Gear Guide
Hiking Gear
Backpack
The backpack I chose to buy before our trip to New Zealand is the Osprey Aura AG 65 Women's backpack. As the name suggests, this backpack has a capacity of 65 liters, perfect for multi day camping treks. This backpack comes with a rain cover and the ability to use a waterbladder.
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Day pack
For our day packs we use the North Face Jester and Deuter ???. We use these backpacks whenever we do a day hike to bring plenty of water, our camera gear and any additional clothing.
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Shoes
For shoes we use the Lowa Women's/Men's Renegade GTX Mid Hiking Boot. These are A/B type hiking boots, meaning they are an all round type hiking shoe. For alpine hikes, we would recommend to use B/C type hiking boots.
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Hiking poles
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Head lamp
A head lamp is a very important piece of equipment when hiking in the dark or setting up camp. Of course, you could use the torch from your phone but having both hands free is very nice when going to the bathroom in the middle of the night! One of the brightest headlamps on the current market is the Petzl Actik Core headlamp. This headlamp also features a rechargeable battery and has a brightness of 450 lumen. For most people however, the Black Diamond Spot 350 is more than sufficient with 350 lumen.
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Water filter
Whenever you go hiking in the backcountry, you will take plenty of water with you. However, hiking with a water supply for multiple days is very taxing so one of your options would be to refill your water bottle from a stream. To be safe, you always want to purify this water. There are several approaches to this, using a steripen, tablets or a water filtering system. We chose for the latter and use the Katadyn BeFree Water Filter. This uses a collapsable water bottle which makes it possible to use this filter to squeeze water in your actual water bottles/system.
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Rain jacket
Before preparing our trip to Scotland, we decided we needed to upgrade our rain jackets to more waterproof ones. We both chose the Patagonia Torrentshell 3L since this jacket has an amazing price-quality ratio. It also features pit-zips which are essential to regulate your temperature when hiking with a backpack.
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Camping Gear
Our camping gear has been mainly chosen with the intention of using it for multi-day treks. As such, most gear is chosen to be light and durable.
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Tent
Before travelling to New Zealand in 2018, I had never camped. Since Tobias was the more experienced one, he took the reigns in fining a good tent for our camping adventures. The tent we ended up buying is the North Face Talus 2. The inside of this tent is only mesh, so this is more of a 1-season tent. Coming back home, we took the tent with us to ensure we could make many more nice memories with it. Unfortunately, this tent is no longer available, but another tent we have used is the MSR Hubba Hubba. This tent is one of the most popular 2-person backpacking tents since it only weighs 1.7 kg. This tent is also more suitable for 3-seasons and is very durable, the one we used has been in Tobias' family for more than 10 years! We do note that this tent does not come with a footprint, this can be bought separately which we would highly recommend.
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Sleeping Mat
The sleeping mats we use are the Therm-a-Rest NeoAir Xlite. These sleeping mats are very light, with the regular version only 360 grams, whilst providing a lot of comfort with a thickness of 6.4 cm. For me, I chose the regular women's version since this one is even warmer (R-value 5.4 compared to the regular one having 4.2) and a bit shorter.
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Sleeping Bag
A sleeping bag is one of the most expensive pieces of equipment and likely one of the heaviest besides the tent. For us, maximizing our comfort whilst minimizing the weight was most important. Since I am a cold sleeper, I decided to go for a sleeping bag with more down. The sleeping bags we use are the Rab Neutrino 200 for Tobias and Rab Neutrino 400 Women for me. When choosing a sleeping bag, it is important to take a look at the comfort temperatures indicated by the manufacturer. The Rab Neutrino 200 provides an indication of +4°c/-1°c/-17°c. This means that the comfort temperature is 4°c, the limit temperature is -1°c and the extreme temperature is -17°c. The comfort temperature is taken as the comfort temperature for women while the limit temperature can be seen as the comfort temperature for men. This is why I chose the Rab Neutrino 400 since this one provides a comfort temperature for women of -1°c. I also chose the Women's version of the sleeping bag since this means the down is better distributed accommodating for the women's shape.
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Pillow
A pillow can be seen as somewhat of a luxury item when camping, especially when going on a multiday hike. Throughout our trip in New Zealand where we camped almost 3 months in total, we never used a pillow. Instead, I used one of my packing cubes or a fleece vest to sleep on. Nevertheless, the comfort of a pillow is very nice and especially when camping with a car, I will always bring one. The one I use is the Cocoon Air Core Down Pillow. This is the type of pillow you need to blow up which makes it very compact, other versions exist that feel more like the pillow you have at home.
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Camera Gear
Camera
The main camera we currently use for our videos and photos is the Canon G7X Mark II. We like it due to its compact nature whilst still giving us the ability to zoom a little bit. Also, the pop up screen is perfect for vlogging or when making any selfies. The built-in wifi is perfect for sharing the photos on your phone without needing to use a laptop or additional cables. Perfect for on the go!
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Drone
In some of our videos, especially the more recent ones, you will see also a multitude of drone clips. Drones are an essential piece of equipment in my opinions since it enables a unique perspective not seen by many. Due to the regulations of the European Union, we have chosen for a sub 250 gram drone since these drones are not as strictly regulated as heavier drones and no course certificate is necessary in order to fly the. We recently upgraded to the DJI Mini 3 Pro, after previously using the DJI Spark. This drone has a battery life of about 34 minutes whilst being only 249 grams. Being only 249 grams is also perfect for taking it along with you on long hikes!
The DJI Mini 2 is also an excellent drone at almost half the cost of the Mini 3 Pro. For us, the extended battery life and the additional options to use Mastershots and Active track were the main contributing factors for choosing the Mini 3 Pro.
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Action Cam
Lastly, we use an action cam to obtain any shots for videos when we are rafting, on bikes or driving the car. The action cam we use is the GoPro Hero 5. Although this one is several years old, it still performs very well. If you are looking for an action cam, we would recommend to go for the newer models such as GoPro Hero 10 since this also features a front facing screen and the ability to use an external microphone. Other action cams such as the DJI Action 2 are also very good!
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