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Camping Gear
Portable Camp Toilet
When we are car camping we need a place to go to the bathroom. Most places require you to go to the bathroom 150 feet/45 m away from water, which is sometimes a challenge. This allows you to poop in a bag and take it with you. It also collapses flat, which makes it super convenient to bring with us.
Pop-up Pooper
We call this, the pop-up pooper. It is a tent for your outdoor toilet or a changing tent. It takes seconds to deploy and gives you privacy while nature calls.
Adult Washcloths
They certainly don’t replace a shower, but it is still nice to hit a couple of those stinky areas up. You know which ones we are talking about.
BougeRV Car Roof Rack Cross Bars
We’ve had Subaru OEM roof rails and BougeRV roof rails. We love these so much more because they are quieter. When you are in the car for hours, having something a little quieter makes all the difference.
We did a full review and it can be seen here: 2018 Subaru Forester BougeRV roof rack cross bars installation and review (honest)
Thule Force Rooftop Cargo Box
We have an older version of this roof box, but we can fit five snowboards in there at once. During the summer, it is super nice to have a place to put all of our camping gear.
Thule MultiLift Storage System
Having a roof box is amazing, but where do you store the thing? It’s huge and takes up a lot of space. We mounted this to our garage ceiling and can raise and lower it right onto the roof of our car. It also makes for a great place to store our snowboards in the winter.
Bear Keg
Luckily, we haven’t had a bear encounter, but we still put all our food and bathroom items into this keg. We also use it as a trash can.
Portable USB-C Rechargeable Fan
This fan can run up to 17 hours on low and 5 hours on high. It is so nice to have a breeze going when you are outside. It makes a world of difference. We also use it a lot with Betsy (chihuahua) to make sure she stays nice and cool on hot days. She tends to overheat when she is outside in the sun.
Yakima, SlimShady 6.5
This is universal! 6.5 feet/2 m long. It also comes in 4 feet/1.2 m and 8 feet/2.4m. The Thule works only with the Thule roof rails. We initially tried the Thule Overcast, and we found out we needed their roof rails.
Having shade makes life so much more pleasant. This is an instant shade that has stakes to hold it down if needed.
Thule OverCast Awning
Having a bit of shade can make a world of difference. This awning attaches to the Thule roof rails on your car and pulls out to provide some amazing shade. Make sure you have Thule roof rails! We didn’t…
Window Screens for Camping
In the past, we’ve just cracked the window a tiny bit. This had two problems.
1. It was super hot in the car, no airflow
2. It let in bugs
With these, we can have the window down all the way. Plus, it helps with the condensation. No Titanic moments, if you know what we mean.
4 ft Plastic Folding Table
It is so nice to have a place to use and put our stuff. If you watched one of our previous car camping videos, we would set the camp stove on the ground and then have to hunch down to cook. This is one of the luxury items that make things just a little bit nicer. Plus, it folds in half.
Pocket Blanket
This blanket lives in our hiking bag. There are so many times when we either want to sit down or put something down but don’t want to set it directly on the ground. This is just really convenient to have and use for those occasions. It is a little bigger than a pack of playing cards.
Camping Chairs
Having a place to sit is so nice. These fold up and are easy to throw in the back of the car.
Coleman Two Burner Stove
This is a great stove. Not sure what else to say, but we’ve taken it with us snowboarding to cook a hot meal and for car camping.
Moka Express Coffee Maker
Anna cannot live without her coffee. This is so convenient. It is small and makes a great cup of coffee. Plus, there isn’t a need to worry about filters or creating waste.
Klean Kanteen 27oz
This is Adam’s preferred hydration delivery method. We have both the 27 oz and the 40 oz version, but the 27 oz gets used every day because it fits in a cup holder. The 40 oz is nice when we are flying, to have the extra water.
Carabiner Clip
This was a gift and at first we were like… thx… The more we bring it with us, the more uses we find with it. It turns out to be really handy to hang things up.
300 Watt Power Inverter
Two stories that led to this.
When Anna and Adam drove to Vegas, we wanted to get some work done on our laptops. Our laptop batteries lasted about two hours with photo and video editing and we lost a lot of hours of potential work.
Also, when we go car camping, we have a lot of gear that needs charging. This allows us to plug in a lot of power bricks and keep everything nice and charged.
Anker 5 port Quick Charger
Lifesaver. When you travel, you have a lot of gear to charge. We were soooo tired of having to carry around a bunch of chargers. Then constantly checking if a device is done. It was so time-consuming. This is pure heaven.
USB-C Head Lamps
I wish we had gotten these sooner for car camping. It really makes a difference when you can have your hands free to set up and take down camp. Plus, the motion detector for turning on and off the lights, is so helpful. Lights usually attract bugs, and this allows us to turn them on and off quickly without having to cycle through the different options.
Purple Harmony Pillow
We love these pillows. They are so comfortable. These are the ones we use at home and take with us when we go car camping. It has actually kind of ruined us for pillows because they are so nice.
Heated Socks
This is one of those items that as soon as you get it, you ask yourself, how did you live without it? We both have a pair and no longer have cold feet. They are amazing. We sometimes just wear them around the house when our feet are cold.
Jackery Explorer 1000
One of our big concerns with camping is having enough power to charge all our devices. During the winter, we also bring an electric blanket with us. During the summer, this provides more than enough power for us for a full week. During the winter, running an electric blanket all night and charging our gear, this can last two days.
VLOG Gear
Nikon z8
The new workhorse for Anna. This camera shoots 8k60 and 4k120. This has given us that sexy sexy slow motion. With the z7ii, we had to decide between 4k60 and 1080p120. Not with this camera.
Nikon Z 7II
This camera is amazing and is a great backup to the z8. Adam borrows it when we shoot a vlog while Anna uses the z8. It shoots 4k60 and 1080p120.
Nikon Z fc
This is Adam’s first big camera. He had recorded with GoPros for years. It is a really easy camera to use and a nice step up into something more professional. It records 4k30 and 1080p120.
Nikon NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/2.8 S
99% of the time, Anna is using this lens for stills and video. If she could only leave the house with one lens, it would be this one.
Nikon NIKKOR Z 70-200mm f/2.8 S
Anna calls this her paparazzi lens, or big papi for short. If she is shooting nature or animals, this lens comes out. She primarily uses it for stills.
Nikon NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 ED
Wide, wider, widerrrrrr!!!! This thing is wide. This is how we record our hotel and Airbnb tours. If gives us the width in small spaces to show the audience the surroundings.
Nikon NIKKOR Z DX 16-50mm VR (Silver)
This is the stock lens with the Nikon ZFC. It is actually a great lens and doesn’t hurt as much when the wind blows, knocks the tripod over, and lands right on the lens… The aperture is variable, so when you zoom in it does change. It is a downside, but we primarily shoot at 16mm f3.5.
Deity V-Mic D4 Duo Video Microphone
This mic has been life-changing. It can capture audio in the front and back, simultaneously. This allows you to be either in front of the camera or behind, and still have great audio. Then in your editing software, you can pick which audio channel.
insta360 ONE R Twin Edition
Move over GoPro, we love this Insta soooo much better. It is the twin edition with a 4k lens and a 360 lens. It has never once let us down like the GoPro…
GoPro HERO8 Black
There is still a soft spot for the GoPro. It is used on all our slow TV drives. It does a great job of capturing video and it is small.
GoPro MAX
We’ve had the max for a long time and a 360 camera is really nice to have. It allows you to capture the action in any direction. We do like the Insta 360 better, because if we scratch the lens on that camera, we only have to buy a new core. On this camera, we have to buy an entirely new camera. It’s happened twice already…
Spider Holster for Camera
These are great. It allows you to hang your camera from a backpack strap. Since we run around constantly when recording, having a place to secure your camera and use both hands is priceless.
DJI Mini 2 Fly More Combo
Love this drone. It has really impressed us. It is so much fun to fly and packs away really small into our hiking bags. We primarily shoot 4k30 and the occasional photo. We know there are newer versions, but this thing has been a rock. It is amazing.
Freewell All Day ND Filters for the Mini 2
Love love love. This allows you to slow down the shutter and get that natural motion blur that our eyes are used to seeing. Adam typically uses the ND32 on bright and sunny days in Colorado.
GorillaPod® 3K Kit
This tripod has been sooo useful. The legs allow so much flexibility to put on different surfaces and wrap around things. Plus it isn’t that big, and easily fits in a bag. It really is a go to tripod if we need something small and light.
Peak Design Travel Tripod
Peak Design = quality. Yes, it is expensive, but after buying cheap tripods for years and then breaking them, having this one is like a gift from the gods. It folds up really tight and fits anywhere.
Mini Metal Tripod
This is our handheld tripod. It almost always is attached to the bottom of our camera and allows us to do the walking and talking shots. Plus, having a small tripod when you are running around is super convenient. Originally, we had a plastic one that broke. We upgraded to this one that is metal. The only downside is that when it is cold, it can make your hands feel uncomfortable.
GoPro Shorty Tripod
We held off a long time on getting this grip, and regretted that we waited so long. It is really convenient, tucks into your pocket. It has a mini tripod built into it which makes it great for the GoPro or Insta.
GoPro Suction Cup Mount
So so so useful when driving. It attaches to the windshield or the car body. We’ve auto-x’d with it and ice raced with it and never had a problem with it falling off.
GoPro Jaws
Clamp clamp clamp. This mount clamps on to anything. We haven’t had an issue with it falling off. It makes things really convenient when you are in many unexpected environments. It just clamps on to what you need. We don’t use the gooseneck though.
GoPro Dual Battery Charger + Enduro Battery (MAX)
We are constantly going through batteries. We needed to pick up a few extras to make it through an entire VLOG. This is really helpful because we can connect it to an external battery and still continue to shoot.
Nikon EN-EL15c Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
We have a total of four of these. Usually two is enough for a day of VLOG’ing. Three on the safe side. They last so long.
Nikon EN-EL25 Rechargeable Li-ion Battery
We have four of these for the Nikon ZFC. The ZFC chews through batteries like they are nothing.
Anker Quick Charge 3.0 63W 5-Port USB Wall Charger
This has reduced sooo many headaches for us. We typically have to charge between five and ten devices before each VLOG. Plug everything in, come back two hours later, plug in the rest, smile! It has made life so much easier.
SanDisk 512GB Extreme PRO
You don’t realize how many memory cards you go through. We started with 128 GB and quickly realized that wasn’t enough. Then we went to 256 GB and that was pretty good. Then we figured why not, let’s go with 512 GB. When we go on a week long trip, these will usually cover us the entire time.
SanDisk 128GB Micro SDXC Extreme Memory Card 2 Pack
We have four of these (Insta360, Hero, Max, and Mini 2). We love them and haven’t had an issue with running out of space on a multi-day VLOG. We still offload them at night, but these will last usually three days before we run out of space.
SD Card Reader, uni High-Speed USB C to Micro SD Card Adapter
This little thing has been so helpful. We use it to offload our memory cards at night. It has both USB and USB-C, which makes it really convenient. The great thing is we can connect both an SD card and a Micro SDXC card at the same time and unload them.
SanDisk 256GB Ultra Dual Drive USB Type-C
This has a USB-C on one side and a USB on the other. With us having separate computers, we use this multiple times a week to pass files back and forth between us.
USB C to USB 3.0 Adapter, 2 Pack
These are USB C to USB A adapters. We use these to plug into our Macbooks to copy data off from our hard drives, and other random things.
Mesh Zipper Pouch Set – 4 Pack
These! Have been so helpful to organize our gear in our bags. Each color we use for a different purpose. For example, yellow is small snacks. Orange and black are for camera filters, batteries, tripod plates, memory cards, etc. Red is for nut bars.
Case for GoPro 12/11/10/9/8/7/6/5/4/3
We have two of these. They fit the Hero 8 and Max perfectly with a bit of space to put a lens cleaning cloth. We are on the move so much, we can just toss these in our bag and not worry about them getting scratched up.
Peak Design Anchor
When you are running around or it is super windy, the camera strap can get in the way. This makes it really quick and easy to take it off and put it back on when needed.
Synology 6 bay NAS DiskStation DS1621+ (Diskless)
We have to have some place to store all the VLOGs. This NAS holds six 16 TB drives. Right now, we have five 16 TB drives configured in RAID-5, which gives us some room to expand. We can access it anywhere on the network, which makes it easy to share files. We wish we had gotten the eight bay though…
Seagate 16TB HDD Exos X16 7200 RPM
These are the 16 TB drives we use in our Synology. Haven’t had an issue.
SEAGATE PORTABLE 5TB EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE HDD
These are our working drives. They are 5 TB in size, we keep our working VLOGs on them and dump footage when we are on week long trips.
APC UPS 1350VA UPS Battery Backup and Surge Protector
We archive all our data to the Synology, but a couple of times, we’ve lost power while it has been running. This unit has saved us so many times since then. It will power the Synology for 100+ minutes under load or 217+ minutes without any load.
Hiking Gear
Gregory Mountain Products Juno 24 H2O
Anna received this backpack for Christmas in 2020 and immediately fell in love. It is super lightweight, comes with a 100 oz bladder, and has hip pockets. She loves the hip pockets. Adam picked up the men’s version of it.
Gregory Mountain Products Citro 30 H2O
Anna loved her bag so much, Adam got the men’s version. It is a great backpack. The side pockets, we typically use for our tripod, and then on the back, we strap on our hiking poles. It fits really well and is extremely comfortable. It holds a 100 oz bladder/3 liters and can hold a ton of gear.
TrailBuddy Trekking Poles
It wasn’t until we started using hiking poles, that we realized the benefits of them. They make it so much easier and prevent knee pain when climbing or descending over rough terrain. Since we always have a camera in our hands, we each take one. I wish we started using them sooner.
Darn Tough Merino Wool Boot Socks
Adam has two pairs of these socks and has had them for at least six years. No issues and they keep his feet warm.
Outdoor Research Bugout Brim Hat
Adam’s standard hiking hat, auto-x hat, beach hat, and day hat… It goes everywhere. Water-resistant and UPF 50. It has gotten some serious usage.
Rip Curl Men’s Elite Anti Series Hooded Wind Breaker
Adam loves these. He has three different colors in medium. They do run a little small around the hips. They are really lightweight and easy to stash in a bag or small space.
Gregory BITE Valve Cover
Having a couple of extra bites is nice to allow them to dry out properly. We’ve used other bladder systems and wound up with mold in the bites. These can be completely disassembled, but it is nice to allow a bit extra time between use to fully dry.
Vasque Men’s Breeze at-mid GTX Goretex Waterproof Hiking Boot
These boots have been great. The have logged hundreds of miles and are still comfortable.
Salud 2-in-1 Hydration and Immunity Electrolytes Powder
Having electrolytes is so important, not just for hiking, but any physical activity. Most of the electrolytes we’ve had, taste like meh. They typically taste like magnesium. Sure they get the job done, but we are less inclined to use them. These though, are so delicious. If available, we’ll put a few ice cubes in our shaker and mmmmmm yummmm.
