To my mind, the best approach is to grasp the fundamentals of what you need and why you need it, then you fill in the slots marked "pack", "food", "water", "shelter", "bed", and so on.

How you fill those slots will depend on a lot of factors: what you already own that fills the need, what you can afford to buy, personal preferences or quirks, and don't forget to consider how heavy it is.

Buying a lot of expensive gear right away is usually a poor approach, unless you have plenty of money to throw around. Most of us long timers began packing on a shoestring and have accumulated our gear slowly, the same way we accumulated our trail experience.

Many here will counsel you not to buy cheap, but to get the very best you can afford, to buy gear that will last for a decade or two and give you lasting benefit and pleasure. That philosophy works very well once you discover that backpacking is your cup of tea, a pasttime you're sure you will be doing for decades.

After a few trips, you'll know if this is true for you, even if those trips seem (outwardly) to others to have been fiascos -- to you they will just be a foretaste of coming delights, once you've mastered the details. My first trip was a fiasco of major proportions, but it hooked me for life.

So, my advice is to do as much research as you can, so you know what the choices are, but for your first trip especially, allow yourself to improvise and cobble together your kit, knowing it is not ideal.

Keep the weight down as much as possible. The biggest trap that newbies fall into is imagining a whole series of disasters and taking 15 lbs of stuff "for emergencies" that don't materialize. Just cover your most basic needs, as simply as possible, then stop.

Don't succumb to the pleas of well-meaning friends and family members who plead with you to "at least take this, in case...". The last piece of that sentence can be anyting from "you get snowed on" to "you get attacked by bears" to "you break a leg". It is not your job to carry their worries on your back. Your load will be heavy enough without them.

Good luck. I hope the experiment 'takes' and you join the lucky few who love this sport for a lifetime. As Dr. Suess said, "oh the paces you'll go!"