[pct-l] Hiking and the real world

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

There's no one singular answer. You have to find your own path.

I simply quit my job to hike. I got a temporary job in between the  
two summers I did my PCT hike. I think if I was younger and single  
and male I would find a way to live a life of temporary jobs and  
maybe some RV or van living to make my living expenses really low.  
Then spend my off time hiking long trails. Or get a fungible, in- 
person job, like waitressing or drain cleaning or something where you  
can just get another job real quick without too much career ladder  
stuff to worry about.

In my more ordinary life, my hope had been to quit, hike, then find  
another job right away. In the high tech field where I work it was  
somewhat common to quit, take a long vacation, then go get another  
job. Outsourcing and the downturn in the economy put a stop to that.

Teaching is another way to have time for distance hiking.

Not many working people make a career of long distance hiking. You  
could find jobs that are outdoors, but that's not quite the same as  
being like Billy Goat or whoever. I've thought about campground  
hosting when I'm old so I can live close to nature.

It's possible I may never hike long distance again. This makes me  
sad. But all I can see ahead of me are endless days of working with  
weekends over in a blink of an eye and only day hikes here and there  
to tide me over until long holiday weekends give me time for multi- 
day trips. I saw my chance and went for it. Now I'm like you and  
wondering how can I do it again.


On Oct 17, 2010, at 12:26 PM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:
> Hi,
> I'm a college student who, in the past few years, has gotten very  
> interested
> in long distance backpacking. I've been on the list for a while and  
> have
> heard from a lot of very experienced backpackers. Reading their  
> posts, I was
> wondering, how you have implemented the backpacking world into  
> "real life".
> Is it more common for people to take the Yogi path and sort of  
> haphazardly
> get into backpacking while maintaining an unrelated job back at  
> home or do
> most take the Ned path and get into backpacking by falling in love  
> with it
> through their job? Working for my school's outdoor organization,  
> I've guided
> a number of backpacking trips. As man of our school's guides graduate
> though, they move on to careers in different areas. How can long  
> distance
> backpacking be sustainable as a career path? What ways do people  
> mix their
> passion with profession?
>
> -- 
> Sasha Leidman
> sleidman at gmail.com