Anything that requires focused logistical planning while thru-hiking takes precious time away from eating, drinking, and being horizontal in bed.
It doesn’t feel like it should be hard to make your money work in the USA. And it’s not, as long as you put some things in place BEFORE you leave your home country to go and thru-hike in the USA. This is crucial. And I can tell you that no matter how much you weep at the airport ATM, if you haven’t told your bank that you’re leaving the country BEFORE you get to the USA there’s a chance she will not give you any cash. Not one single penny.
Before I leaped, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed onto the PCT, there are the things I did to make it easier to just focus on thru-hiking. Read on!
You want to buy beer? You gotta sort out your cash monies.
You want to buy ice-cream? You gotta sort out your cash monies.
Research The Currency Exchange Rate
When you’re running your numbers and throwing together a rough budget, just make sure you factor in the exchange rate. Coming from Australia to thru-hike the PCT in 2022, my money was worth 60 cents on the dollar. Which sucked. But I had factored that in before landing in the USA. Also, food in California is expensive. So are hotel rooms. And so are drinks. Be ready for that.
Tell Your Bank That You Are Leaving The Country
Don’t forget to tell your bank and credit card companies your travel dates and destinations. A lot of banks let you do this via your online banking account or mobile app and it is super easy.
If you forget to do this, they may very quickly put a hold on your account. And you won’t be able to do the multiple-step verification if you don’t have hideously expensive global roaming attached to your home mobile number. This will avoid some very frustrating international calls to your bank telling them that it was indeed you who purchased three tacos on Venice Beach after stumbling off the plane at LAX.
Bank Accounts and Fees
Check to make sure your bank has a good exchange rate and/or cheap or free international transaction fees and international ATM withdrawals. These may not seem like much but they add up quickly. I went with ING in Australia and they were great, as long as you continue to meet all their no-fee criteria – which at the time was having $1000 a month enter your account from an external bank account.
Unfortunately, I forgot about this when I wasn’t having money come in every month, on account of quitting my job. I lost the ‘no international transaction fees’ and ‘no international ATM fees’ and didn’t realise for a couple of months – ouch. Watch out for that. After I realised, I just had a family member transfer me $1000 a month into the account and I sent it back to them. Solved.
American ATMs
Once you’re in America, when you get to an ATM, if it asks you whether you want to accept its own conversion rate you say NO. This feels counterintuitive because normally the answer to ATM questions is ‘yes’. However, if you say yes, your home bank is likely to reject the request and the ATM will spit out your card and not process the transaction. Basically, it is a battle between the American ATM and your home bank for a preferred conversion rate.
I stood at various LAX airport ATMs for 35 minutes trying to figure out why they were all rejecting my pleas for cash money. Just say no, which allows your bank to use its own conversation rate and then you get your money.
Remember to check what your banks international ATM withdrawal fees are like. Switch to a free or cheap one before you leave to start your thru-hike.
Carry Cash
It’s weird. I know. But carry cash with you. I carried around $100 USD at a time. Carry a bunch of small bills. You will use it to pay trail angels (which you should most definitely do), the occasional paid campsite and the quarter machines that you will need to use to get quarters for washing machines. The quarters thing is deeply annoying if you don’t get the amount right because no thru-hiker is packing out quarters so try to avoid getting too many.
On the PCT, as you get further north into the more remote sections of trail, there is more of a risk that eftpos machines will glitch or not accept your foreign card. Cash is a crucial fall back for the bakery at Stehekin.
If Your Foreign Card Doesn’t Work
If you swipe at the register and your card is rejected despite having money in your account, you can ask the cashier to try inputting the card manually. This worked for me 98 per cent of the time my card was rejected. The grocery store in Yosemite Valley hated foreign cards, but there were a lot of them, so it was that cashier who taught me this nifty trick. The international thru-hikers, hungry and in need of beer, were very grateful.
It’s also a good idea to have PayPal and Apple Pay (and the Android equivalent) working on your phone as a back up if you lose your card.
Have Your Banking App Up-To-Date
Make sure your banking app is up-to-date and ready to go. Allow notifications. It’s really easy to monitor all your transactions this way in case anything goes sideways and you get scammed. Or just in case you want to agonise over the $800 AUD sleeping bag you bought on trail (just kidding that sleeping back was worth every penny and I would spend every one of those $800 again to be that deliciously warm while thru-hiking).
You Can’t Use VENMO
Americans seem to have almost all pivoted to using VENMO to transfer money between themselves. You’re not allowed in this club. You can’t have VENMO without an American bank account and in some cases, a social security number. So, either make friends with Americans who trust you’ll sort it out with them in cash or using PayPal and just keep a running score.
I used Splitwise to track everything my tramily paid for between us. Canoe and Wrong Number thank you, you were the best.
Make A Budget
I know, I KNOW. It feels wrong to have to budget to disappear into the wilderness for six months. But alas, we must. Create a detailed budget for your thru-hike, factoring in:
- Flights
- Travel Insurance
- Visa costs
- Accommodation – before and after trail and in trail towns
- Domestic transportation – how are you getting to the terminus?
- Food, in town and on trail – remember in town you’ll want to eat double what you normally do, its primary purpose is to replenish calories
- Resupply – all the things you need to survive on trail
- Postage and sending resupply boxes
- Entertainment – audio books, Spotify subscriptions etc
- Replacing or adding gear – I went through five pairs of Altra Lone Peaks, upgraded my sleeping bag and food bag
- Phone plan
- Satellite communication/PLB subscription
It can be a bit demoralising to run all these numbers. There are a lot of them. But it will help you just to have an idea about how much you’ll need in the USA. And that will keep you on trail and not stressed about money while you’re out there thru-hiking. And then you can suffer out there stress-free!