Independent buying guides
For Australians planning weekend camps and multi-day walks. Each guide answers one buying question, shows the figures it used with the date they were checked, and runs pack-weight and cost-per-trip sums you can follow.
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Olympic National Park · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
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Photo: Original photo: Michael Pereckas on Flickr Modified by Gazebo on February 3, 2015 with the addition of comment and XMP-cc:License metadata and the removal of JPEG IFD1 (thumbnail) metadata. · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
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Photo: Ryan Hodnett · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Sipher · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
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Photo: ALAN SCHMIERER · CC0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: User:James086 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Four decisions settle a tent and sleeping bag for Australian trips: the coldest night you will sleep out, floor area per person, the bag rating and the mat.
Photo: nikhil more · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
Spread the kit over the trips you really take and add the gas. The number of trips a year decides the cost far more than the price on the tent does.
Photo: Original photo: Michael Pereckas on Flickr Modified by Gazebo on February 3, 2015 with the addition of comment and XMP-cc:License metadata and the removal of JPEG IFD1 (thumbnail) metadata. · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Packing and load
Water is a quarter of the pack before any gear goes in it. Here is where the rest of the weight sits, and which items earn their mass on an Australian walk.
Photo: Olympic National Park · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Conditions
What the EN rating on a sleeping bag measures, why it prints three temperatures instead of one, and which of them applies to you.
Photo: Claus Ableiter · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)