When Is Affordable Camping Gear Costly?
While you may think you want affordable camping gear, what I think you really want is great value for your money. After all by definition the most affordable camping gear is also going to be the cheapest. But believe me, and I'm speaking from experience here, you don't want cheap camping gear unless you plan on using it indoors. ;-) Even if you're new to the whole camping thing, please avoid cheap camping gear or hiking equipment. If you just want to see if you're going to like it, borrow a friends and try their equipment out. If you don't like it, you'll know and you will not have wasted money you could have used on something else. If you do like it, chances are you would have quickly tired of your new 'bargain gear' you just bought anyway and upgrade to something better. Why do I say this? You may have already heard my story about affordable camping gear, if not here goes... My first piece of affordable camping gear was an A-frame pup tent that I really liked... until it rained, once. Now getting rained on really isn't that big of a deal, unless it's 2 a.m. and you're trying to sleep while water splatters all over your face. That tent was literally worse than having nothing at all. Why? Because if you lay down in the middle of the woods and it storms, one drop of rain is only one drop of rain. But inside my cheapo tent as each drop hit the fabric it produced a spray that splattered that one drop into a spray of hundreds of misting droplets. Not good. Now add to this the fact that I'd brought along my girlfriend at the time for a getaway weekend. We'd done outdoor activities before and she was no slouch. She wasn't high-maintenance and didn't complain about much. In short, the kind of girl you like to take camping. Well let's just say she didn't care for getting drenched in the downpour that followed, and neither did I. As the relentless drenching continued, we decided to abandon ship, (and I say this literally as I'll tell you about in a minute) and move to my car at the time... a Honda CRX. Now, if you don't know what a CRX looks like, picture a mid-eighties Honda Civic, cut out the rear seat and add a hatch back storage area. In short, it was small. I loved the car, but like most sporty two-seaters, even with reclining seats it wasn't designed to sleep in. Take that small space and throw in the humidity from our soaked clothing and it was even more uncomfortable. After a night of getting no sleep, the sun finally came up. I got up and decided to check out the damage. I pulled backed the tent's weather door and unzipped the screen. The tent was sitting on a slight hill that I really hadn't noticed much before, but it was enough that all of the water had pooled at the back of the tent... and it was deep. We're talking inches (several centimeters) deep. Deep enough to drown in deep. Deep enough that a flock of migrating ducks would stop for a swim deep. OK, maybe not a flock, but easily a family.
Since then I've bought a great tent and it's serving me well to this day. Even when it pours, it stays dry. In fact we went camping with a group of three other couples and my tent was the only one that didn't leak, knock on wood. Needless to say, that trip to Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, was much better. I even had a hummingbird hover in front of me for a minute or so when he mistook my red Polar fleece jacket for a giant flower. Which at first glance wouldn't seem like it had anything to do with having a good tent, except for the fact that I was still there to see it. ;-) Hopefully this story, which is pretty funny now because I'm looking back at it, will help you to avoid a similar situation especially if you plan on taking someone you'd like to have a good time with along with you. This site is all about helping you to find the best value possible. Oh, and don't think that expensive gear is automatically good gear, because a lot of times it isn't. I've found that you can't rely on brand names alone. Most companies have their winners and their losers, finding the best affordable camping gear is kind of like panning for gold, you have to sift through a lot of dirt, or affordable camping gear, before you find the gold nuggets. This site lists the gold nuggets found along the way. There are also many guides, reviews and tips to help make your trip as good as it can be. I've been told that this site has more information than some books people have read, and I take that as a very big compliment. Hopefully, you will find it useful too. Have a look at the camping equipment and hiking gear guides to find out what's important in finding great value gear and see if it changes your mind about affordable camping gear. See you on the trail.
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