Unless the camping enthusiast on your list has a motorized camping rig with lots of cold storage space, good quality coolers are essential items. Why not surprise your favorite camper with a brand new cooler for Christmas? To make it an extra special gift, tuck a couple of gift cards from your favorite grocer, beverage mart, or butcher shop so they can pick up some items to put in the cooler when they head out on their next camping trip.

Yes, Christmas is only a few days away. But there’s still time to get a cooler to put under the tree. Just choose a model that has overnight shipping available or take a trip to your nearest sporting goods store to pick one up. Look for one that has excellent insulation and will keep food cold for at least 4 days; or choose a plug in model that won’t need ice. My plug in cooler (which has a multifunctional plug that works in both my vehicle cigarette lighter socket and outlet inside my popup camper) is my favorite by far because I never have to worry about the ice freezing my carrots or foods getting waterlogged when the ice melts.

Hot dogs and hamburgers are great camping foods. They’re easy to make and easy to hold in one hand, leaving the other hand free to hold a nice cold beer (or other beverage of your choice).

What are the best grills to give to the people on your Christmas list who think anytime is a great time to go camping?

It really depends on your budget. They are a lot of portable grills on the market that work great. I personally own an inexpensive tabletop gas grill that cost less than $25 dollars, a Weber portable gas grill that cost over $100 but works like a dream and is well worth the money if you can afford it (get the optional cover as well), and a small tabletop charcoal grill for when I want that authentic charcoal taste.

Happy Grilling!

And thanks to the invention of portable rechargeable and propane powered blenders, delicious cold drinks can be made just about anywhere without any electricity.

They make a great gift for the camper on your gift list, even if that camper is you!

And because it’s no fun to have to keep making trips to buy ice, make sure to have a good quality cooler to keep the ice cold so that the only time a trip to buy ice is needed is when the ice is gone - not when it’s melted.

However, getting a metal detector to search for buried treasure is one such hobby that can actually pay you back.

Getting yourself a metal detector will allow you to go out and search for more than loose change buried in the sand. Of course you can search for coins, but you can also search for jewelry, gold, and even war memorabilia.

Some people have even done well enough to take their metal detecting hobby and turn it into a full time profession.

Gold fields have been revived due to metal detecting technology – it’s a heck of a lot easier to strike gold when you know where to dig.

Some of the best metal detectors are offered by Minelab. Their Excalibur line even offers waterproof models that you take into and even up to depths of 200 ft when scuba diving to take your search for buried treasure to new depths (pun intended).

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

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.

People seem to think that wool socks are only good for winter and that they’re itchy.

Wrong and wrong!

With Smartwool, nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, these are the most comfortable socks you’ll ever wear. I remember the first time I tried a pair on, I didn’t want to take them off – they were seriously that comfortable – three months later I threw away all my cotton socks and stuck exclusively with wool socks (Smartwool are actually a wool blend – 72% wool, 27% nylon, 1% elastic.

They are warm in the winter as I’m sure you expected but they’re also cool in the summer. That’s due to the fact that they wick away moisture (sweat) from your feet which keeps them dryer and more comfortable than if you wear their cotton counterparts.

I’ve tried a few different brands of wool socks and while they’re all more comfortable than cotton, I haven’t found anything better than Smartwool. Give ‘em a try and you’ll never want to go back to cotton. (I will say that cashmere socks are nice but are far more expensive and not nearly as durable – a pair of wool socks will typically last 3 years when worn on a regular basis).

If you haven’t taken the time to upgrade your arsenal of portable lights to light emitting diode (LED) technology, then consider this your presidential order to do so.

LED bulbs last thousands of hours (some as much as 11 years if lit continuously) and they stay cool to the touch (i.e. they won’t burn your finger if you touch them), and they use substantially less power to produce light.

Essential Tip: Once you get to the campground, I recommend you carry a pocketknife and flashlight with you at all times. On the last trip I failed to take my own advice on carrying a flashlight with me and went out for a late afternoon hike sans flashlight. I managed to get myself lost (a common event) with light quickly fading. I eventually happened upon a trail map but by that time it was too dark to read it and I was unsure which direction I needed to go so I proceeded to run on a dark trail hoping I was headed in the right direction… I wasn’t.

Fortunately, I eventually remembered that my iPod Nano would kick out a little light if I held it up close to the trail map, but if I would just have taken my own advice and carried a flashlight in the first place, those several minutes of near panic of being lost in the woods for the evening wouldn’t have happened.

[hops off soapbox]

Here are my top picks for LED flashlights and lanterns to upgrade your outdated flashlights and lanterns. (I’ve even got one that straps to your head for hands free lighting).

A good knife can be used to cut rope, remove a hangnail, to whittle a firestarter from a twig, and even just open a stubborn bag of chips. And that’s just for the blade. Multi-purpose knives like Swiss Army knives and Leathermans can open a bottle of beer or wine, remove a splinter, tighten a bolt, replace a golf divot, and even shed some light on the situation.