I've been carrying a camera on the trail for over a decade, and I know the exact frustration of watching a great shot slip away because your pack was too uncomfortable to lift. Last summer, our team hiked more than 35 miles across the Sierra Nevada with 10 different camera backpacks, hauling everything from a […]

I lost 14 pounds on a three-day section of the John Muir Trail last summer and I never once regretted packing a tripod. The best camera tripods for hiking need to do something most tripod reviews ignore: they have to disappear in your pack until you need them, then stand firm when the wind picks […]

If you are over six feet tall, you already know the frustration of a standard camping cot. Your feet dangle off the end, your knees bend at awkward angles, and you wake up feeling worse than if you had slept on bare ground. Finding the best camping cots for tall people means looking past the […]

I have spent the last four summers camping across the Pacific Northwest and the Southwest, washing dishes in everything from a rooftop tent to a 26-foot travel trailer. After drying a cast-iron skillet on a folded t-shirt one too many times, our team started testing camping dish racks side by side. We loaded each one […]

I've spent the last three months testing camping cot tents across desert sites, pine forest campgrounds, and a soggy weekend on the Olympic Peninsula. I dragged eight setups out of my truck, set them up in the rain, slept in them through cold nights, and broke down every one to find out which models actually […]

Last spring I spent a soggy weekend in the Cascade Range trying to coax a fire out of damp cedar. After an hour of cupping my hands and getting smoke in my eyes, I finally bought my first pocket bellows on the drive home. That single tool changed how I camp, and it's why I […]

I spent the last three months putting seven of the best camping fans through their paces, from a sticky July weekend in a 4-person tent to a power outage during a coastal storm. I ran them on low until they died, measured airflow with an anemometer, and counted decibels at arm's length. After hundreds of […]

There is nothing quite like sitting around a warm campfire after a long day on the trail. But finding the best camping fire pits for your specific setup in is harder than it looks, with fire bans, weight limits, and smoke complaints all complicating the decision. Our team spent three months testing 10 of the […]

I hauled eight different camping knife sets through three months of weekend trips, tailgates, and one chaotic family reunion at a state park. By the end, my kitchen drawer had become a graveyard of mediocre blades, but the eight kits below were the clear survivors. Choosing the best camping knife sets is harder than it […]

Our team spent six weeks field-testing the best camping matches waterproof options available right now. We struck them in driving rain, soaked them in creeks, and left them in a freezing garage for 30 days to see which ones still lit on the first try. What we found surprised us: not every "waterproof" match survives […]