Backpacking Tips: Buying Backpacking Essentials

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Backpacking tip: A lightweight backpack, a partner and a beautiful view are just a few of many backpacking essentials.
Backpacking tip: A lightweight backpack, a partner and a beautiful view are just a few of many backpacking essentials.
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Backpacking tip: Choosing a tent that will work best for you can make or break your entire backpacking trip, especially if the weather is bad.
Backpacking tip: Choosing a tent that will work best for you can make or break your entire backpacking trip, especially if the weather is bad.
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Backpacking tip: Choosing the right backpack can make all the difference in the world on a backpacking trip.
Backpacking tip: Choosing the right backpack can make all the difference in the world on a backpacking trip.
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Backpacking tip: Lightweight material is a backpacking essential, as these men keep their equipment on while they ski.
Backpacking tip: Lightweight material is a backpacking essential, as these men keep their equipment on while they ski.
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Backpacking tip: You can make your backpacking experience inexpensive by crafting your own equipment, rather than buying it all from an outdoor sports store.
Backpacking tip: You can make your backpacking experience inexpensive by crafting your own equipment, rather than buying it all from an outdoor sports store.
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Backpacking tip: If you don't know how to buy hiking boots, read this article to find out the most important details and what will work best for you.
Backpacking tip: If you don't know how to buy hiking boots, read this article to find out the most important details and what will work best for you.

Learn about these backpacking tips that will save you money when buying backpacking essentials.

Backpacking Tips

“You can pay a lot of money for camping gear,” says John F. Barber of Yellowstone National Park, Wyo. “Or you can get good equipment for next to nothing. It all depends on whether you know what to look for and where to look for it.”

Like equipment for other outdoor sports, backpacking essentials can be either expensive or inexpensive. You can cook your meals over a 5-pound, $34 Optimus stove, or you can heat your eats over an open campfire. Likewise, you can tromp through the snow wearing $65 Tubb snowshoes . . . just as easily as you can do your tromping in a set of no-cost homemade snowshoes. That’s the beauty of backpacking: You don’t have to be “well heeled” to do it, and do it right.

By the same token, there’s no excuse for not choosing the right kind of equipment for the task at hand. Of course, if you’ve never shopped for backpacking gear before — or if it’s been a long time (10 years, say) since you have — you may not know (or remember) what the “right kind” of equipment is, in which case the following backpacking tips on gear gathering  are in order.

  • Published on May 1, 1978
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