Once you’ve made it to your camping, hiking, or outdoor adventure destination, your automotive GPS will be of little use to you. They generally run on batteries and won’t easily fit in your pocket. Not only that, they a little lacking in the durability category so you’ll want to switch over to your handheld GPS unit.

While many higher end handheld devices do support turn by turn direction like their automotive counterparts you’ll find they’re much more at home out in the backwoods.

A handheld GPS unit is usually far more rugged and water resistant if not outright waterproof. They don’t frequently come preloaded with maps. Instead, you’ll need to purchase separate software especially with lower end devices. However, even if your GPS device isn’t loaded with maps, it’s still plenty useful as it can keep track of where you’ve been so if you get hopelessly lost you can still backtrack.

Also, if you know the coordinates of where you’re going, it can also point you in the right direction.

Which brings me to one of it’s more common uses these days, geocaching. Geocaching is a great summertime activity and one that can keep the kids entertained for hours on end. I’ve talked about geocaching at length in my guide to geocaching post and video so I won’t repeat that all here, but it sure is a heck of a lot of fun and if you haven’t given it a try, I highly recommend it.

Although I now can turn out some pretty delicious dutch oven meals my first foray into the world of dutch oven cooking was a fiasco.

Instead of doing a little bit of reading on the topic and finding out what equipment and techniques were best (and easiest) for beginners, I thought I had all I needed with the box that contained my brand new pre-seasoned campfire dutch oven. I did think it was going to have an instruction book with some recipes inside, but since I didn’t open it up until we were at the campground and ready to use it, I didn’t know that the only thing inside the box was the dutch oven and a warranty card.

The beef roast, potatoes, onions and carrots all looked delicious when I put them inside the dutch oven, but were unrecognizable chunks of gray char after being cooked in a blazing hot campfire for an hour. The hot dogs we ate instead that night were a big letdown from the delicious roast beef dinner we thought we going to have.

But instead of giving up I got educated and learned that dutch oven cooking is easy when a person has the right equipment and little knowledge. Plus the food that comes out of the dutch ovens is fantastic.

If you know someone who camps and who hasn’t tried dutch oven cooking, why not put together a “Dutch Oven Gift Set” that contains the essential equipment and a cookbook with Dutch Oven recipes?

Here’s the basics needed:

- A footed cast iron Dutch Oven (non-enameled) that has been pre-seasoned. Any size is okay but a good starter size is one that is 10″ or 12″ inches in diameter.
- Dutch Oven Carrying Case
- Dutch Oven Lid Lifter
- Dutch Oven Lid Stand
- High Heat Gloves (welding ones are fine)
- Chimney Starter for starting coals (coals are the best fuel for beginners)
- Small whisk broom to brush ash off Dutch Oven lid
- Dutch oven cookbook

I did a couple videos on this topic but haven’t yet had a chance to post them. In the meantime let’s talk about what to look for in a pair of hiking shoes and hopefully I’ll get those videos added for you soon so you can see what I’m talking about.

If you’re planning to do a little hiking on your next trip and you’re thinking you’ll just wear a pair of old tennis shoes I’d like to invite you to play a game of pin the tail on the naïve tourist. (wanna guess what part you get to play?)

Here’s the thing. Tennis shoes or running shoes aren’t built for trail conditions. They’re built for running on pavement.

If you don’t believe me go for a 5 mile hike in tennis shoes and let me know how you feel when you get back. After a mile or two you’ll start to feel every pebble and twig you step on and by the time you get back your feet will be in pain and possibly blistered.

If you’d rather skip the blisters, then here what I recommend you do.

Get yourself a dedicated pair of hiking shoes. They have a much firmer sole so that you won’t feel all those pebbles you step on poking into your feet.

I recommend you get something that provides some ankle support since uneven terrain and sometimes slippery conditions make it more likely you’ll roll an ankle.

I also like boots that are either water resistant or waterproof to keep your feet comfortable and dry in soggy conditions.

I remember when my friend Jonathan convinced me to get real hiking shoes. I was planning on doing the naïve tourist thing and wear a pair of tennis shoes for hiking. Fortunately, he talked me out of it. We ended up doing a lot of hiking culminating in a 20 mile hike covering an 8,000 ft elevation change on a trail rated “expert only.” I won’t say my feet felt great at the end of the day but they were blister free and ready to go again the next day. Had I worn tennis shoes I’m certain I wouldn’t have been able to complete the hike. Oh, and don’t forget to wear Smartwool sock underneath these shoes.