Gear Patrol | Spirit of Adventure, Passion for Gear

Insightful sightseeing

For most people, the term travel guide triggers visions of stout books, stuffed to the margins with 10 point font and the occasional over-saturated color photo. Boutique firm Herb Lester and Associates rebels against this stereotype by working with exceptional illustrators and designers to create beautiful guides to the world’s great cities. Each detailed edition [...]

Domestic Delights

When go-to resources like Travelzoo and Jetsetter are just a click away, it’s tough not to let wanderlust get the better of you and your real world budget. Thankfully, there’s plenty of gems right in our own 9,400,000 sq mi backyard — and the Grey Lady can prove it. Filled with photography and gorgeous illustrations, [...]

Dope Kit

Hard Graft’s Driftwood Dopp Kitt ($204) is just as style focused as the goods it’s meant to contain. The exterior is crafted from a combination of Italian suede and vegetable tanned leather, while the interior sports a water resistant, wipe clean lining. A double zipper opening makes packing bigger items like that mega can of [...]

Editor’s Note: Foster Huntington is the talented force behind A Restless Transplant and the hugely popular tumblr The Burning House. Recently, Huntington embarked on an epic cross-country adventure to document unique individuals and the things they care about for his upcoming book to be released by Harper Collins. After sharing his plans with us first [...]

Paradise...rain or shine

Glancing down for a moment, my eye caught sight of the orange glow of the speedometer. The readout hovered at 50 km per hour. My head did the rough conversion as a fat drop of rain streaked across the plexiglass visor of my helmet. Things sure felt faster than 30 miles per hour. Then again, [...]

When murmurs started to circulate that Fuji was set to receive some of the biggest swells the island had seen in 20 years, Billabong organized a crew of top surfers including Dean Bowen, Scardy, Nick Vasicek, and Mikey Brennan to capitalize on the rare opportunity. The entire trip was captured in this short film. Filled [...]

9,000 miles away, a paradise of adventure

Editor’s Note: Gear Patrol Correspondent Jason Heaton was dispatched 9,000 miles from Minneapolis to Sri Lanka with the goal of chasing down as much adventure in three weeks as possible. As you’ll read below, he didn’t disappoint. On a dusk drive looking for elephants, we happened upon an old goat herder on the roadside, his [...]

GP goes on location for our first travel gear review

Want to be taken away? Well, you must consider Vietnam. Take everything you’ve come to know or partially understand about the country as you’ve seen through the mass media and turn it all on its collective head. This picturesque sliver of a country is a true escape from some of what we’ve come to know [...]

Photography by Ryan Plett of You Have Broken the Internet While most of the country continues to get buried in snow, there’s never a better time to start planning your next getaway. The new Marine Canvas Duffels from Wharf are a perfect way to lug your kit at wallet-friendly prices. Drawing inspiration from Wharf proprietor [...]

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 [...]

Because It's Time to Stop Packing with Ziplocks

Temple’s soon-to-be-released Dopp Kitt ($55) is a great looking upgrade for those of you wanting to class up your travel gear. Its amazing rugged looks come from re-claimed WWII era canvas that’s been weathered, aged, and reborn into a bag. The leather detailing has also been salvaged off Swiss bread bags from the 1940s. Measuring [...]

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 [...]

Old Ruck Come Anew

The Altadena 802 Rucksack ($275) is a new backpack that looks old, and that’s a good thing because it looks damn good doing it. It’s a top loading tube shaped ruck, with a zip open pocket on the top flap. It also accepts additional pockets that strap onto the side (shown above) providing you enough [...]

Luke... I Am Your Travel Agent

Justin Van Genderen, a graphic designer from Chicago (not Dagobah), has crafted these beautifully minimalist travel posters that remind us of those deco pieces from decades past. However, unlike those that lured countless Americans down Route 66 and to the Grand Canyon in the backs of station wagons, these point wandering souls towards notable destinations [...]

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Grant Lingel is a man to be jealous of and maybe even to admire. In 2006, after completing one semester as a super-senior in balmy Buffalo, NY, Grant decided to take a risk many of us have thought about, but never had the courage to do. Uninspired by the path laid in front of him [...]