Originally Posted by
cooker
The gas cost, the ownership costs, the cost of somebody to select and load the food, the profit cost, the lost opportunity cost of sending an empty vehicle back from your location. Plus it's not really car free if a car brings you stuff every couple of days. Car free is when you do the legwork.
Of course I'd rather just walk/bike to the store and pick up the groceries, but the problem is that if you hike all the way into town to shop, you might not make it back to someplace you can pitch a tent free and unharassed, so that leaves the question of what is the most economical way to hike long distance while having enough healthy food, clean clothes, etc. My thought with the driverless cars was that they would be cheaper than Uber because with Uber you have to pay the driver (both ways), but a better solution would be to just camp somewhere near the store if it's allowed, but if that costs you an additional $10-$30, it might be worth it to send a driverless car/robot for $5 to meet you at a road crossing with a loaf of bread and some fresh fruit/veggies. I didn't think about the personnel costs, though, since many stores and fast-food restaurants provide such services for free by handing loads of food through a drive-thru window, bringing your groceries out to people's cars for them, etc.
Maybe call ahead and preorder. They're getting stuff delivered all the time so it might be attractive to them to have stuff delivered for you, knowing you might also buy stuff. When my daughter's suitcase wasn't on the plane and we had to head out to the lake, we arranged for it to be delivered the next day to a local gas station and they were happy to receive it. It was delivered by a parcel van that was heading that way anyway.
Yes, it's a pretty renowned thing that you can use USPS to ship packages to pick-up points along the appalachian trail, but I find it difficult to plan hikes that accurately, and it's nice to just be able to set out on a journey and resupply as needed.
If you needed to cut your trip short and head home, or skip an unwanted trail segment, you could take a bus or train.
If bus or train service is convenient to your departure and arrival points. Often I'll look up a bus stop and find it's 10-15 miles from the trail, so that is a good day's hike (or more with a heavy pack), and the bus usually arrives pretty late in the day, which doesn't give you much time to get to a camping spot before dark.
Obviously everybody is not going to carry extra food for the convenience of others. I meant they would be your emergency back up if you got injured or otherwise stranded in the back country.
Yes, I always carry more food than necessary as backup, but it's heavy. It would be nice to hike light because you aren't worried about summoning extra food easily.
If and when miniature drones are available, that might be a viable choice, but years away. I thought we were brainstorming what to do in the meanwhile.
True, but I'm not sure there's a solution without things like drones and free camping areas near stores. There is too much nomadophobia to allow free camping near populated areas, and even on hiking trails, there are often designated camping areas to steer people away from sleeping wherever they end up night. Why can't we be totally free to hike and camp?. . . see Rambo, maybe: