I'm hiking the Appalachian Trail in March 2026!

Hello Friends and Family!

I’m planning on taking a 6 month sabbatical from work to hike the Appalachian Trail, tentatively starting on March 17, 2026. I’m inviting you to join me, meet me, or just follow me from home, but please feel no obligation.

What I know: 

• I will begin hiking north from Amicalola Falls State Park, about 90 minutes north of Atlanta
• I will camp most nights, stay in hostels many nights, and occasionally stay in hotels/airbnbs
• I will take rest days
• My goal is to have fun, not necessarily to complete it as quickly as possible
• I will leave the trail on occasion to visit nearby friends and places
• I’ll maintain some sort of tracking of my journey. Possibly over instagram, a blog, or Strava.

I don’t know exactly where I will be at a given point in time, more than a few days in advance

If you would like to be informed of my plans please follow along on this website. You can even subscribe to be notified, if you would like. I will be making periodic posts beforehand, and more regular posts during the hike. I'll be doing day to day updates tracking through my Strava.

If you are interested in joining, here are thoughts on how we could convene:

• You could join for as many hours or days of hiking as you like. This would require some coordination; meaning using 2 cars, getting a ride from a friend or shuttle, or hiking an out and back section on the trail.
• We could meet at a trailhead for anything ranging from a quick meal to an off-trail excursion
• If there’s public transportation from your home to somewhere near the trail, I could come part or all of the way to you. NYC and DC are the 2 cities I know are accessible, and I do plan to visit both.
• It seems like most parts of the east coast are within 2 hours of some part of the trail.
• If you would like to join, I’m very flexible on accommodations & pace. I’d be happy to walk 3 miles in a day and stay at a luxury resort, or put down 30 mile days and camp in a swamp. However, I’ll probably be a little less accommodating in terms of timing, I’d rather not sit still for multiple days or hike 50 miles a day to get to a certain place at a certain time. But now that you mention it, hiking 50 miles in a day sounds kind of fun.

Also, I would welcome any advice, recommendations, feedback, or input you all may have.

Thank you all for reading!

Love,

Aaron

PS: Feel free to share this website with anyone you think may be intersted or I may have missed

PPS: Here’s the map. If you want an extremely rough estimate of when I will get to a given point, find the mile marker of the location (need to turn on the “Approximate Miles from Spring Mountain” layer), divide by 20, and add that number of days to March 17st.

PPPS: I hope my 6 month sabbatical is significantly more time than I’ll need. I’d love to coordinate some post-hike get-togethers as well!