Long distance hiking or thru-hiking, as it is known as in the USA is a way of walking a long, long way.
The hiker carries everything to survive such as tent, food, clothing and kit meaning lightweight items are normally a good idea.
Someone said to me 'Hey, you are doing the real survival thing' and yes I suppose in a way you are. It's kind of organised survival though.....mostly.
The hikers rucksack has a base weight which is everything excluding the food and water. This weight is kept as low as possible but the difficulty is deciding which items are essential to keep you alive! A good base weight is around 20lbs to cope with 3 seasons of weather. I have heard of super light base weights of down to 5 or 10lb but this normally means sleeping under a tarp.
Walking for hundreds or even thousands of miles may seem a gruelling and daunting prospect but if you look at it as many day hikes added together it starts to seem feasible. There is only so far you can walk carrying all your kit so the hiker normally detours off the trail to get food. Sometimes if you are really lucky the trail even passes through a town but in other cases you may need to hitch many miles off the trail. 100 mile food carries are fairly common on the CDT, although I have heard of 300 mile carries by some real tough hikers.
3miles to the post office with 100lb of kit and food (I had a ride)
There are many long distance paths in the UK with some of the famous ones being,
The South West coast path 630miles
The Pennine Way 268miles
The West Highland Way 95miles
