3 'Useless' Backpacking Luxuries That Are Actually Worth the Weight

“Luxury gear” means different things to different backpackers. To some, it’s a camp pillow, a pair of lightweight camp shoes, or a sleeping pad that’s just a little more plush than it needs to be. Others get a little more ambitious. A disco ball, lobster tails, and a live cat are among the stranger items our editors have carried.

Well, you may not need to worry about these luxury items running off, but some of them are well outside the norm. We polled three of our editors, Editor-in-Chief Adam Roy, Senior Gear Editor Ben Tepler, and Associate Editor Emma Veidt, about the totally unnecessary objects that, as often as not, find their way into their packs. Here’s what they had to say.

Transcript

Adam: Hey everybody, I’m Adam Roy, editor in chief of your favorite magazine Backpacker, and today we are talking about luxury gear. Now when I say luxury gear, I’m not talking about a plush sleeping pad or an extra warm sleeping bag or your favorite pillow. I am talking about the stuff you genuinely do not need to bring, but that makes your trip so much better because you do. I’m here with my colleagues Emma Veidt and Ben Tepler. Emma, do you want to show us what you brought to talk about?

Emma: Sure. So, Summit beers are already their own type of luxury, but I like classing it up a little more with a summit cocktail [from The Cocktail Box Co.]. So this is a box that kind of has all the fixings for a Moscow mule that I got through the cocktail box company. Inside, there’s ginger syrup, lime juice, grapefruit bitters, lemon bitters, cocktail picks, a muddler spoon, and a coaster, even. If you cared about creating a ring on a rock or something.

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Adam: I’m just gonna say you don’t want a ring on your rock

Emma: Exactly. This is for classy people here. And on the inside, you open this up, pour it into a glass, and you can add whatever vodka or like soda water, if you need any non-alcoholic mixins, that’s totally fine. I really enjoy them on backpacking trips, camping trips, even a day hike, this would be kind of fun to spice up. Yeah, it’s one of my favorite luxury items.

Adam: The ingredients in this box, are they all mixed together, or do you actually get to like bartend and mix all your, all your mixins in?

Emma: It’s pretty much all in one, which is convenient with and I think it’s probably better off for the taste. This, is a mix of ginger juice, sugar, some other extracts, and you just kind of pour it all in.

Adam: So important question here, do you actually need the box then, or could you just bring a packet?

Emma: I think you could just bring the packet, but the box is so classy, and it even had a little label, so I like the box. And it keeps it, honestly, you probably do need the box because this has liquid in it, and it could puncture. So I think the box does keep it from spilling on the inside of your bag.

Adam: Do you have a favorite cocktail box flavor?

Emma: I think you can get old fashioned, but I think anything with brown liquor like whiskey or, you know, anything like that, I think that’s disgusting. So if you had bad taste buds, get a, you could get an old fashioned, but I’m very classy. I like Moscow mules.

Adam: Ben, do you like do you like a campsite beverage? Are you a cocktail kind of guy, beer guy, seltzer, what do you do?

Ben: Oh, in the backcountry, it’s rare. I mean, if it was available, I would certainly take a backcountry cocktail, and I think I’m, I think I’m one of those brown cocktail kind of people that Emma was talking about. I would for sure go for an old fashioned something like that, given that you can have that, you can have that on your own.

Emma: I won’t be sharing that with you.

Ben: Personally, I’m a seltzer man myself. I’ll also take any kind of powdered drink in the backcountry—Tang, whatever. But that does beg the question, what are you supposed to do while you are enjoying your beverage? And I think I have the answer here.

This is Outside Inside Backpack Cornhole. It is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a miniature version of the popular bar or yard game that you can fit in your backpack and take with you to any place you may be camping. And I have done that several times this summer. I brought this rafting with me, I brought it camping with me, Easy to carry, easy to set up. I had a little bit of a harder time convincing people to play with me, but that’s another story.

So let me give you a look at what these look like. This is an older version of the set, I think the newer one’s made of plastic, it’s maybe a little bit heavier but a little more compact. You can still get this wooden version if you know where to look. It’s about a 12 inch long board, hole about the size of a small apple to give you a sense of scale. It has two little legs that pivot down so you can set it up like normal. It also comes with a set of miniature beanbags.

Now, there is an issue here with size and coordination. Cornhole is normally a game you play while you’re drinking. And if you imbibe a little too heavily, maybe pop a couple of those cocktail boxes, it does actually get quite hard to hit your target. I have bad luck when I’m sober, but this is a really great way to kill some time at camp, especially if you’re like me and you don’t like to sit around very much.

I know some people like to bring cards to play with friends around a campfire or at night. Personally, I hate having to take the time to argue over what we’re going to play and teach somebody in the group the rules cause nobody knows all the rules to every game. This is a great low effort way to kind of socialize on a more relaxed trip, or even like an ultra light one, whatever, stick it in your pack.

Adam: Have you taught your kids how to play cornhole?

Ben: I have shown them the sets and the older one pretended it was a skateboard and stood on it, which is probably why I had to glue it together last week, but so far no, I have not gotten the rules through to him.

Adam: Have you made any trail friends with your cornhole set?

Ben: I’ve tried, so far I have not made many. But every once in a while I find somebody who’s an enthusiast like me, and that’s priceless.

Emma: That does sound kind of fun because in the winter, when you’re done hiking, pretty early, I’m not ready to go to bed at 6 p.m., you know, I could turn the headlamp on and, just throw, throw some cornhole balls, whatever they’re called.

Adam: See, Emma, this is the difference between Southern California and Colorado, because if I tried to play this during a backpacking trip in the winter, I’d either freeze my fingers off or lose the beanbags in the snow.

Ben: Yeah, I definitely, if given the choice, would be in fetal position in my sleeping bag and not playing cornhole.

Adam: Now here’s an interesting question. You could play it in your tent. Maybe that’s a use case? You bring a bigger tent, like two people bring a 3-person tent just so you have enough room inside to play cornhole.

Ben: That’s a real luxury packing job.

Adam: You can have like indoor games.

Ben: Yeah, just bring an entire base camp so that you can play cornhole inside.

Adam: I feel like you’re being sarcastic here, Ben, and I don’t appreciate it.

Ben: Sorry.

Adam: Instead of questioning the way I live my life, how about you tell me about the item you brought?

Ben: OK, I, I would love to. My luxury item is a Kindle Paperwhite. Many of you know about them. Many backpackers take them, but for people who prioritize weight savings, they’re a little bit divisive. I think mine weighs around, maybe 6 ounces or 5.5 ounces, which is like a little less than my iPhone. So there is some weight penalty and people say you could just read on your iPhone app, and that’s true, but reading on your iPhone for long periods is annoying, I find, and an having your screen turned on even for like a half hour straight at night, really sucks your battery. Like if you’re depending on it for other uses like as a camera or for your Garmin app or for like a Gaia GPS mapping for example.

So I love the Kindle, [with] it being much larger than my phone and comfortable to read and hold. And having less blue light, which is great when I’m trying to wind down at night. It is IPX8 rated, which means that I can drop it during a stream crossing and not have to worry about ruining it.

The battery lasts a very long time, I mean. We’re talking about months rather than weeks here, which is great, because not only can I read books for pleasure without worrying about draining my phone battery, but I can also upload, guidebooks for wilderness areas and trails and always have that, for planning the next day or relying on it even if my like iPhone died and I was like, what’s ahead? How can I get to the next trailhead? I can look at my Kindle guidebook, and some folks even upload like PDFs of topographic maps to have as a backup on their Kindle, although it’s a little unusual.

Adam: And for our viewers who don’t know about waterproof ratings, IPX8 is pretty serious. That means theoretically you could read it underwater for about what, 1 hour, 3 hours, something like that. [Editor’s note: The actual time an IPX8-rated product can survive underwater varies, but at least 30 minutes.]

Ben: Yeah, I’m not quite sure. I can’t remember what it is. It’s full immersion though for some period of time, so it’s pretty good. Like I read this, I read this by the beach and by the pool and still going six years in, however long I’ve had it.

Adam: So you’re talking about putting guidebooks on this thing, Ben, that begs the question, how durable is it?

Ben: I abuse my Kindle in the back country. I throw it in my backpack, usually at the bottom of the pack. Without really thinking about how I’m packing it, and it often gets scraped and crushed and dragged, and like there’s hardly a single scratch on this thing. So yeah, it’s one of my most durable items in the backcountry, honestly.

Adam: What are you reading right now? Let’s do a little little book club. What do you got on that Kindle?

Ben: Yeah, I have a lot on this Kindle. I just finished reading a book called The Book of Love, that I really enjoyed. And other than that, like when I’m backpacking, if I don’t instantly fall asleep when my head hits the pillow, I like to read like, fantasy adventure books, Lord of the Rings trilogy, that kind of thing, just, it’s the mindset I’m in.

Adam: Nice. Well, now that we’ve established what a big nerd Ben is, I think we’re good to sign off here. Thank you so much for watching. If you want to learn more about items both luxury and ultralight, you can go to www.backpacker.com. Until then, I’m Adam Roy, thanks for watching.