10 things I learned from Thru-Hiking with my Significant Other
Thru-hiking with another person means you see each other at your highest, your lowest, your shittiest, your most annoying and if you still like each other, that's pretty special.
When I started my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike, I started my hike alone. I didn’t know back in March of 2023 I’d be coming home with a trail man, named Barbie. I didn’t come out on the trail looking for this, looking for him. & I don’t think he came out here looking for me either. But the Appalachian Trail brought us together.
On Day 5 of the Appalachian Trail, I hiked behind this man I didn’t know at the time, hiking up Blood Mountain in crocs thinking “what an idiot”. 2 days later Barbie joined our trail family and 25 days later, my tent was just adding extra weight to my pack.
People who haven’t experienced thru-hiking, don’t quite understand how easy it is to get to know someone out here. Before Barbie & I were romantically together on trail, we were friends on trail who spent hours everyday hiking, talking, and laughing. And when you spend that many miles hiking with someone, you tend to learn A LOT about them. The good, the bad, and sometimes the ugly.
Despite everything we learned about each other, we still wanted to be together after the trail. Even though the real world is very different from the trail, we figured if we could deal with everything the trail had thrown at us, we could tackle reality too.
After 187 days and over 2,000 miles spent walking together, here’s what I learned from thru-hiking with my Significant Other, Barbie/Jon.
*These opinions are all the things that I, Treats/Tristan learned from hiking with my significant other. These are not Barbie’s opinions, and I am not speaking for him.
Backpacking is a great way to get to know someone. & backpacking 2000+ miles with someone is a really great way to test compatibility.
I believe that doing any kind of activity that challenges the body and the mind is a good way to get to know all aspects of a person. But spending day in and day out over 2000+ miles with a person, in the woods, challenging the body and the mind is a really great way to get to know someone.
Most people, even introverts like myself, like to talk at some point and when backpacking, for whatever reason, it’s usually the deep stuff that comes out. There is something about being in nature, about being in the woods, that can make you share the deepest parts of your soul. It can also cause you to share some of the silliest parts. But something about going on a backpacking trip helps people connect with one another in unique ways. Before Barbie and I were hiking together as a couple, we hiked a lot of days together as friends talking about everything under the sun. As friends we shared a lot with each other and learned so much about one another in a really short period of time. It helped us realize we were compatible as friends before we decided we’d be compatible as a couple. And all the things that we experienced and overcame together, made us stronger in the end.
P.S. Even if you can’t or don’t want to hike 2000 miles with someone, a weekend backpacking trip is also a great get to know you activity. It’s how one of my friends and I became best friends.
If you’re mad, it’s okay to walk away from one another for a few miles
I’d love to say that Barbie and I never got mad at each other but we did. I am easily annoyed and riled up. And when I got hangry or tired or any number of things, sometimes I would need some time by myself. I knew that if I could tell I was starting to get angry, that spending some time hiking by myself or with my headphones in was the best thing for our relationship and my mental state.
When it got to these points we would set up a meet up point where either he would stop and wait for me or I would wait for him. This method worked really well and ensured that we never got so annoyed with each other that one of us would be sleeping in the shelter. People may think that if you decide to hike with your partner or find a partner on the trail that you have to stick with them for every second. Barbie and I did hike together most of the time, but sometimes he would want to speed up or I would need my alone time and it was okay to walk a part for a bit.
Your partner will not be the reason you finish your hike
When I started the Appalachian Trail, I thought I would be hiking most of it alone. I’m an introvert and even though I was going NorthBound with the bubble, I didn’t realize I’d meet all the wonderful people I did, including my now boyfriend.
Although I was very grateful to have him, to have someone to talk to, and to talk about trail struggles and plans with, I 1) knew that if he decided not to finish the trail I still would and 2) that sometimes not even another person can pull you out of your own funk.
I think sometimes we all think that having another person around will help us in all facets. There were days where I was in a bad mood and having Barbie around definitely made some of those tough days better. But there were also days where even his silly jokes could not pull me out of whatever tough mental day I was having. It was still on me to be able to mentally push through this hike. And in the same faucet, your partner can’t do the hike for you. So physically and mentally, your partner will not be the reason you finish your hike - it will still be you, hiking your hike.
Sharing a one person tent brought us closer together (literally and figuratively)
I started the trail with a 1-person REI tent, Barbie started with a 1-person Six Moon Designs tent. When we started sharing a tent all we had to choose from was one of our 1-person tents - his was a bit roomier so we went with that.
People were amazed that we shared that tiny tent but honestly we kind of liked it. Sure it was annoying when one of us had to get out and pee in the middle of the night and we had to crawl over one another. And it was probably also annoying when I took forever to get out of the tent in the morning. But being in that close of quarters for 5+ months brought us closer together and made us really realize how much we enjoyed being in each other's company.
I don’t think that sharing this small of a tent works for everyone. I had people tell me not to get rid of my tent because when the weather got warmer, we’d want to sleep apart. The summer humidity wasn’t the most comfortable temperature for sleeping with another person in a tiny tent, but we both were happy with the arrangements, so it worked for us and brought us closer together physically and emotionally.
P.S. I did carry my tent until Pennsylvania when I finally sent it home. Some might think it's crazy that I carried it for that long, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be in a situation where I would need it again.
You still have to make sure you’re getting what you wanted out of your hike - set your expectations with each other
I love that I found someone special on my hike but it was still really important to me that even though I was sharing the trail with someone that I was still accomplishing what I set out to do.
When we decided that we wanted to be together and hike together, I made it clear that I still wanted to hike my own hike. I hope that we are together for a very long time, but if something does happen, I wanted my hike to be mine. By doing this, by making my intentions clear I knew I would still be able to feel fulfilled at the end of my hike.
By talking through things like this and making it clear what we wanted, we were able to make compromises where we needed and wanted too. Not only was this great for our hike as individuals but I think it made us stronger as a couple. We not only achieved our individual goals, but our goals as a couple.
How to communicate my feelings better and what I needed
On the trail you can’t really hide how you’re feeling - especially to someone who spends everyday hiking with you AND shares a very small tent with you. In one way or another, the feelings show - you experience the highest highs and the lowest lows. You cry, laugh, scream, feel the utmost joy, you feel every emotion under the sun. And the trail will not let you hide from them.
Off trail, it can be very easy for me to ignore when I’m feeling mad or sad specifically. But on the trail, it demands that you deal with and feel them in the moment. And this meant I couldn’t hide them from Barbie. So there were times when I let myself cry and had to say that I needed a minute before I could pull myself together. There were days when I was just having an off day and had to ask for a hug. Or days when I got mad and snapped, hiked off and would then later apologize because I just had a bad moment. The further we went down the trail, the more I learned about my emotions on trail and how I could communicate those with my partner, Barbie, so we could hike (mostly) in harmony. And although all of these are great for our relationship off trail, this was also a really special thing that thru-hiking with a partner helped me do better.
You learn to love someone in all their different aspects and for all that they are
There is no way around it, if you’re thru-hiking you smell, you get in all kinds of moods, sometimes you’re annoying, sometimes you want to walk a mile off trail for ice cream and these are all little idiosyncrasies you learn about a person while backpacking with them.
When thru-hiking with a partner you learn if their smell is something you can tolerate when they haven’t bathed for days. You learn whether or not they snore. If they kick in the middle of the night. If you can tolerate tight quarters with them. All the little quirks they do. If you can deal with all of that, day in and day out, and not want to push them off the trail, then that says so much. And if you can’t deal with it, then that’s something really important that the trail can teach you too. Fortunately, Barbie and I both not only tolerated ALL the things about each other, but even liked most of them (except maybe the smell).
Mentally and physically you see all the sides of a person while thru-hiking and if at the end of it, you still like each other, that’s a win.
It helps you learn to work better with another person
When you choose to hike with a significant other, you are choosing to put up with them. And generally this decision means you have to learn how to work with another person. Before I started sharing my tent I did all my camp chores on my own, but after sharing a tent, a sleeping pad and our personal space, my camp chores changed a bit so we could work together on packing in the morning and setting up camp in the evenings. By the time we were done with the trail, we were like a well oiled machine at camp. We also did this in town for certain things - like doing laundry at a hostel or one of us grabbing a box of sandwich bags at the grocery, etc. We learned about how to work together really well so we could also enjoy our time in camp, in town, and together.
Learning how to work together on the trail helped us learn how to work better together off trail.
You can still enjoy solitude even when hiking together
I think a lot of people assume that when you choose to hike with someone else, you’re then stuck with them all the time. Although we did hike together most days, we weren’t always together. Sometimes one of us would be ahead of the other, lost in our own world. Or one of us would have headphones in, listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook. And sometimes, one of us (me, usually) would explicitly state that we needed some time alone and Barbie would hike ahead. We always planned a spot to meet up ahead.
So even when you’re hiking a few 100 yards apart, you don’t have to talk every second of every day. You can still enjoy the solitude of being “on your own” but still having the comfort of someone being around you.
Going on an adventure like this together, is life changing in the best way
When you complete something like thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail together, you feel like you can do anything together. After everything you’ve overcome and pushed through together, it feels like you can tackle anything. Through all the ups and downs, all the good days and the bad days, you made it to the end, together. And if you can do the trail together and want to make the effort to continue to go through realities ups & downs together, then you know you’ve found a hiking partner for life.
I can’t say that thru-hiking is the way to meet your significant other or that thru-hiking is THE way to tell if you’re compatible with someone, but I can say that it gives provides you people with similar goals and lets you experience/understand one another in the ways that matter.
When you choose to do something like a 2000 mile/6 month adventure with another person, you will have a special bond for the rest of your life. And no matter what, that’s really special.
Backpacking and especially thru-hiking with a partner can teach you so many things about that person. You see them in every single moment, for all that they are and that can be really special (or eye opening). You not only learn about your partner but about yourself and how you interact with another human being. Thru-hiking is in my opinion, one of the best ways to get to know someone really well.
They say the trail provides and for me, it provided in a way I didn’t even know I wanted. The trail provided me with Barbie and I couldn’t be happier about it.
And if you’ve thought about thru-hiking or even just a weekend backpacking trip with your significant other, I highly recommend it. Cause the trail provides in the most magical of ways. And you might just learn some really important things about yourself and your partner.