Last summer, my friend Mark killed his F-150 battery at a dispersed campsite 40 miles from pavement. He had a fridge running off the starting battery, his dome light on for the kids, and no cell service. The best jump starters for camping prevent exactly that scenario. I have spent the last 60 days testing […]

Last summer I spent six weekends across three national parks with my 70-pound Lab mix, and the single piece of gear that saved my sanity was a solid dog tie out for camping. After going through two flimsy cables, one stripped stake, and a near-escape involving a raccoon, I tested eight systems side by side […]

I took my Australian Shepherd on 11 camping trips last summer. By trip four, my old wire crate had bent a corner, rattled the whole way home, and collected enough mud to require a pressure washer. That is when I started hunting for the best dog crates for camping seriously. Our team has spent the […]

Nothing spikes your heart rate like rounding a blind switchback and surprising a grizzly at 30 yards. I have spent the better part of three decades hiking, backpacking, and guiding in bear country across Montana, Wyoming, Alaska, and the Canadian Rockies. Over that time I have carried nearly every EPA-registered bear deterrent on the market […]

Our family has logged more than 60 nights camping with kids over the last four years, from July humidity in the Smokies to October frost in the Adirondacks. That testing taught me one hard truth fast: kids sleeping bags for camping matter more than the tent you pitch. A properly sized, correctly rated bag is […]

Every parent who has taken their kids camping knows the sound. It is 2 AM, you hear shuffling, and then a thud. Your child has rolled off their sleeping pad again and is now sprawled on the cold, hard tent floor. We have been there more times than I can count, and it is exactly […]

I have hiked with my own three kids (ages 4, 7, and 10) for the past six years across the Appalachians, the Rockies, and just about every state park in between. Finding the best kids water bottles for hiking has become a bit of an obsession for me. After dropping, freezing, bouncing, and testing 12 […]

Mealtime at a campsite with a baby is chaos if you are not prepared. Finding the best portable high chairs for camping was my mission last summer after one too many dinners with my toddler on my lap, covered in campfire chili. I spent three months testing 8 different portable high chairs on actual camping […]

Finding the best kids sun hats for outdoors used to mean buying three different hats every summer. Our team tested 12 popular kids sun hats across 4 months at the beach, on hiking trails, and at daycare drop-off, and we kept hearing the same frustrations from parents in our testing group. "It blew off in […]

When disaster hits, you might have less than 10 minutes to leave your home. That is exactly why finding the best bug out bags matters before you actually need one. I have spent the last several months testing survival backpacks, stuffing them with 72-hour kits, dragging them through woods, and checking whether the zippers and […]