What Kit Should I Buy?
We get asked by many people “which one should we buy?”, and our answer is almost never “get this one …(insert item name and product supplier).” Rather, we like to ask a few more questions to try and help them make their own decision based on their needs and values.
There are all too many websites and people with “5 things you MUST take into the wilderness” and we just do not prescribe to that way of thinking. Take what YOU think you should take and take the time to investigate what you may need for your adventure, as no two adventures are the same.
So you think you may need a piece of equipment. Here are a few questions to help you make your selections. Robert used to use these questions when working in the outdoor retail industry to help customers successfully navigate the sometimes bewildering array of options.
Where are you going and what are you going to do?
Time to get imaginative and get those thinking juices flowing. This helps set the stage for downscaling many of the potential options. If you are carrying all of your equipment then you are likely going to need to trade off weight for durability. If you are going to go somewhere very cold then you are going to have to pay attention to material selection. This question is trying to get you to imagine being in the location doing your intended activity and using the equipment. Try running a few possible scenarios of how the activity could go, consider the weather, how you could feel, and how long you need the equipment to last, etc.
What do you need it to do?
Now this sounds like a bit of an obvious question to answer, but it was surprising how many people had not thought of it in this way. What do you need your bit of kit to do and also, maybe more importantly, not do? How many different things or functions do you think you need this item to be able to do? Taking the example of an outer layer, do you need it to be waterproof? If so, how waterproof?Thinking about your answer to the previous question could be useful to help you answer how vigorous is the activity you need it for? Do you need it to be wicking? Does it need to be windproof? Does it need to integrate with the rest of your layering system? Does it need to work with a rucksack? Does it need to stop water running up your sleeves?, etc.
What do you need it to not do?
There are often things that you need an item to not do something, one of the obvious answers to this is that you do not want it to break. In some situations though you may choose to trade off robustness and longevity with weight. Many lightweight outdoor items just do not last as long as their heavyweight alternatives. You may have an activity where you purposefully don’t want your clothing to blend into your surroundings, which may push you towards brighter colours. Or you may be considering a cooking pot that you are looking to put over wood fires, so you need it to not melt or deform from the heat.
Trade offs
If you have any items that need to fulfill more than one requirement or function, then there will be trade offs. This is where as one function gets better the other(s) gets worse. A good example here is when looking at waterproof garments. You want to be safe from the weather, but as you are being active at the same time, you want it to be breathable. For a garment to be fully waterproof, i.e. not let any water or moisture pass through, this would likely mean the garment is mostly a sheet of plastic. If you want something fully breathable, then it would likely let water and moisture pass through in any direction. In between these two extremes, you have your trade off. It is relatively easy to make a waterproof garment, but different membranes are usually needed to then make that garment breathable, allowing the moisture you generate as sweat to pass out of the garment one way, but not allow water to pass through to the inside, keeping you dry from both rain and your own sweat. Having a look at what is preferred by that membrane allows you to choose which you would prefer.
What is your budget?
For most items there there are many options that cover a wide price range. Yes the most expensive one may look pretty and have a million features, but do you really need it? In saying this, in our experience there is a hump of quality that you need to get over before each additional £/$/€ you spend has a less noticeable improvement. There are many cheap items that may be good for a few outings, but build quality and material selection can mean that their performance is low, and their longevity short lived. Such items are great for people who are still growing or for light occasional use. However if you are going to be using it regularly, or for intense periods where its performance genuinely matters, then it can be a false economy or even dangerous purchasing cheaper items. The simplest way to keep the cost down is to keep the number of items you purchase down.
Do your research
In most cases, you are not the first person to do an activity, and you are not the first who needs the equipment to do so. Today there are many manufactures and retailers who specialise in any number of outdoor activities. The internet is full of reviews and people giving their opinions. See if you can find people who are doing the same activity as you will be doing, in the part of the world (or at least the climate) that you are going to be in. It is worthwhile considering where the person has been using the item, as this can have a massive impact on the suitability of the item and how it performs. We often look to see which types of equipment show up across multiple trips, or are popular in the part of the world we are going to.
Many years ago we would have recommended going to a repeatable outdoor company and having a chat with the people in there about what would work well for you for your given adventurous activity. However, there are increasingly less and less quality outdoor shops we would recommend. There are also very few places where staff are now trained on the items they sell, and even less places where the staff have used them!
Casting the net as wide as possible
There is often more than one manufacturer, with more than one offering. It can be worth looking in a variety of retailers, not just your big name stores. Watch out for some of the larger outdoor retailers, as they can give you the perception of choice by filling their stores with their own brands, but there is minimal difference in quality. Badge engineering happens in outdoor clothes as well! It is worth looking in the small independent shops, as they tend to have some of the more niche items, due to them not being profitable for large chains to sell thousands of. For bushcraft type equipment especially, it can be worth looking in some of the less obvious places, such as army surplus (probably a whole article in itself) , or craft retailers (for example etsy). Such craft based retailers enable low volume manufacturers to sell their equipment all around the world. It can also be possible to reach out to the smaller manufacturers and make customisations for (surprisingly sometimes) little to no extra charge.
Down selection
So you have more than one potential item that satisfies your wants and needs. This is great news, it exists! If you don’t find a thing then you may want to look at making your own, but that’s a whole other article. Now the sometimes tricky task of making a decision. If you have a lot of options it can be worth going back to thinking about what you wanted this thing to do in the first place. This can be helpful in identifying if you have been swayed by marketing or if the widget you are looking at is something that you really need.
If you have two or more items that you need to choose from, and you are really struggling then one of three things are likely going on.
There is actually very little difference between them, and the final choice makes very little difference in the long run. So just go with your gut as to which one you prefer, and know that the decision would not actually have that much impact on your enjoyment of the activity.
The choice in item is likely to impact the choice of many other items for an improvement in one or more factors. In which case take a moment and assess what else would need to change, and are you happy with changing all the other bits of kit to work with this one.
You know deep down somewhere that it's not the right decision. Listen to this feeling and take your time.
Quite often you know what decision you are going to make well before this point. So do what you need to do to justify it to yourself.
Take your time
There is often more time than you think. When purchasing equipment, one of the best ways you can save money is to take your time. Wait for the sales, look around, get a feel for the market, try stuff on, and just enjoy the process of finding the right set of equipment for you and your activity. Talk to people and see what they use. Look at what people who are doing the activities that you want to do, and what they use. There are trends in outdoor gear just like anything else. The one thing we have found so far is that most of the time the trends are for a good reason. For example in the late 00s early 10s the Osprey talon 33 was incredibly common in the UK walking scene. This was due to it being light and comfortable for many, as well as staying put on your back while scrambling, with other nice features that the competition just did not have at the time.Now you see a lot of copycat versions of this backpack.This is a trickle down process of something good appearing and then other manufacturers selecting bits of the design concepts to include in their own.
Make final selection
When the time comes to make that purchase it can feel like a lot of money (and it can very well be). However, if you follow these steps you will likely have considered many of the angles, and have a piece of equipment that will do what you want it to and fit with your sensibilities. Happy kit foraging!
TLDR: Figure out what you need it to do and not do, decide on a budget, do your research, have a good look around, try it out if possible, choose the one that works for you best.