Consider the options of either carrying enough water for your adventure, or carrying a portable water filter to make use of water sources along your trail. If you have experience hiking longer routes the decision will be an easy one. Its always important to be and stay hydrated when youre in the outdoors. If youre hiking with any type of a load on your back, youll need that much more water. If elevation is involved and warmer temperatures, your need for water will be that much greater. If you plan on backpacking into a campsite youll need to carry your water with you. If you carry enough water with you to last the length of time youll be on your adventure, you wont ...

For the first time enjoying holidays without my parents. I must have been sixteen years old when I left Cologne. A two days journey lay ahead of me to reach the Dutch island of Terschelling. A few weeks ago I had bought a motor-assisted bicycle. The pace to travel, officially allowed with these bikes was a joke: 25 kilometres an hour. But fortunately all "mofas" at that time exceeded this official limit by at least 50%. Otherwise reaching Terschelling would have been a night mare. Back in in the early seventies, when I was a teen broadcasting was heavily regulated in Germany, and all over Europe. We all had portable radios with us to listen to Radio Caroline a "b...

During the summer, my family always goes camping in Australia.  Each year we choose a different location.  This year my dad had picked out a camping site that he hoped would be perfect.  I wish we had camped somewhere else, anywhere else. We arrived at our camping site and found that it was not too far from a caravan park.  We made up our campground and prepared to have a lot of fun.  After clearing our ground area of debris, we started a nice big fire and cooked dinner.  After it got dark, we put marshmallows on a stick and sang some songs.  We turned in for the night. The next morning it was raining very heavily.  We couldn’t cook anythin...

There are several kinds of filters that you can use when you're tackling the great outdoors.  Pump filters bring in water as you pump its lever, filters out the harmful materials, and then empties clean water into a bottle.  This is good if you need water to cook with in addition to drinking water.  If you're only going to drink, you might want to try a water bottle filter.  With a water bottle filter, you simply fill up the bottle with water from a lake or stream, and then when you turn the bottle upside-down as you drink, the water passes through a filter and is purified before it goes into your mouth. There are also larger models of camping water filters, su...

School is out, the kids are going crazy, and you need to get out of the house! But where will you go? The answer to this question depends on a number of different factors, including budget, available time, and the interests of those going on vacation, but whatever your style, there are tons of great vacation options out there.   If you live on the West Coast, you'll have access to the best of both worlds: the ocean AND the Sierras. For families with younger kids, a beachside campground vacation can be the perfect retreat – sit back and tan or read a book in a comfy beach chair while the kids tire themselves out building sand castles and collecting shells. Beachs...