How much food you need for a backpacking trip depends on a lot of things: your body size, mileage, elevation gain, pack weight, hiking pace, weather, and even how efficiently your body burns calories.

This calculator isn't designed to give you an exact answer. Instead, it's designed to give you a practical starting point based on the information you provide.

Just enter your trip details and the planner will estimate:

• Calories needed per day so you avoid the bonk

• Total calories for the trip

• Estimated food weight

• Starting pack weight (because food weighs more than most people expect)

• Ending pack weight

For trips with varying daily mileage, you can also enter mileage for each day individually because not every trip is evenly split with mileage. Some days are a few miles, while others are big miles.

Your body requires different calorie amounts for both kinds of days, so this will help you avoid over- or underpacking.

Start by entering your:

• Body weight

• Base weight (gear only)

• Typical water carry

• Trip length

• Planned mileage

Then select the options that best match your trip conditions.

The more accurate your inputs, the more useful the estimate will be.

If you're not sure about a particular field, make your best guess. Remember, the goal isn't perfection, it's creating a reasonable starting point for planning.

Good enough to plan with, but not good enough for Olympic athletes (and that’s the point).

It also doesn't replace real-world experience, understanding what your body needs to perform, and knowing how your body responds to hiking under load.

Weather, terrain, fitness, metabolism, appetite, and countless other factors also influence how much food you actually need on the trail. Not to mention any medical factors (see your doctor if you fall into that camp).

Use this planner as a starting point, then adjust based on your own experiences over time.

This calculator is designed for adult backpackers and should be used as a planning tool, not a prescription. I've stripped it down and accounted for variabilities on the backend so it's less complicated and straightforward to use. 

In all honesty, I designed it for myself because it makes planning my trips easier…

Base weight is the weight of your gear without food and water.

If you're new to backpacking, don't overthink it. Simply weigh the gear you're taking and leave out any consumable items.

This planner assumes a typical backpacking food bag averaging approximately 125 calories per ounce.

More calorie-dense foods such as nuts, nut butters, olive oil, trail mix, and freeze-dried meals can reduce food weight, while fresh foods and comfort items often increase it.

There's no right or wrong way to eat, but the type of food you bring does impact your overall pack weight.

It's up to you how you divvy up your calories. Some choose calorie-dense foods to save weight, others don’t.

Over time, you will eventually develop your own food system that works for you. You’ll know what does and doesn’t work, and one day, you’ll just pack the food you know works for you.

For now, the goal isn't to find the perfect number of calories right off the bat. We’re just trying to get you headed in the right direction, give you a baseline calorie count that works for your upcoming trip, and make sure you carry enough food to enjoy the trip without adding pounds of extra weight you don't need (food weighs A LOT).

On the flip side, if you’ve struggled to stay energized on past trips, you may find you've been underestimating your calorie requirement, so that might be nice to know...

Long story short, this planner is simply intended to help you get there a little faster and take the edge off.

Need a hand or having trouble?

Click HERE to email me and I’ll get you squared away.