The AT intrigues me as well. I've skimmed through several guides for it & read several online journals of people who have done it & it certainly takes some serious planning (some people even use the post offices along the trail to mail themselves perishables & other items that that they may run out of along the way). I've read that there are hippies & the like actually living along the way. If things go as planned in my life (they rarely do), it's something that I hope I'll be able to do with my daughter (maybe before she heads to university or something) & wife several years down the road. If not, I'd certainly love to at least section-hike it. As far as I've read, the Sheltowee Trace Trail is very well done & is kept up with through federal, state & volunteer workers, but I'll certainly make sure to have anything up-to-the-minute before tackling it. I've gotten off track on much smaller trails in Autumn due to leaf cover & it's no fun (I don't even want to imagine getting lost on something of that scale). One of the things that has turned me off about camping in recent years is the abundance of areas where campfires are banned. I understand why this is so (especially during droughts--I hiked through an area that suffered a wildfire a few years back & it was overrun with snakes) & I admit that I often ignore this particular rule (though still following the guidelines for campfires), but I find that camping just isn't nearly as enjoyable without a campfire.