Author Archives: Roy Scribner

Cool Camping Gadgets from CES

Eton FR500 Solarlink AM/FM/Shortwave/Weather radio

Eton FR500 Solarlink AM/FM/Shortwave/Weather radio

With a hat tip to Rohit Bhargava at the Influential Marketing Blog, comes this cool multipurpose radio that is used by the American Red Cross. If it’s useful enough for the American Red Cross to handout during emergencies then it’s probably worth considering for the campsite, too. The American Red Cross FR500 Solarlink, by Eton Corporation, covers all the bases with AM/FM/Shortwave and NOAA weather bands. It also incorporates a digital alarm clock, flashlight, an emergency beacon, and an emergency siren.

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Outdoor Links for January 9th

Take a breathtaking journey to nature's most amazing locations.

Take a breathtaking journey to nature's most amazing locations.

Trying to decide where to go for that perfect family camping vacation this summer? Tony Farley can help you out, with his comprehensive selection of high-definition streaming videos covering places like Crater Lake National Park, Yellowstone National Park, Arches National Park, and many more. These videos really give you a feel for what you can expect from visiting some of our nation’s great parks and it really highlights the power of the Internet as a medium for sharing experiences.

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Camp Greener to Help the Environment and Your Wallet

Camping greener protects the environment and saves money.

Camping greener protects the envioronment and saves money.

Developing an appreciation for the environment is a natural outgrowth of camping and hiking in the great outdoors. We tend to appreciate the things that we care about most and it’s natural to want to protect those things for our children and grandchildren’s future, so that they get to experience them as we have.

Green principles like simplicity and using resources wisely are perfectly aligned with camping in the outdoors, where you have to make do with what you have. Camping greener can also save you money, which is always an important consideration in times of economic uncertainty. Here are a few tips that we have implemented over the years, which have both saved us money and reduced our camping “footprint.”

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A Good and Affordable Family Tent

Casa (left) and Green River (Right) tents

Casa (left) and Green River (Right) tents

Jason Bean, from =) Bnpositive’s Blog, asked me the other day what my recommendation was for “a quality, yet affordable family tent for 4 people.” This was on Twitter, where brevity is key (Twitter limits posts to a maximum length of 140 characters), so I thought I would follow up on my response to Jason with a little more information about the two tents that I recommended; the Mountain Hardware’s Casa line and Kelty’s Green River model.

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Explore the Backcountry with Benchmark Maps

Road and Recreation Atlases are available for 8 western states

Road and Recreation Atlases are available for 8 western states

One of the tools I use to help locate potential camping spots is a Road and Recreation Atlas, from Benchmark Maps™. These atlases provide a lot of useful information for the recreational enthusiast that you don’t find on regular maps, like campgrounds, unimproved roads and trail heads. The company produces these atlases for eight western states and each state is broken down into various map scales, from 1:750,000 (1-inch equals about 12 miles on the map) to more-detailed 1:250,000 (1-inch equals 4 miles on the map) pages.

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