The Appalachian Trail (or AT for short) has snaked north some 2,000 miles through 14 states by the time it passes along the ridge across the lake from our little summer cabin. Those who hike the whole trail in one go are known as “through hikers” and we see them frequently. Many stop in our little town to rest, catch up on fresh vegetables, hot pizza, and cold beer, collect mail, and resupply for the next section of their hike. Three young through-hikers—adult children of an old friend—stayed with us for two nights this summer. But first, they had to jump in the lake.

As you might imagine, hiking for days on end, covered in bug spray and often wearing wet clothes, can become a smelly affair. Our guests, whose last shower was three states prior, had gotten used to their odor, but those of us who shower or swim nearly every day had not. So into the lake they went, leaving their backpacks and shoes outside to air out. We then fed them a hearty vegetarian stew, which they sheepishly devoured until there was nothing left in the pot to lick.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates that somewhere between 1,200 and 3,000 people attempt to hike the entire trail each year, about 25% of whom succeed. Our young friends were among the successful, though it did not come without challenges. After starting in Georgia in mid-March, they encountered snow, lyme disease, and weight loss. They were forced to temporarily leave the trail and seek medical intervention three different times for illness or injury. They had to replace their hiking shoes three times, for a total of four pairs each, due to wear and tear. We were surprised to learn that on the trail they subsisted mostly on ready-to-eat calories (think nutella, dry cereal, nuts, and canned tuna) and rarely cooked, eschewing freeze-dried “hiker’s meals” due to the cost. The budget they were aiming for was $2,000 for five months on the trail. So you can imagine they were pretty happy to get a hot, home-cooked meal from time to time.

When our guests told stories from their time “on trail,” it reminded me of a summer I spent on Martha’s Vineyard, where there seemed to be only three places people spoke of: up-island, down-island, and off-island. They oriented themselves to life on the island and everything off the island was as abstract as Orien’s Belt. When you’re on the trail, you are focused only on what happens “on trail” – everything else is a different planet. When our guests connected to wifi at our cabin, suddenly they were plunged into college preparations and a whole busy world of things that simply doesn’t exist “on trail.”

There is even a long history of giving each through-hiker a unique “trail name” that both anonymizes and identifies them by a personality trait or meaningful experience. The names are bestowed spontaneously, often by others on the trail, and are intended to symbolize personal transformation, community connection, and shared experience. Our guests’ names were “Chortle” and “Scorch” (two young guys) and “Death March” (a bad-ass young female solo hiker who met the guys along the way and finished the trail with them). It seems like hikers on the trail know each other by these names alone. We later met an older man who was finally completing a multi-year through-hike done in segments. He went by “Firefly” and the name stuck with him across the dozen or so years he had been hiking.

The Trail experience reminds me in some ways of our current lifestyle. We are like Firefly—spending big chunks of time on the go, but leaving our “trail” to come back and spend time with family and friends (and stop living out of a suitcase). We have met others (far fewer in number) who are always “on trail”—people who live on a cruise ship, for example, or who live in different countries all the time and rarely return to their home of origin. Far more people spend a few weeks every year traveling, like day hikers on the Appalachian Trail. There’s no “best” way to see the world, but any way you do it, it’s a long trail with many twists and turns along the way. 

For our ten-year trail, we’ve now traveled segments in equatorial South America, southern Europe, southern South America, and nine countries in Africa. Next up: Oceania! In November, after we complete our twice-a-year “family triangle” visits, we head to New Zealand. Kiwi-land had been at the top of my wish list when we started this whole crazy endeavor so I’m super excited to be finally heading there. Coincidentally, New Zealand has its own version of the Appalachian Trail, known as the Te Araroa (or TA for short – which is interesting because it’s the Down Under version of the AT). The TA travels about 1900 miles from the tip of New Zealand’s North Island to the bottom of its South Island. Like the AT (and the Camino de Santiago in Spain), the TA was designed to be a through-hike and while it has plenty of great scenery, it doesn’t necessarily include the most beautiful hikes in each region. As we have done with the AT and the Camino, we will undoubtedly hike some sections of the TA in our travels, but will not attempt it in its entirety. We like to think we’re hardy, but we know we’re not that hardy!

So starting in November, you can look forward to new dispatches from our “trail”. We’ve been very lax in posting to this blog over the summer and we appreciate those of you who have asked about our welfare. We are fine, and have enjoyed a restful summer full of fair skies. It was actually a pretty serious drought, which is bad for farmers but made for some wonderful strings of sunny days by the ever-shrinking lake. We spent lots of joyful time with family and friends. Al is continuing to work part-time, with new papers in the works from several of the organizations he still consults with. Rachel is continuing to study Spanish even as we plan travels to non-Spanish-speaking countries. And now we’re trying to get ourselves into serious hiking shape in preparation for the Milford Track (probably the most iconic of all New Zealand hikes, but only five days, not five months!). As you can imagine, we have many other activities planned for the coming months to experience all we can of this incredible island nation. 

We don’t expect to be given trail names on our journeys but you never know! And the beauty of being “on trail” is you keep putting one foot in front of the other, having adventures, making discoveries, learning, and you never know what’s around the next bend.