Hello my friends! It’s been a while since we had a video for you but we’re excited to share a fun little project that we dreamed up almost two years ago and finally had the opportunity to bring it to life. A Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking, shot in the style of Wes Anderson!

This blog post was made in partnership with our friends over at REI. We’re proud to have them as a sponsor as we’ve been REI members since 2011 and it’s our favorite place to pick up all the gear and advice we need for our adventures!

Please note: The links provided in this blog post are affiliate links. If you end up purchasing some of these pieces of gear we get a very small portion of the sales. Thank you as always for supporting us and our life on the road, it gives us the opportunity to share so extensively with you all!

The Making Of:

You may have noticed that this video was filmed and edited in a very different style than our usual. For years we’ve been wanting to intentionally make a video shot in the style of a few different directors as a way to challenge ourselves and look at our work from a different perspective. We found the right project, and here we are!

If you aren’t familiar with Wes Anderson, he’s one of our favorite directors who happens to have an incredibly unique style. Some of our favorite movies of his are The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Moonrise Kingdom, and The Royale Tenenbaums. His work is identifiable by its vintage nostalgia, bold colors, and whimsical compositions.

We started by watching a few of his movies “for science”, wrote the script, and then made the shot list for the entire video to be sure we were accurately recreating his style and getting what we needed to convey the information. It is always fun to step out of your comfort zone/video style to test our skills with something different from a director we admire! We hope that you enjoyed the finished product! Now, let’s get into the subject of this video: Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking.

This is one of the questions we get asked very often. When I started figuring out how I wanted to write this video, I had pages of notes on backpacking! I felt overwhelmed by the many details, and I am an experienced backpacker. I realized then, just how overwhelming backpacking can sound from a beginner’s perspective. At first glance, it sounds like theres so much to buy, so many things to think about, and so much to prepare for. Yet, backpacking is so simple when you get into the swing of it!

So I decided to distill all of those notes down, which turned into the script of this video. I hope it shows how truly simple backpacking can be and hopefully it removes some of the scariness from backpacking. If you missed the video, here’s the Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking:

Choose and Easy & Accessible Destination

1. Don’t overload yourself on your first trip, the point of this is to have a good time.

2. Try to avoid hikes with heavy elevation change.

3. Choose a well established trail.

4. Consider a walk in, established camp site to start simple. Hiking with a friend is a good idea too.

Pack Essential Backpacking Gear

1. At the bare minimum you will need a backpack, tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad, clothes, a stove, and food. I will be listing our most up to date gear list below. You can also refer to the button below to a dedicated video on the subject.

2. Be sure to get to know your gear ahead of time by packing well before your trip, and testing things out even if it’s just in your backyard.

Share your plans

1. Be sure to let friends and family know your plan including: Where you’re going, when you’re leaving and when you’ll be back.

Leave No Trace

Observe the 7 leave no trace principles:

1. Plan ahead and prepare

2. Travel and camp on durable surfaces

3. Dispose of waste properly

4. Leave what you find

5. Minimize campfire impact

6. Respect wildlife

7. Be considerate to others

Bonus: I like to leave things cleaner than I found it by taking out what trash I find. This ensures that those who follow can enjoy their visit!

Have a good time!

1. The reason we come to the outdoors is to enjoy ourselves and connect with the natural world around us! So don’t take things too seriously! Stop to smell the roses, observe the world around you. Enjoy it, fall in love with it. Because the goal is to want to come back and do it all over again

2. Every time you go out for a trip you will get a little more comfortable, learn something new and maybe the next time you will be ready to venture further or into a new type of terrain.

In this blog I won’t go into detail about why we chose each of these pieces of gear. Our gear has changed very little since we wrote How to Pack for Backpacking about a year ago. If you care to read a more detailed gear guide, feel free to head over there to read about what we use and why. However, we’re keeping things simple in this post. The gear listed below are the highlights of our core backpacking gear that we carry and love.

Backpack - Hyperlite 3400

Tent - Nemo Hornet 2 Person Tent

Sleeping Bag - Therm-a-Rest Vasper Quilt 20 Degree

Sleeping Pad - Nemo Switch Pad Sleeping Pad

Clothes - Trailmade Shirt Women’s | Men’s, Trailmade Shorts Women’s | Men’s

Water - Sawyer Squeeze Filtration System and Reservoirs

Food - Heather’s Choice (our personal fav), Good-To-Go, Mountain House

Stove - Jetboil MiniMo, Fuel

Pillows - Sea-To-Summit Ultralite Pillow

Waterproof Bags (for storing clothes) - Sea-To-Summit eVac

Binoculars - Nocs 10x25 Binoculars

Bear Proof Bags - Ursack Bear Proof BagD

Mug/Measuring Cup - GSI Backpacker Mug

Backpacking Spoon - Toaks Long Spoon

Satellite Communication - Garmin InReach 2

Hiking Watch - Garmin Instinct Solar 2

Trekking Poles - Black Diamond Z Poles

Camera Clip - Peak Design Camera Clip

Tripod - Peak Design Travel Tripod

Thank you so much for joining us for this unique Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking! If you’re looking to get into backpacking, I hope this will help inspire you to dip your toes into the water! If you are an experienced backpacker, and you’ve made it this far in this blog post, what advice do you have for our new hikers out there?

Thank you to our friends at REI for supporting this fun project! If you are ever in need of gear, advice or assistance for anything in the outdoors, stop in at your local REI for advice… we do it all the time ;)

Until next time,

MAK