VISAS

YOU NEED THE B-2 VISA TO THRU-HIKE IN THE USA AS AN INTERNATIONAL HIKER

International thru-hikers will need to arrange their visa before getting to the USA. Stay with me here, this section is going to be a little heavy on the boring details, but this stuff is important. You do not want to get this wrong and get turned away at the border, weeping into your passport.

Why can’t we just rock up to international borders yelling about hikes and mountains calling and being a feral creature of the dirt and blaze right on through without doing any paperwork? I don’t know, state sovereignty or some shit.

Here’s the info you need about what visa to apply for entering the USA as a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed prospective thru-hiker.

Which visa do you need to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail or the Appalachian Trail?

The visa that most people need for entering the USA from a foreign country to do a really long hike, is the multiple entry B-2 Visa. This is the non-immigrant visa for a temporary stay relating to tourism.

The list of examples given by the U.S. Department of State about what activities constitute ‘tourism’, for the purpose of the B-2 Visa, are as follows:

Vacation (holiday)
Visit with friends or relatives
Medical treatment
Participation in social events hosted by fraternal, social, or service organizations
Participation by amateurs in musical, sports, or similar events or contests, if not being paid for participating
Enrolment in a short recreational course of study, not for credit toward a degree (for example, a two-day cooking class while on vacation)

Now, as an aside, one of the things that irritated me the most after returning from my PCT thru-hike was when people asked me ‘so how was your holiday?’ I wanted to shake these people and yell ‘WHO WAS ON A HOLIDAY? I was walking 20+ miles a day for five months and breaking in my body to become a magnificent, hiking machine, not horizontal on a beach somewhere drinking cocktails.’

This is not the chat you want to have with the U.S. Department of State or Border Control. Just tell them you’re on a holiday. A hiking holiday. And know that I see you.

How to apply for the B-2 Visa

First, go here to find the U.S. embassy webpage and read the information from your home embassy about what specific requirements there are for your country of citizenship, in applying for a U.S. Visa.

In addition to any country specific requirements, you will need to do the following:

Complete the online visa application, Form DS-160. You must complete this online application form, print the application form confirmation page, and bring it to your visa interview (see below). This is a bit tedious, so be prepared to answer a lot of questions including all your travel history.
You will need to upload a photo while completing the online DS-160 form. See here for the photo requirements.
You will, most likely, need to attend an interview at the U.S. embassy or consulate in your home country. You need to do this early. Post-COVID there have been some gnarly wait times for interviews for the B1/B2 Visa. At the time of writing this (early 2023) there is still a 135 day wait time for an interview in Sydney Australia. In 2022, I knew people who flew from the East Coast of Australia to the West Coast (5 hours one way) in a day just to get an interview at a U.S. Consulate in time before they were due to fly out. Plan accordingly.
Be ready to dish out the USD $160.

At the visa interview, and at the border, you need to be able to explain and provide evidence of what you intend on doing in the USA. I know that you may have spent years reading about, and planning your thru-hike of the PCT, CDT or AT, but remember, many people have no idea what thru-hiking is, or even believe that it’s possible to walk that far.

Based on my highly scientific snap poll of 2022 foreign PCT thru-hikers at various water sources on trail, U.S. Border agents can either be of the chill or not chill variety. It is definitely better to plan on getting a not chill one and come prepared.

B-2 Visa application page – prepare for invasive questions and to detail every trip you’ve ever been on.

Documents for the B-2 Visa

Documents required by the U.S. Department of State

Passport
DS-160 confirmation page
Interview appointment confirmation page
Passport photo (in correct size).

Documents I relied on to prove I intended on hiking the Pacific Crest Trail

Bank statement (they want to know you can support yourself without working)
PCT Permit
Canada Walk-In Permit
PCT resupply plan which included projected dates for each resupply point
Summary of the PCT from the PCTA website
Map of the PCT
Yogi’s Pacific Crest Trail Handbook.

Alternatives to the B-2 Visa

This is not my recommendation. But, if for some reason, you do not wish to apply for the B-2 Visa or if you run out of time before your thru-hike starts, there is another option for some countries. I will say at the outset though, it is a logistical nightmare, is deeply uncertain and requires leaving North America. Not ideal. Not when you are huffing on the fumes of the trail mid-hike, leaving is pretty jarring, but if you have to, here’s how.

If you are a citizen of a country that is eligible for the Visa Waiver Program, you can travel to the U.S. on an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA). This means you can travel to the U.S. without a visa, but you need to obtain an approved travel authorisation before getting to the U.S. you can apply here.

BUT. This only gets you travel for 90 days. You cannot stay longer and you cannot extend travel on the ESTA. You must leave, not just the U.S., but the North American region, and re-enter on a new ESTA. You cannot simply fly to Canada or Mexico. The countries do not reset the timer on the ESTA. Travel to these countries, and contiguous territories and adjacent islands, will not be considered leaving the U.S. for the purpose of the ESTA. Hence, a logistical nightmare. It’ll cost you a fair few pennies in flights too.

Also, for PCTers depending how quickly you move, it’s likely that hiking at an average thru-hiker pace, you’ll be in the Sierra in June. Getting yourself out of the Sierra and to an international airport is really, really tough. A woman I hiked with was trying to get home to Minnesota for a wedding, and had to ask her uncle to charter a private plane to a tiny airport in Bishop, just to avoid hours-long hitches to bigger airports.

Remember, authorisation via the ESTA does not guarantee you entry into the USA (as with all things) and admissibility is ultimately at the discretion of the U.S. immigration officer who you collide with when you get off the plane. Hence the deeply uncertain aspect of this method. You are having to collide with border control twice, and plead your thru-hiker case on two separate occasions, the second looking fairly rough and haggard, I’d wager.

And finally, the new ESTA will only get you another 90 days. So that’s 180 in total. With a few days lost in travel time. So if it all works out and your busted round trip out of North America is successful, you’ll still need to hustle.

Once you have the B-2 Visa

Once your application for the B-2 Visa has been approved, you’re good for entry into the U.S. Now you start getting everything else in order.

If your application is denied, you will no longer be able to apply for an ESTA. You will need to contact the U.S. consulate and apply again if you wish to travel to the USA.

How to get an extension on the B-2 Visa

This is a Hail Mary that all International thru-hikers should attempt. When you land in the USA and are shuffled off the plane, through immigration, you should ask for an extension on your B-2 visa.

Without an extension, you will have a strict six months in the USA. This is enough time to finish the hike, but it doesn’t give you much time to absorb preparation in the USA at the beginning, or anything going wrong on trail that may delay you, including injury.

Whether the immigration officer entertains your request is honestly a complete roll of the dice. The worst that will happen is the officer says ‘No’ and hurries you out of the way. The best that could happen is that you could get a couple of bonus months on your visa, giving you some more breathing room around the hike. There is no accounting for injury on the trail, and hey, you might want to do something other than thru-hike in the USA, blasphemous I know. Having spent many months with your tramily on trail, a lot of people want to spend time together, commemorating this huge achievement in the front country.

Make sure you:

have printed out documents from the Pacific Crest Trail Association, the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, or the Appalachian Trail Conservancy about what your chosen trail is (dead set, my immigration officer looked at me, burst out laughing, and asked me if I considered myself ‘some kind of Forest Gump’, entirely disbelieving you could walk from one end of the country to the other)
review my list of documents above, including proof that you have enough money to support yourself on this mad death march up the length of the country
explain that the hike takes between five and six months and it would be really helpful to have a bit of additional time on your visa to ensure that you can finish the hike, and
are prepared to be guided to a small uncomfortable room for up to a couple of hours while immigration processes your request. I have been told by hikers who successfully got their visas extended that this room can be very bleak, and you may have to watch the deportation process for numerous, distressed, people trying to enter the country. Also, it’s likely that your bag will just be going around and around on the baggage carousel, so ask an official to see if someone can grab it for you.

My best advice is to give this a red hot go. As I said, the worst that can happen is that someone says ‘No’ and you continue out with six months as a strong motivating force for hustling to the border. That said, the international hikers I knew that had longer visas were certainly less stressed about timing. I was jealous. Godspeed.

Check your passport expiration date

It feels obvious, but just make sure that you check your passport expiration before you apply for your visa and ensure it is valid for a year after your projected start date.

If it’s expiring before then, renew it. Your visa and capacity to travel overseas is attached to your passport so you want a valid one.