I recently had a conversation with my wife, her sister and her brother about the value of a good old fashioned paper map. While GPS systems are convenient they don’t help you get the big picture of your surroundings. National Geographic, known for its amazing maps, serves up the best maps of 2016. Along with…
Consider the picture above – several children running along a meadow path. It may not be the obvious image to illustrate organized resistance to the power structures of the world. But it illustrates clearly the reasons you might want to “fight the power.” From all appearances the next four years of politics in the United…
Members of the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe and their supporters have been protesting the construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline since April of 2016. At times up to 4000 protesters have been occupying land at the Sacred Stone Camp, a remote place with very little habitable shelter. Recently supporters have been equipping protesters to continue…
I’m taking a break from the regular topics of this blog (camping, hiking, adventure, urban design, etc.) Instead I’m going to start praying. It was hard to have a prayer time this morning. My mind was jumping like a monkey. I’m stunned that Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. I’m not…
BuzzFeed’s list of 30 Insanely Useful Camping Products You’ll Wish You Knew About Sooner is an awesome assortment of good, bad and ugly outdoor equipment that you either need or need to avoid. The Good Water Filter. The MSR Miniworks water filter is fantastic. I’ve used it on numerous trips and it works great. Be…
So you want to venture into the wilderness but you don’t want to fork out the dough to build an ultimate adventure rig? No problemo. Outside Magazine tips you to what you need to venture off the beaten path no matter what kind of car you’re driving. At the top of their list is traction…
You’ve heard of urban sprawl. Chances are you’re quite at home with it. But you might not be aware of how fast it spreads – an acre of land is lost to human development every 2-1/2 minutes according to the website Disappearing West. An interactive map of disappearing open space gives a county-by-county view of…
You like to get far off the beaten path but you hate sleeping on the ground. We get it. And so does the Adventure Portal with their buyers guide to off-road camping trailers. All in all they cover trailers from 32 different manufacturers, with a rundown of models, features and specs: The styles of the…
If you need any more evidence about what it takes to find happiness, here it is – grit. Simply sticking to your master plan is a better indicator of success…and ultimately happiness…than brains or luck. This not-so-surprising news comes from a Time article about MacArthur genius Angela Duckworth and her book Grit: The Power of…
Even if you’ve never had the urge to make something with your hands, glancing through one of W. Ben Hunt’s beautifully illustrated tutorials will have you itching to chop down a tree and carve out a dugout canoe, tan a bear hide, make your own “mock” eagle feathers and so much more. Hunt, born in 1888…
One of the big questions about mechanized camping is whether the expense and trouble of a camper offsets the hassle of setting up and striking a tent. But when you’ve got a camping trailer as capable as the SoCal Teardrop the equation starts leaning in the direction of “camper.” Chris Cordes takes an in-depth look…
Here’s some essential knowledge if you ever plan on fishing with me…via a tweet from Guy Kawasaki…Wired’s How-to Wiki explains how to remove a fishhook from a buddy. But why stop there? Here are some other helpful extraction techniques you should know: How to remove a tick How to remove a raccoon from your…
A road trip is the ultimate journey into the unexplored territory of one’s soul. FastCo Design asks the question “how will that change when cars drive themselves?” Honda invited creative director Morihiro Harano to highlight the company’s autonomous driving tech by talking about his love for exploration: “My inspiration for this project came from a…
Los Angeles is such a sprawling place that you have to plan carefully how to explore. Matador Network serves up nearly two dozen free or cheap things to do in the city of Angels that give you a real taste of the city – arguably much more so than a trip to Universal Studios. You…
Cardboard has long been the stuff of dreams – the joke is that at Christmas children spend less time playing with a toy than with the box it came in. And few things are more exciting than the arrival of a new appliance and a box that can become an instant fortress or playhouse. Now…
