Our Gear – What We Travel With
After the luggage nightmare of the Titanic Trip, we decided to go a much easier route for future trips: backpacking backpacks. It would give us plenty of packing space and would also keep our hands free, so win/win, right? They’d also become the foundation of our gear for most of our future adventures.
We were gearing up for a trip to Ireland and decided that the best way to stretch our money and stay longer would be to camp. Since we were getting new backpacks, why not a new tent, too? And sleeping bags and pads? Why not, right? We knew we’d get our use out of everything, as we enjoy backpacking and camping. For us, it was the perfect investment.
Our Gear
The big-ticket items that we purchased were our backpacks, the tent, our sleeping bags, and blowup sleeping pads. Let’s start with our tent.
We went with the REI Half Dome 2 (there is a newer version now) and have loved it ever since. We named her Myrtle and she has seen us through countless nights in 3 different countries. As far as camping in Texas goes, this tent is perfect. We love that it is so breezy with the fly off, a must-have when camping in the warm Texas nights. We also love that it is incredibly quick and easy to put up and take down. It is the easiest tent that either of us has ever owned, and that’s saying something when you consider that Billy is an Eagle Scout and has done countless camping trips throughout his life. It’s a 3-season tent and has served us well through 28°F – 75°F nights (approx. -2°C to 24°C). It’s seen us through balmy nights, rain, and even a bit of snow and ice.
The Backpacks
We really took our time on picking bags, seeing as we’d be wearing them often and for many foreseeable trips. Billy chose the Kelty Coyote 80 (latest version here). His main reason for choosing this bag, other than that he liked the color, was because it was big and everything is easily accessible. There is a huge zipper flap that opens on the front of the bag (kind of like a duffel bag), which gives access to everything in the main compartment. If he needs something at the bottom of his pack, he doesn’t have to unpack everything to get to it. It is water pack compatible also.
I was a bit pickier with my choice but eventually settled on the Deuter Futura Pro 34 LS Pack. I had trouble picking a bag because I have a long torso, making it difficult to find one that hit my hips correctly. This pack came closest, and again, gotta love that color! It’s got a bottom pocket to store my sleeping bag and has its own built-in rain cover. There are lots of small pockets, which I love, and I can go in through the top of the bag or the bottom via the sleeping bag compartment. Like Billy’s, it is also water pack compatible.
The Sleeping Bags
We both have Marmot Maverick sleeping bags. The exact models we have aren’t available anymore, but mine is rated at 30°F, and Billy’s is 20°F. We chose these because they can zip together, although we thought they couldn’t for the first 3 years we had them because they don’t come fully unzipped (the zipper stops about a foot above the foot box). We thought we’d been had, but it turns out that they DO zip together, leaving the foot boxes separate. With them put together, sleeping in 30°F nights is rather comfortable and warm.
The Sleeping Pads
Billy bought a lovely Therm-a-Rest sleeping pad which is amazing (although we bought ours for much cheaper than the linked pad). I bought a used off-brand pad at an REI co-op garage sale. We took them on our first camping trip to test out all of our gear, and I woke up flat on the ground the next morning. Since my pad was a dud, I bought a Big Agnes Air Core SL, which was infinitely better than the first one I had. I needed a skinny one because Billy’s pad is huge (it takes up more than half of our tent), and this one fit perfectly. It was the only one on the shelf at REI, but the carrying bag it came in was torn. I ended up getting a discount simply by asking for one at checkout because the bag was damaged. It never hurts to ask!
Day Packs
Sometimes you’re just out for a hike and don’t need to take the heavy packs. For those trips, we take our day packs. They are smaller packs that have water reservoirs and just enough space to pack the necessities.
Billy has a CamelBak MULE NV hydration pack and I have an Osprey Raven 10. Both of our packs are technically listed as mountain biking hydration packs, but they serve the same purpose. They carry food and water and whatever essentials we might require. The water reservoirs are removable on both packs and we just put them in whichever backpack we’re going to be using for the day, day pack or backpacking pack.
The Verdict
All of these products (aside from the used sleeping pad) were bought in 2014 and they are all still what we use today. We have a few other bits and baubles, but this is our core kit. This is what we take with us on every trip and not one piece has let us down. We’d recommend each and every one of these items, hands down.
Cheers,
Lydia and Billy
