What I actually eat on multi-day hikes (and why most people overpack food)
Quote from Rafick on May 7, 2026, 9:19 pmFollowing on from the pack-light thread — the question I get asked more than any other on the trail is: "What do you eat?"
So here's the honest answer. It's not exciting. That's the point.
Breakfast: Whole-grain oats soaked overnight and cooked for a few minutes with or without milk powder (sometimes with a bit of UHT milk), raisins, cardamom, cinnamon, and shredded coconut. No sugar. Plus a cup of black tea.
Lunch: A handful of nuts, a muesli bar, maybe some dried fruit while I'm walking. What I really like is a piece of good French baguette with Danish blue when I can get one from Auckland before heading out. If not, I don't miss it. I don't stop to cook midday — that's where people lose hours and energy.
Dinner: No dehydrated meal (Back Country or Radix); they are too costly. A sachet of Uncle Ben Mexican chili rice or tomato and basil that only costs around $3. I learned to eat instant noodles on the GR20 in Corsica — especially the hot and spicy or nasi goreng ones. I'd never eaten them before (and still don't, except when hiking). I cook them soupy with plenty of water, not drained, and add nothing. One pot, hot, calorie-dense. Sometimes also a cup of cheap vegetable soup, which is even better if I have a piece of baguette.
Snacks: Nuts, a few squares of dark chocolate. That's it.
That's a full day. Maybe 1,800–2,200 calories. Most tramping food guides will tell you that's not enough. They'll say I eat junk, I'm not getting enough protein, etc. They're wrong — for me, on a 4- or 5-day walk, that's enough to keep me going and feeling well.
Here's why it works:
I eat well at home. Year-round. Real food, plenty of it. I'm 74, slim, fit, and I've got energy reserves built in from decades of good eating, not from what I cram in the pack the night before. Four or five days of lean trail food doesn't dent me. I come home maybe a few hundred grams lighter and feeling great.
The mistake I see constantly: people pack like they're going to starve. Three muesli bars per day, two dehydrated meals at dinner, a "just in case" extra day of food, snacks for snacks. They end up with 4–5 kg of food they don't eat and carry home. If you're new to multi-day walks, the Great Walks NZ & Australia packing list is a useful reality check — what you actually need versus what people instinctively pack. I've seen hikers cooking rice, potatoes, eggs, and onions on the trail. That's restaurant-level cooking with restaurant-level pack weight to match.
The harder truth: if you genuinely need 3,500 calories a day on the trail to function, the issue probably isn't the trail. It's what your body is used to running on at home.
Eat what works for you — but be honest about what that actually is. Before you pack 5 kg of food for a 4-day walk, ask yourself: when's the last time you actually ate that much in 4 days at home?
Over to you:
- What does your typical day on the trail look like, food-wise?
- Anything you've stopped carrying because you never eat it?
- And the big one — anyone else go light on food, or am I the outlier here?
Following on from the pack-light thread — the question I get asked more than any other on the trail is: "What do you eat?"
So here's the honest answer. It's not exciting. That's the point.
Breakfast: Whole-grain oats soaked overnight and cooked for a few minutes with or without milk powder (sometimes with a bit of UHT milk), raisins, cardamom, cinnamon, and shredded coconut. No sugar. Plus a cup of black tea.
Lunch: A handful of nuts, a muesli bar, maybe some dried fruit while I'm walking. What I really like is a piece of good French baguette with Danish blue when I can get one from Auckland before heading out. If not, I don't miss it. I don't stop to cook midday — that's where people lose hours and energy.
Dinner: No dehydrated meal (Back Country or Radix); they are too costly. A sachet of Uncle Ben Mexican chili rice or tomato and basil that only costs around $3. I learned to eat instant noodles on the GR20 in Corsica — especially the hot and spicy or nasi goreng ones. I'd never eaten them before (and still don't, except when hiking). I cook them soupy with plenty of water, not drained, and add nothing. One pot, hot, calorie-dense. Sometimes also a cup of cheap vegetable soup, which is even better if I have a piece of baguette.
Snacks: Nuts, a few squares of dark chocolate. That's it.
That's a full day. Maybe 1,800–2,200 calories. Most tramping food guides will tell you that's not enough. They'll say I eat junk, I'm not getting enough protein, etc. They're wrong — for me, on a 4- or 5-day walk, that's enough to keep me going and feeling well.
Here's why it works:
I eat well at home. Year-round. Real food, plenty of it. I'm 74, slim, fit, and I've got energy reserves built in from decades of good eating, not from what I cram in the pack the night before. Four or five days of lean trail food doesn't dent me. I come home maybe a few hundred grams lighter and feeling great.
The mistake I see constantly: people pack like they're going to starve. Three muesli bars per day, two dehydrated meals at dinner, a "just in case" extra day of food, snacks for snacks. They end up with 4–5 kg of food they don't eat and carry home. If you're new to multi-day walks, the Great Walks NZ & Australia packing list is a useful reality check — what you actually need versus what people instinctively pack. I've seen hikers cooking rice, potatoes, eggs, and onions on the trail. That's restaurant-level cooking with restaurant-level pack weight to match.
The harder truth: if you genuinely need 3,500 calories a day on the trail to function, the issue probably isn't the trail. It's what your body is used to running on at home.
Eat what works for you — but be honest about what that actually is. Before you pack 5 kg of food for a 4-day walk, ask yourself: when's the last time you actually ate that much in 4 days at home?
Over to you:
- What does your typical day on the trail look like, food-wise?
- Anything you've stopped carrying because you never eat it?
- And the big one — anyone else go light on food, or am I the outlier here?