Hey Laura,

That sounds like a really cool way to celebrate your 40th, and we’re glad you liked the article!

As far as advice for packing as a couple, I can give you some insight into what my partner and I did to make it a more pleasant experience:

1. As for splitting weight, try not to be super specific about dividing every last ounce. Typically, if someone carries the tent rainfly and another shared gear item (like a stove/fuel/water filter) and the other person carries the poles and tent body, the weight will be more or less evenly distributed.

2. For your tent, I would recommend going with something spacious and light, like the Copper Spur HV UL 2 or 3, the MSR Hubba Hubba NX2, or the Slingfin Portal – check out our Best Backpacking Tents list to see all of our favorites. My partner and I spent more than one afternoon waiting out heavy rain inside our tent and we were really glad for the extra space! We spent many evenings and soggy afternoons playing cards or dominoes inside the tent.

3. We always made packing up camp fun. We had a pretty fun routine for taking down the tent, and we got to the point where we could do it in under 30 seconds! Make sure mundane tasks don’t become too tedious.

4. Make camp chores less painful by dividing and conquering. It definitely can get monotonous to do all the camp tasks every night – making a fire, filtering water, hanging your food, setting up – but a cozy camp is crucial for recovering from the exertion of the day. For example, it works best if one of y’all goes to get the water while the other gathers twigs for the fire.

5. Hike separately sometimes. You know what they say about too much of a good thing…. It’s usually a good idea to get some me-time in to keep things fresh. On days like this, my partner and I would designate a spot on the map to meet up for lunch so we could still enjoy a meal together!

Hope that helps, and I hope your thru-hike is awesome!

Good luck and happy hiking! We’re with you, it’ll be great when covid dies down and we can all get back on the long distance trails