When the power goes out for three days or a hurricane warning lights up your phone, the last thing you want is an empty pantry and a sinking feeling. I have spent the last several months testing the best survival food kits on the market, boiling water in my backyard, and eating more freeze-dried meals […]

I've spent the last four winters testing portable heaters inside ice-fishing tents, canvas wall tents, and backpacking shelters, and one thing has become painfully clear: not every heater marketed for indoor use belongs inside a tent. When you're searching for the best tent heaters safe for indoor use, you're really asking two questions at once. […]

When I started planning my first multi-night camping trip, I assumed my headlamp would cover all my lighting needs. Three nights in a damp tent with a fading headlamp battery taught me otherwise. That's exactly why finding the best tent lights matters so much. I spent the past three months testing ten different LED tent […]

I've replaced more tent poles than I can count over fifteen years of testing outdoor gear, and finding the right tent poles replacement is one of those quietly frustrating experiences that can derail a trip before it starts. A cracked ferrule on a Friday night in the Sierras taught me fast: the wrong pole diameter […]

Nothing kills a camping trip faster than hearing your rainfly flapping in the wind at 2 AM because a seam split wide open. I have been there, standing in the rain with a headlamp in my teeth, trying to patch a three-inch tear with whatever I had in my pack. That experience sent me on […]

Finding the best Texas rig hooks can make the difference between a limit-filled day and going home skunked. I have spent the last several seasons flipping, pitching, and dragging soft plastics through some of the nastiest cover on my home waters, testing dozens of hooks to see which ones actually penetrate on the hookset and […]

After a tick bit my hiking partner during a paddle trip last summer, I realized how unprepared we were. We had band-aids and ibuprofen but nothing to safely extract the tick without squeezing it. That weekend sent me down a rabbit hole, and over the past three months our team has tested 8 of the […]

I've spent the last eight winters testing tent stoves across Montana, Colorado, and the Boundary Waters. From ultralight titanium rigs I packed into elk camps at 11,000 feet to a 58-pound beast I rolled into a wall tent for a December deer hunt, I've learned that the best tent stoves earn their keep on the […]

Sleeping poorly on a camping trip can turn an incredible outdoor adventure into a miserable slog. I learned this the hard way on a three-day kayak camping trip where I brought a bunched-up fleece jacket as a pillow substitute and woke up with a neck crick that lasted a week. After that trip, I made […]

Nothing ruins a carefully packed suitcase faster than dirty laundry mixing with clean clothes. After testing dozens of options across weekend getaways, two-week international trips, and gritty camping excursions, our team narrowed down the best travel laundry bags worth packing in . Whether you need a lightweight mesh pouch for delicates, a waterproof bag for […]