Ditch the Lunchbox for a Dry Bag

The smartest way to pack lunch for a long hike is to skip the lunchbox entirely and use a stuff sack or a lightweight soft cooler.

A hard lunchbox weighs a pound before you put anything in it, and it just makes you carry a box-shaped empty void around all day. A soft sack weighs an ounce and you can shove it into the corner of your pack. That’s the whole trick, really.

For the food itself, think “calorie dense and crushproof.” Tortillas instead of bread, nut butter packets instead of jars, hard cheese, salami, jerky, nuts, dried fruit. Leave the yogurt cups and fresh apples at home—they’re mostly water weight with extra packaging. Also, wrap everything in a plastic bag before it goes in the sack; if a salami leaks grease on your fleece, you’ll be smelling it for the entire trip.

And don’t forget that water is the real weight. A liter is 2.2 lbs, so the lighter your lunch is, the more room you have for water on your back.

Pack out whatever you packed in. The empty wrappers somehow always feel heavier on the way down.