How much does it cost to start backpacking? Our real gear spend for the multiday Pyrenees hike

How much does it cost to start backpacking in Europe? For two people heading into the Pyrenees for seven days, our total spend came to €1,024.73 – split across two of us, mostly from Decathlon and some bits from Amazon, with a stove and head torches we’ve owned for over a decade. The short answer is €400 to €700 per person in new gear, depending on what you already own.

tl;dr

• A functional two-person kit for a multi-day mountain route costs €400 to €900 in new gear, depending on what you already own
• The highest single costs are the tent (€190), the backpacks (€150 to €185 each), and the sleeping bags (€70 each)
• Freeze-dried trail meals add roughly €70 per person/per week on top of gear costs
• Decathlon covers most of what you need at a fraction of what branded alternatives cost
• The Coleman stove and head torches in our kit are between ten and twelve years old and have never once let us down

What does a complete backpacking kit need?

Five categories you cannot skip: shelter, sleep system, pack, water, and cooking. Everything else – poles, liners, a shovel, a solar charger, sunscreen – is situational, or something you’ll already own after a few years of hiking.

First-time backpackers tend to underspend on the sleeping bag and overspend on the pack. The bag matters more. A pack in the wrong size is annoying. A sleeping bag in the wrong temperature rating is a genuinely miserable night at altitude. Buy for your actual worst-case sleeping temperature, not the optimistic average.

For a 7-day route in the Pyrenees in late spring, the minimums are: a bag rated to at least 5°C, a tent that handles wind and rain, and a pack between 50 and 65 litres per person. If you’ve already read my hiking backpack sizing guide, you know how I got to those numbers. If you haven’t, the short version is that 50 litres sounds like a lot until you’re also carrying food, water for two dogs, layers, and a first aid kit.

Full backpacking gear list with real costs

A note on how we shopped: we bought for longevity where we could, and kept costs down where we weren’t sure how much use something would get. That meant accepting a few compromises we didn’t entirely want to make. The black sleeping bags are one of them. We also made a deliberate call on food: we live in a van, we have two large dogs whose food we’re already carrying, and prepping and dehydrating meals at home before a trip is not an option for us. 

Everything below is what we bought or are bringing to the Pyrenees in June 2026. Links go to the exact products.

Strip out the food (€97.86), the sunscreen (€16.99) and the pure gear spend is around €900. The sunscreen is included because I bought it for the trip, even though I would have bought it anyway, as I ran out of my travel-size one. 

One thing worth knowing before you commit to buying a full kit: hut-to-hut trekking is a completely valid alternative on many European mountain routes, including parts of the Pyrenees. You walk between mountain refugios or refuges, sleep there, eat there, and carry almost nothing overnight. No tent, no sleeping bag, no stove. The cost shifts to hut fees, typically €20 to €50 per person per night with dinner and breakfast included, but the gear investment drops to near zero.

For us, it wasn’t an option. We’re hiking with two dogs, and mountain huts don’t take dogs.

The backpacks: why we bought two different ones

I wrote about how to choose the right pack size in the hiking backpack sizing guide, if you want the full version. For the Pyrenees, we wanted to make sure we have enough volume for a 7-day route, a frame that transfers weight onto your hips rather than your shoulders, and as light as possible without sacrificing structure.

I went with the Simond Forclaz MT900 in 50+10L at €149.99. It weighs 1.43kg empty, which is genuinely light for a pack this size, and is rated for loads up to 12kg. The back panel is height-adjustable, the ventilated mesh frame keeps air moving, and there are seven pockets – three in the main body, two on the lid, two on the hip belt. The hip belt pockets are the ones I use most: phone, snacks, lip balm, done. It also comes with a rain cover included. I tested it loaded at around 9kg on a one-night overnighter before the Pyrenees trip, and the weight sat on my hips the way it should.

Tom’s North Face Terra 65 at €185.00 is a bit larger than mine. At 65 litres and 1,950g, it’s heavier than the Simond, but the frame is removable and adjustable for torso length, and the full-length U-zip gives easy access to the whole main compartment rather than just the top. It has two external bottle pockets, a DWR water-repellent finish, compression straps on both sides, and lower compression straps that work well for attaching a sleeping mat to the outside. There’s also a hydration bladder compartment and attachments for trekking poles and an ice axe, neither of which we need for this trip, but they’re there.

The Terra costs €35 more than the Simond, and the main reason Tom chose it over a Decathlon equivalent was fit. The hip belt sat correctly on his hips at the right torso length adjustment. But in my opinion, if the cheaper pack fits your body, buy the cheaper pack.

How to choose a sleeping bag for backpacking: what we bought and why

I spent more time researching sleeping bags than any other item on this list, which is how I ended up knowing far more about sleeping bag construction than I ever expected to, and still came home with the bag I’d rejected twice.

There are two things to understand before buying: fill type and shape. Fill is down or synthetic – down is lighter, packs smaller, and costs significantly more; synthetic is heavier, handles moisture better, and is much cheaper. 

Shape is rectangular (roomy, suited to car camping), semi-rectangular (a middle ground), or mummy (tapers from shoulder to foot, traps heat best, standard for backpacking). 

Quilts sit outside this – no hood, no full zip, minimal bulk, designed for people who run warm and want to carry as little as possible.

In the ideal world, I wanted down in a quilt, but we did not get that. Down quilts at a comparable temperature rating start around €170 per bag, which would have added €200 to the total for two of us, so we moved on.

The Simond MT 500 is synthetic, mummy-shaped, rated to 5°C comfort, weighs 1,050g in the L size, and costs €69.99. We found it in the store, it ticked every box. But it only came in a black colourway. I had a strong, entirely irrational objection to owning a black sleeping bag. I still can’t fully explain it. I just did not want it.

Several weeks of searching followed. Every bag is comparable in price and weight range. Nothing came close. We went back to Decathlon. We bought the black sleeping bags. I have made my peace with this.

We also picked up sleeping bag liners at €9.99 each – a few degrees of extra warmth, protection for the bag, and longer between washes. We went for the cheapest ones because we didn’t yet know how often we’d be doing this. If it turned out to be a once-a-season thing, €10 liners made more sense than €30 ones.

One more thing worth knowing before you buy: the temperature rating on the label is not one number, it’s three. Comfort is the temperature at which you’ll actually sleep comfortably. The lower limit is where a warm sleeper might just about manage. Extreme is a survival figure – the minimum temperature before hypothermia risk, and not something to plan around. Buy by the comfort rating. If you run cold, go one level warmer than you think you need. The MT 500 is rated 5°C comfort, which covers most summer mountain nights in the Pyrenees with room to spare, and not much room beyond that.

The titanium mug

The camping cookware section at Decathlon usually has prices on the shelf. That day, that section didn’t. I picked up several mugs one by one, comparing weight, chose the lightest one, and discovered at the till that it was €19.99. Titanium, as it turns out, costs more than aluminium. I did not know this. I do now.

As I later learned, titanium is roughly 45% lighter than aluminium at the same volume. The Simond 0.4L cup weighs 78g. An equivalent aluminium cup weighs around 130g. That’s 52g per cup, or 104g saved for two. Titanium doesn’t corrode, doesn’t dent the way aluminium does after a few trips, and doesn’t affect the taste of food. 

On environmental footprint: titanium production is energy-intensive, so the manufacturing impact is higher than that of aluminium. The argument for buying it is longevity. These mugs genuinely last decades, which means one purchase, no replacements. Whether that trade-off works for you depends on how often you’ll use them.

At €19.99 each, I have made my peace with this. I am fine.

Water filtration for backpacking

I read a lot of conflicting advice on this before the Pyrenees. Some sources said mountain water in Europe is clean enough to drink straight from a filtered bottle. Others said you never know where sheep have been upstream. I decided I’d rather carry two systems than spend day four of a seven-day route finding out the hard way.

So here is what my plan is – the LifeStraw Peak Series bottle removes 99.999999% of bacteria and 99.999% of parasites, but it doesn’t remove viruses. Aquatabs kill bacteria and viruses, but don’t cover Cryptosporidium. Filter first through the LifeStraw into our bottles, then treat with a tablet and wait 30 minutes. Between the two of us, we have full coverage. LifeStraw actually recommends this combination themselves for anyone who wants virus protection.

We share one LifeStraw between us and filter it into our individual drinking bottles. The LifeStraw is €44.49, collapsible, holds 1 litre, and weighs almost nothing empty.

Getting hold of the Aquatabs was its own adventure. Our local Decathlon was out of stock, and they’re classified as hazardous goods, which means no online delivery is possible. In theory, you can order from a store for collection, but our route had moved on, and we couldn’t get back to the store. After a few days of walking into every outdoor shop we could find, we eventually tracked them down in a pharmacy. Fifty tablets for around €25, almost double the Decathlon price of €13.95. 

Cooking kit for backpacking: what you need

The Coleman stove system is a canister-top burner with an integrated pot that we’ve owned since before we moved into the van. It works at altitude, boils water fast, and I genuinely cannot tell you what it costs because it was bought in a different era of my life. Equivalent systems from Decathlon run €40 to €70 now. MSR and Jetboil equivalents run €80 to €120. Any of them will do the job.

Gas canisters are a consumable. Two people on a 7-day trip, cooking only hot drinks and rehydrated meals, go through roughly one 230g canister. Budget €5 to €8 and buy it near the trailhead.

Trail food: what freeze-dried meals cost

We bought 14 Trek’n Eat freeze-dried dinners at €6.99 each, which comes to €97.86 for the trip. That covers dinner for two people every night for seven days.

Since we’re also carrying around 6kg of dog food. Adding bulk supermarket meals on top of that wasn’t something we wanted to do. Freeze-dried dinners weigh almost nothing, take five minutes to prepare and mean one less thing to think about after a long day of hiking. 

Everything else – snacks, trail mix, coffee, anything fresh for day one – I’ll update after the Pyrenees with the full picture: what we cooked, what we bought, what we carried, and whether the freeze-dried dinners were actually worth €6.99 each.

Power: solar charging and what it’s actually for

The BigBlue 28W solar panel at €69.99 clips to the outside of a pack and charges while you walk. On a route with long exposed ridge days – which the Pyrenees have plenty of – it earns its place. On heavily forested or overcast routes, it’s far less effective. We’re also carrying three power banks we already own, which cover two phones for a week at normal navigation use without any sun at all. We are currently still waiting for this to arrive, so no picture yet 🙂

If you’re building from scratch, one 20,000mAh power bank (€25 to €50) is enough for a single trip. The solar panel is worth adding if your route has consistent sun exposure, but it’s not essential for a first go.

Do you need a shovel for backpacking?

At €14.57, the ultralight aluminium shovel is for cat holes. This is the Leave No Trace method for human waste disposal in areas without toilet facilities, which describes most of the terrain on a 7-day mountain route. Buy it. It weighs almost nothing.

Sunscreen at altitude

UV exposure increases roughly 10 to 12% per 1,000 metres of elevation. Crossing passes above 2,000 metres in the Pyrenees means significantly more UV than at sea level, including on overcast days. The ISDIN Invisible Stick SPF 50 at €16.99 is in stick format, which doesn’t leak in a pack, reapplies cleanly, and survives being sat on. This is not optional at altitude in my opinion.

Decathlon vs branded gear

Simond was founded in Chamonix in 1860, has been part of Decathlon since 2008, and still designs and tests gear at the foot of Mont Blanc. Edmund Hillary used a Simond ice axe on the first Everest summit in 1953. The accessible prices exist because Decathlon sells directly. You’re not paying for a label, which is different from saying the gear is cheap.

What you do pay for with brands like Arc’teryx, Black Diamond, or Osprey is partly genuine performance at the extreme end of the spectrum, and partly the name. For summer mountain routes in the Pyrenees, Alps, or Cantabrians, Simond is more than enough. 

The North Face Terra 65 in our kit is the exception, and the reason is fit. Tom loved the bag and loved the fit. If the Simond equivalent had fit the same way, we’d have bought that instead.

Backpacking gear cost summary

If this was useful, or you want to see how the trip went, find me on Instagram at @helloaelita. I’ll be sharing the full Pyrenees trip there once we’re back, too.