As the weather turns a corner and spring begins to bloom, the outdoorsman in all of us is beginning to hear the call into nature. This is the time that the prep work begins. I have not bought genuinely new outdoor equipment in years. In fact, the last time I invested in a sleeping pad, it was the kind they had that self “inflated,” yet it could not ever contain enough air to separate a person from the ground or it would burst. This last summer I went camping with a friend who had an honest-to-goodness inflatable sleeping pad that used the storage bag as the inflation device. This pad could support a person, with no issues. Where was this when I was in school? The pad, by the way, weighed less than a fourth of that first sleeping pad I bought. I need one.

Hence the search for affordable new equipment. Affordable, because I am sure a sleeping pad like the new one I borrowed had existed when I was in school, but it would have cost way more than a broke kid such as I could afford. Gear is a strange deal. It needs to be good quality to stand up to the abuse of the wilderness time and time again, yet needs to avoid taking a big chunk out of the piggy bank. Otherwise, a person will need to spend all their free time working extra hours to pay back that big investment, instead of taking that time to get out and use it. Most people are not working as guides and outfitters whose income derives from using that gear.

The trick to getting outfitted for the woods is simple: read the reviews and take a long time searching for what you want. There are a lot of little gems out there that do not cost the whole farm. Finding people who know the equipment, and are honest in their reviews, is critical to panning out these little nuggets. Those sleeping pads, by the way, now cost around $40, as opposed to the $150 price tag they would have had years ago. Camping does not need to be expensive. Sometimes these affordable options can even be better than the expensive stuff, if a company takes pride in their work and their product. Through the struggles with the old used equipment, a person tends to discover the needs required of a certain piece of equipment, as well as what one can live without.

I realized that those cheap and junky old pieces of gear made me appreciate the new stuff more. New equipment is nice, and can make the experience more enjoyable, but the reason we get out into nature is not to Instagram our friends and say “look where I am.” The reason we do it is to get away from all that convenience and technology. In the end, a person does not need the latest and greatest to get out and enjoy nature. A person only needs the appreciation of the woods, and a will to get out there and live a little on the wild side.

Reach John at [email protected].