Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Show off your travel itch

Mankind has been in the business of documenting adventures basically since writing was developed. Names like Darwin, Dickens, Jefferson, Melville, Roosevelt, de Tocqueville, Steinbeck, Swift, and Roosevelt, did it, and there are plenty more where that came from. With the hectic pace of life today, many of us don’t have the time — or the [...]

Leave your heart, not your wallet in...

After quite a few reader requests for hotel, destination, adventure and travel recommendations, we’re embarking on a new series of posts called Stay. Culled together from both crew and reader insights, Stay will highlight both exciting and achievable travel along with occasional travel-related gear endorsements. Consider it an ongoing series to satiate your travel bug. [...]

Room with a view

Be honest with yourself: at one point in your life (for some of us more recently) you dreamt about being Fritz from The Swiss Family Robinson, evading tigers, fighting pirates and living in the trees. Well, there’s an app er… place for that. Gentle readers, welcome to Finca Bellavista, a sustainable tree-house community tucked away [...]

Lofty Living

Like a real-life creation inspired from the game of Myst, the Cedar Creek Treehouse at Mt. Ranier is the creation of Bill Compher who built the tree house during the early 1980′s. Overlooking Gifford Pinchot National Forest the Cedar Creek Treehouse is constructed 50 above the ground on a 200-year-old Western Red Cedar tree. For [...]

Something Black, Something Gold

Near the corner of Brooklyn’s Carroll Gardens on Court and Luquer Streets stands Black Gold Records, Coffee & Antiques. Their mantra, “a well-curated selection of: records coffee relics & ephemera” is entirely appropriate, but we liken it to a cross-between High Fidelity and good coffee. Opened this summer by Jeff Ogiba and Sommer Foster-Santoro, Black [...]

Swine Sublime

Aside from exotic cars, sports and beautiful women, beer and pork rank high on the list of things that occupy significant brain space for most red-blooded men. Combine these modern day nectar and ambrosia with a massive, communal walnut table set up in a racetrack style, along with warm globe lighting suspended from the ceiling [...]

Better, Badder, Guidebook

For some, a vacation is supposed to be an adventure, and nothing’s worse than realizing you’ve spent your hard-earned dough and precious holiday time in a tourist trap. That’s why Rough Guides were developed. If you’re looking to go off the beaten path, these guides are the perfect travel companion for a news and picture [...]

Tame Your Packing Mess

Packing before a trip tends to be easier because everything that goes into your luggage is “supposedly” clean. Once you’ve worn everything on a week-long vacation though is when things get tricky. The shoes you took to the beach still have grains of sand clinging for dear life and your t-shirts all reek of sunscreen [...]

The World's Best Watch Company Isn't in Switzerland

While peering through a magnifying lens, counting 184 tiny faces carved on a cherry pit, I started to understand what sets the German watch company, A. Lange & Söhne, apart. I was in the “Green Vault” of the Residenzschloss in Dresden, the historic palace of Saxon royalty, where a staggering collection of opulent knick-knacks is [...]

Grooming Fodder For L.A.'s Renaissance

Men’s grooming brand, Baxter of California, has made thigns personal: they’re taking products beyond the shelves and into barbers at the newly opened Baxter Finley, Barber & Shop. Located in Log Angeles’ West Hollywood and helmed by Jason Simao (lead barber and manger), the menu at Baxter Finley will be simple: basic cuts and shaves, [...]

Friendlier Than Your Ghostly Pal

Recently, I accepted a job as a camp counselor and quickly realized that I needed a new sleeping bag. While my L.L. Bean bag has served me well in the past, it was too heavy and thick for my needs in the warmer months. I started searching for a lightweight alternative and came across the [...]

This Crowd-Pleasing Koozie Keeps Your Drinks Quite Cozy

In case you haven’t heard, neoprene is not just for wetsuits anymore. The soft, stretchy material has a variety of uses thanks to its bevy of benefit and it would seem that the folks at Built NY have mastered them all. They design and sell totes to, well, tote just about anything, all in a [...]

Back in Black

If you seek modern, urban transport for your bevy of carry-needs, Booq is a name to know. Their various bags and backpacks are nothing if not slick. Easily handling any 13″ to 17″ laptop of the Mac or PC variety, their Mamba Shift Backpack epitomizes the fierce functionality and uncompromising design of the entire Booq [...]

A Bag with Taste For Trips in Haste

Made of 100% cotton canvas and accented by leather strapping and antique brass metalwork, the Earsdon Weekend Bag is a great looking option for spur of the moment trips. Available in classic barley shown above or a more striking Watermelon shown below, the bag measures roughly 23 inches long by 18.5 inches tall and 12 [...]

Flying A Gulfstream? So Last Year. How About Flying In the Gulf Stream.

For the paltry sum of $661,000 (and change), you too can join Sir Richard Branson in your own Necker Nymph Underwater. The Necker Nymph (named after Branson’s Caribbean luxury rental, Necker Island) is a fifth generation winged submersible in the DeepFlight Merlin class, created by Hawkes Ocean Technologies Deep Flight Submersibles. The carbon fiber craft [...]