The Camping Life (2020) by Brendan Leonard, photos by Forest Woodward. This is simply a brief, charming and beautiful look at the camping life. The subtitle is “Inspiration and Ideas for Endless Adventures” and the book lives up to this claim.
These two guys first met up a decade ago while climbing and have adventured together since. Beyond this book that have also produced several films about the life outside of walls. The writing here is clear cut yet inspirational, while the photographs are demanding of your attention. The vistas, starscapes and eternal good-humored view into the lives of campers is always entertaining. If you are on the verge of walking out of your normal life for a more rugged one, or planning for a jaunt outdoors in the near future, or just looking for a book of ideas, you could hardly beat this.
We start with an all purpose list of needed gear used for the day to day things. The camping gear list is designed to get you out the door prepared for the normal things you might encounter. There are additions to the list in later chapters, but unless you are planning to sleep tonight on a sheer rock face hundreds of feet up, this all purpose list will get you started.
After that there are discussions of various adventures awaiting you. They go from the simplest, backpacking, into car and then van camping, biking, hut camping, treehouse stays as well as glamping, now all the rage. Kayaking is discussed, white water rafting and snow camping too, as well as the big wall climbing I mentioned earlier.
In each section, specialized tools and gear are talked about as well as techniques you need to learn to be happier with your trek.
Each section has great information and dramatic photos, also pics that illustrate some of the more esoteric terms and items under discussion.
There are other books you could look into, but as an across the board look at the how tos of outdoor life, this is the one.
Also, as always, remember to leave it better than you found it. ( )