Backpacking?
 

Hello there!

Today is day one for me, and I need some tips/ideas on what foods I can bring backpacking. I basically backpack every weekend at the moment w/ my boyfriend who is training for a through hike on the JMT.

Usually I bring dehydrated foods, for the light-weight easily prepared meal option. When you have to carry all your own gear on your back for 6+ miles multiple days in a row you think about these things.

I am looking for suggestions on meal ideas with food that won't go bad, that I can pack to take with me. I can easily prepare snacks, olives, bars, nuts, ect... but I am a little stumped on what to do for actual meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Foods that won't weigh ton's and spoil during out trips. All suggestions are greatly appreciated!

My comments are from a non picky eater with no dietary restrictions. On my longer hikes between replenishment points on the Continental Divide, Great Smoky Mountain, Pacific Coast and Philmont, I carried assorted dehydrated foods to meet my calorie intake for the time of the year. I used a turkey basting bag to reyhdrate the food with warm water. Some of those places now prohibit using a turkey basting bag for food warming. I avoided jarred or canned foods with a preference for pouched food since all trash is carried out. A few places such as Big Bend required toilet paper to be carried out because of the arid climate. My Philmont trek was 12 days which covered just over 100 miles since my 2 sons picked the extreme trek.

Hi:
You might find more luck getting advice on the website: www.nomadicmatt.com

Good luck!!!!

I strongly suspect you have a better idea on this that almost all of the people on here. Since you can find water on the hike you want food with a minimum of water. There's a good reason the standard, albeit expensive, answer is dehydrated food. Otherwise, look for foods that naturally have little water in them.

(While I consider 6 miles a pretty short hike I haven't done an overnight in 30 years and normally there isn't enough water around here to to make carrying a filter worth it so I don't worry about low-water foods. I actually do have a very small filter in my emergency gear, but it's never been used.)

Welcome to Flyertalk! I'm impressed that you made your account in 2015 but this is your first post!

Flyertalk tends to be more of a fancy hotel crowd than a backpacking crowd, but based on my limited hiking experience, I think that a "meal" while backpacking often consists of a group of snacks (ideally healthy) rather than an entree. One thing you can look into is meals ready to eat (MRE) which the military uses. They are sold on eBay, and although I've never tried them, they seem to meet your requirements.

I'm a little confused. You backpack every weekend so why don't you take what you normally take on your weekend trips? I do a lot of 4-10 day trips in the Sierra and either take my own homemade dehydrated food and/or some freeze dried store bought meals. Any dehydrated/freeze dried meal will easily stay "fresh" for any backpacking trip you do.

If I am using store bought meals I repackage them in ziplock bags as they pack down in the bear canister much better and weigh less. I also use a bobby pin to poke holes in the ziplock bag as they will expand when you get to elevation if they are airtight.

Check out High Sierra Topix | Sierra Nevada Adventure Awaits for any and all sierra/backpacking info.

As others have said - you'll find this is more of a airplane/rental car/hotel/restaurant crowd, but for just about anything you'll find someone here who does it. There should be plenty of backpacking sites that have more people who can be helpful (maybe even run by the same company - IB also runs bikeforums.net, a bike site that I frequented for many years)

It depends a lot on your backpacking mode. I've been trending toward ultralight since I started bikepacking - you start with a ~20+lb penalty (the bike) before you even start putting on bags. My packing alternates between SoCal, where no fire at all is allowed a lot the time, and little water is available, and the Pacific Northwest where you can have fires and water falls from the sky. For trips of just a few days I tend to bring stuff that can be eaten cold, and don't eat much that would look like a meal at home. An added factor is that no flames at all (no stoves, not even cigarettes outside your car) are allowed in the Angeles National Forest most of the time.

Breakfast can be overnight oats - soak the oatmeal overnight with a cover and throw in some trail mix in the morning and it's a decent lightweight meal that's cheaper than a dehydrated meal.

Lunch is snacky things, really more just eating more of what I'd be snacking on during breaks. Trail mix of various sorts (Trader Joe's has decent variety), Fig bars, peanut butter pretzel nuggets (like a tiny peanut butter sandwich). Trader Joe's dried mini bananas are like crack with super energy. Maybe something like peanut butter sandwiches on bagels or other firm bread for a "fancy" lunch.

Dinner might be a pre-made rice and bean burrito (made at home with fully cooked stuff), or even just tortillas with cheese and salsa, and maybe some different snacks as a side, and a bit of chocolate for dessert. Lots of cheeses will keep for days without refrigeration. You can get little packets (like ketchup packets) of things like tapatio and tabasco to spice things up. I used to liberate a few when I ate at Wahoo at LAX when it was still open pre-covid. You can also precook pasta with olive oil and put in some lightly sautéed or raw vegetables plus some kind of protein and carry it a day or two without refrigeration, depending on where you are. If I have a stove and water then some kind of noodles (regular pasta or ramen) with a simple sauce that can be mixed dry in a ziplock and then added after cooking. You can make a nice spicy peanut sauce with powdered peanut butter, ginger, and dried hot peppers.

There are various cookbooks, too. has lots of stuff that's intended for cyclists to carry in a pocket, but can work just as well for backpacking. It includes various desserty things, as well as things like rice balls wrapped in nori that can be a nice savory snack or meal.

Most of my hiking has been around SoCal til recently, so I only just started filtering when we started doing stuff in the PNW. If your filter is one of the little Sawyer filters that has a 1 L bag, be forewarned that the bags have a tendency to pop during use. I was lucky enough to read about this before my first use and brought (and pre-tested) a platypus bag, but ran into someone on the Mt Hood Timberline Trail who didn't do his homework and we ended up lending him a backup filter setup. It sounds like lots of people use emptied out soda bottles that they just crush and stuff in a pocket in their pack.

LOL...when I saw the thread title, my first thought was backpacking Europe. Riding trains, staying in hostels or inexpensive hotels...that kind of thing.

Moderator Note: Please follow the thread as it relocates to the Budget Travel forum.

Welcome to Flyertalk, debrartin

would have been interesting if OP mentioned maximum length of trip

canned protein in oil would be one thing with good 'nutrition'

agree with mention of military etc style meals, in the US there is also the disaster preparation industry, not sure what kinds of options they have but i imagine there are many with many price levels, as it keeps growing

For a dayhike it's usually a group of snacks. Much of what people carry for a dayhike would prove way too heavy for the sort of trip she is talking about, however. Likewise, skip the MREs--far too heavy.

Mine's smaller than that--a head that goes in the water, a tube to such through. I'm sure it wouldn't be the easiest thing to use but it's emergency gear as I sometimes encounter seasonal water. If I were to do longer trips in areas where water collection could be counted on I would have a better filter.

Cans?!?! What sort of blasphemer are you?!?! Cans are heavy!

Now, there are foil packets of tuna these days--lightweight non-perishable protein.

They're interested in long storage times. She's after light weight.

Quinoa is a wonderfully versatile protein - and lightweight if you can pack it dry and boil water along your hike. It pairs well with any foods you would have with rice. Quinoa is also satisfying eaten alone; I like to season it with olive or sesame oil and some salt/spices, or with hot sauce.

I'm glad you're more thoughtful about food weight than I was on my first backpacking trek: 3 days in Bolivia lugging a pack full of roasted potatoes! It remains the most gorgeous hike I've ever taken, but it would have been even more enjoyable had I chosen my food more strategically...

not all are heavy, and depends on number of cans etc, again how long

I met a Scot who brought a cast iron skillet on the Milford Track. Sometimes it pays to break the rules, he cooked up some pretty good stuff!