Gear

For better or worse I am a bit of a gearhead. My philosophy previously was to buy used and as cheap as possible since, for better or worse. gear is often a consumable given a long enough time frame. Eventually, as I saved more money my philosophy changed a bit. The most expensive, ultralight everything used to be anathema to me, but given how important being in the outdoors is to me, high quality, light, comfortable and clever gear allows me to spend more time outside. So, for better or worse. now I am all about high tech, ultralight gear, which I rationalize additionally because it is a situated soundly on the minimalism spectrum. Good gear often means less gear.

Outdoors

Backpack

There are a lot of good backpacks out there. If you can afford it, I highly recommend supporting a, ideally local, small cottage-brand that makes their stuff in small batches by hand. You can browse a large selection of these brands at Garage Grown Gear.

A pack I have used and is very lightweight, pretty comfortable, and easier to get is the REI Flash (I have used practically everything from the REI Flash line, including their tents and sleeping bags). The REI Flash stuff is easy to get, not too expensive, and well into ultralight territory, and they have a great return policy.

However, if easy access to in-stock items of relatively low cost are your main requirements, better than an REI Flash pack is a Gossamer Gear bag. I used their Gorilla bag on a number of hikes, which has plenty of space if your other gear is small/lightweight, and their Mariposa bag is great if you want more room. I am a big advocate of smaller bags however, so Gorilla would be my choice. The Gossame Gear bags are maybe the most comfortable I have ever worn, are very lightweight, and cheaper than practically anything else in the arena.

The bag I have personally decided upon is from ZPacks, and is called the Arc Air in ROBIC. Despite my having never used a bag greater than 50L, for .2oz more I went with the 60L. I think it is slightly less compact against my back however, and I am not sure I would go with the larger size next time. The ROBIC material is more abrasion resistant than the DCF version, although for most of my other gear I usually opt for DCF.

The ZPacks bags have one major advantage over other bags on top of being significantly lighter than any competition: the frame is slightly arched away from your body, allowing airflow that is practically nonexistant in any other bag I have worn. I am looking forward to using this to great effect this summer in Portugal, where I will be able to hike with no shirt and maximum airflow in the hot Mediterranean summer.