Super Camper Feature: Paulina Dao

It’s that beautiful time of year again where sunny days and crisp spring air are inviting us outside. Here in Austin the wild flowers are blooming, and the creeks are filling with fresh rain—hopefully enough to keep the limestone falls sustained through the summer. Christian, our teammate up in Denver, just marked the coming of spring by waxing his skis and putting them away, trading them in for a pair of hiking boots he’ll be tackling some fourteeners with on the weekends. We hope you’re taking note of similar changes wherever you are, maybe the snow melting in the mountains, clearing the way for your next summit or filling the rivers for your next white water trip. Whatever the case, it’s time to start making those campsite reservations and packing up for the next adventure. Photo by @MoonMountainMan. Swiftlet & Roo Single No car camping site is complete without a comfortable place for an afternoon siesta, and we all know that means bringing a hammock along. If you’re going to a beach or desert campsite, the Swiftlet is the perfect solution for a treeless hang. Even in a pine forest, finding the two perfect trees for your hammock isn’t always easy. A Swiftlet combined with a Roo Single gives you the versatility you need to hang anywhere. Use the short bar for chair mode at the picnic table, and then switch to the long bar for lounge mode and a post-lunch nap. At night, you’ll be able to hang by the campfire or lay back and star gaze if the conditions are right. Shop our Memorial Day Sale for 20% off Roo Singles! Mantis One of the most convenient shelters you’ll ever pack is the Mantis all-in-one hammock. Ditch the bulky ground tent and opt for the minimalist camping approach. The Mantis is perfect for spring with a breathable body that allows you to enjoy the breeze while also sporting a built-in bug net to keep out pesky insects. If rain or high wind is in the forecast, the rain fly will make sure you stay out of the elements. Clear skies ahead? Keep the fly in the stuff sack, take in the view, and fall asleep under the stars. The Mantis’ ease of setup and all-in-one design make it the perfect choice for new hammock campers and experts alike. Now through May 31, get a free Ridgeline Organizer when you purchase a Mantis—the perfect place to stow your water bottle, headlamp, and other essentials you want easy access to. Firebelly 30 Trail Quilt This may be the most fought-over item at your campsite. The Firebelly is made with buttery-soft fabric that is just as durable as it is snuggly. Poncho mode makes it perfect for wearing around camp, and just like the name suggests, you’ll stay warm with or without a blazing campfire.The Firebelly is also adaptable to any condition: Use it as a top quilt in warmer conditions or as a minimalist sleeping bag on those especially chilly nights. If you’re hammock camping, the Firebelly 30 can be used as an underquilt as well, ensuring a warm night no matter what. This trail quilt might exchange hands quite a few times at camp, but if your name’s on the tag, you’re the one that gets to take it into your tent at night—lucky you.  Insulated Pongo Pad and Puffin Pillow Camping has a bad reputation for leading to rather uncomfortable sleeping. From day one here at Kammok, we’ve been designing products with the aim of changing this misconception, and our Insulated Pongo Pad and Puffin Pillow are no exception. No matter your preferred shelter, the comfort that this dynamic duo provides is unparalleled. The Pongo offers three-season support, with insulation for those colder nights and warm weather comfort as well. Add the Puffin to your kit, and you have a velvety-soft pillow that you can inflate to your liking. And you won’t believe what these two will do for your hammock game. Both the Insulated Pongo Pad and the Puffin Pillow fully integrate with our hammocks for a bed like no other. The comfort level is so high that you may prefer it to your plush pillow-top mattress at home. During our Memorial Day Sale, get 25% off our Spring Camp Kit that includes the Pongo, Puffin, and a Firebelly 30 for the ultimate sleep combo. A Frisbee and a Deck of Cards Camping lends itself to lots of down time—slow afternoons spent enjoying nature with your friends. That's why we love it! A frisbee is easy to pack and makes for a fun activity that everyone can be a part of. A Kammok fan reached out to say they always bring a frisbee to camp and pointed out that they can never go flat (major bonus points, especially where there's an abundance of cacti). We love having a frisbee on long road trips when all you want is to stretch your legs and get a break from driving. Similarly, a deck if cards is lightweight and takes up minimal space, but the payoff is huge. We love Uno, but a standard deck is great for all sorts of games. Personal favorites of ours are Spades, Euchre, and Tiến lên, or Vietnamese cards. Cards are great for rainy nights in the tent or around the table after dinner, and if you always have a deck in your pocket, you're always ready for a game. Hopefully all this talk of camping has gotten you jazzed for the next adventure. Now seriously: Head over to your favorite park’s reservation site and plan your trip.

Our outdoor community is built on seeking adventure. Sometimes this means spending time in harsh weather conditions and challenging ourselves physically, while other times it means having difficult conversations and changing our perspective. In this three-part series, we'll be sharing the stories of individuals redefining what it means to be outside. Written by Luisa Vargas. As the chief of the Cameron County Beach Patrol, Art Hurtado is no stranger to being outside. In addition to recent ultrarunning achievements, he spends his time encouraging people to spend time outdoors. Art at Lower Falls in Yellowstone National Park, September 2020 In pre-pandemic times, Art hosted weekly, open-invitation runs in Brownsville, Texas. He also started the only ocean aquathon in Texas in addition to creating one of the first swim clubs in Texas with the goal of making ocean swimming accessible to all. “It might be intimidating, but with the proper education and training, you’d be able to read the ocean too, and it would make it accessible to anyone,” Art says. Having grown up in the Rio Grande Valley, Art tells us it’s common for kids to grow up without the opportunity to spend their free time exploring nature. He started seeking adventures later in life because connecting with the outdoors wasn’t something his parents prioritized. Like many people in this area, Art’s parents grew up in poverty, and he explains that when you’re in that situation, your time is not spent finding ways to travel. “I think a lot of this culture comes from other people, from your parents, someone has to take you [out into nature],” Art says. We all carry both the weight of our parent’s struggles as well as benefiting from their privilege, and for this reason, we continue to see many of the social inequalities that are passed down over time. “My parents worked up from their poverty to lift me up, so I have the option to go to more places,” Art says. The generational progress means that creating equitable outdoor recreation will take time, but Art knows that like his parents, he has a role to play in this. We all do. His parents paved the way for him to have the opportunities that led him to spend his life outdoors, and he is working to do the same for others. Art in Palo Duro Canyon, October 2020 Art has become a mentor in the community by providing people with guidance on places to go and how to get outside safely. Working for the beach patrol provides him with plenty of willing volunteers to facilitate events that encourage people to swim and run. Even though there are many ways to spend time outside that don’t require extensive travel, it’s difficult to adventure because places like Brownsville are far away from parks and other cities with more recreational areas. The closest major city, San Antonio, is at least 5 hours away. Similar to my conversation with Rocio, Art explains that finding safe and welcoming outdoor spaces close to home is crucial to getting more diverse groups of people outside. “Brownsville’s park department has done wonders for the community in the past 7 years. They’ve poured money into developing trail systems—it’s shined through,” Art says. He is hopeful because he sees things are changing. Especially during COVID, local governments are expanding trail and park systems. Since there is access to green spaces closer to home, people are beginning to explore more.   Isla Blanca Park located on South Padre Island,  August 2019 The layers of inequality in outdoor spaces span generations. However, it’s people like Art who focus on the things they can control who end up shaping their communities and ultimately, the system. If we each focus on encouraging and helping one person to spend more meaningful time outdoors, think of all the lives that would be transformed. Art’s story is a reminder that education and systemic change are the driving force of creating equitable outdoor spaces, but it’s individuals who ignite the movement. Today, I challenge you to elevate time outside for someone in your community. Share your favorite local park with a friend, lend a family member your Kammok gear, show a stranger on the trail your favorite overlook. Here are some other ideas on ways to give adventure: Organizations and companies supporting diversity in the outdoors: Melanin Basecamp Disabled Hikers Venture Out Project

This year for National Camp at Home Day, Alisha McDarris from sustainable travel and adventure blog Terradrift offers tips to help you level up your sustainability game and reduce waste at the campsite and beyond. So you can stay classy, not trashy. Start with proper preparation If you want to reduce waste on your next outing—whether it’s in your backyard or across the country—if you wait until you get to camp to make your move, you’ve already lost. Successful low- or no-waste camping starts with solid preparation. Skip the pre-packaged meals and bars This is a tough one, especially because pre-packaged, store-bought backpacking meals are just so easy, but the packaging they come in is usually single-use and not recyclable or compostable. So for every freeze-dried meal you snag off of store shelves, commit to making one yourself. It’s about doing what you can, not achieving zero-waste perfection. Use ingredients you already have around the house like noodles, instant rice, or spices and combine them with your favorite protein sources like instant dried beans or, my favorite, textured vegetable protein. Blend together ingredients like oats, dates, nut butters, protein powder, seeds and dried fruit to make your own snack and protein bars. Prepare your own fruit leather and jerky in the oven. Get creative! And after a few experimental recipes, we bet you’ll be way more pleased with the flavor results than with those bland pre-made meals. And if you need a few idea to get you started, I wrote a whole cookbook of plant-based recipes, which you can find here.   Buy in bulk If you’ll be making your own meals and snacks, call on your local grocery store’s bulk bin. Usually, you can bring a reusable container (for even less waste) to fill with items like instant potatoes or beans, hummus or textured vegetable protein, nuts and dried fruit, even spices and energy bites, all without an ounce of extraneous packaging. If your local grocery doesn’t have a bulk bin section, then buy larger packages of items like rice or trail mix, freeze-dried vegetables or fruit instead of single-serve sizes in order to reduce waste. Utilize reusable packaging Zip-top bags are convenient, no doubt, but in most cases, they are single-use items that don’t get recycled (though you can usually recycle clean zip-top bags at your local grocery store’s bag recycling bin). So opt out of single-use whenever possible. Snacks, meal ingredients and more can be stored in reusable silicone zip-top bags, plastic storage containers, or food wraps that can be washed and reused many times. Opt for snacks in sustainable packaging We can’t make all of our own snacks all the time. Take nuts, dried fruit, and seeds for example. Fortunately, you can still get waste-free snacks by purchasing from brands that use compostable or biodegradable packaging. Shar, for example, offers trail mix in refillable, recyclable, and compostable cardboard tubes while Sun and Swell packages their snacks, nuts and dried fruit in compostable bags, including single-serves! Reduce waste at camp Prepping is at least half the battle if you want to enjoy to a low-waste camping trip. But it doesn’t stop there; keep the good vibes rolling (and the trash bags empty) once you arrive. Ditch disposables Save the paper plates for your kid’s pizza party and commit to using reusable plates, utensils and cups when camping. There are plenty of quality and durable mess kits out there and they’re easy to wash and reuse at camp. Plus, they don’t create bags full of trash at the end of every meal. But don’t stop there: swap straws, napkins, and paper towels for reusable and washable items, too. Skip single use bottles Instead of bringing along a case of single-use plastic water bottles or even gallon jugs of water, bring a refillable container with a spout or nozzle like a water cube for storing and serving up H2O. Use a refillable gas tank You know those little green bottles that fuel your camp stove? Millions end up in landfills every year because they can’t be easily recycled. Upgrade to a small, refillable cylinder like one from Ignik to drastically reduce waste when camping. Repurpose your water bottle Skip the wasteful bags of ice (for at least as long as you can) on your next camping trip and use reusable ice packs or make one of your own: The night before you leave, fill your Nalgene or other hard plastic water bottle 3/4 full and stash it in the freezer. In the morning, you’ll have a multipurpose DIY ice pack that also functions as a water bottle as the ice melts. You can even refill the bottle with ice from a beverage dispenser when repacking your cooler on the go. Utilize refillable and compostable toiletries If you’re camping at home, this won’t likely be an issue, but if you’re spending more than a day or two farther afield, you might plan to wash up a few times (dishes or yourself). If that’s the case, avoid purchasing travel-size toiletries and soaps and instead utilize reusable and refillable containers and tubes to hold soap, shampoo and more. Also important: Make sure they are biodegradable for the least amount of impact to the natural spaces around you. Bottom Line There’s plenty you can do if you’re looking to reduce your waste while camping. All it takes is a bit of planning and preparation, a willingness to try something new, and a touch of creativity and you’re well on your way to producing less waste and enjoying more environmentally-friendly outings. Wander on!

The past few weeks have been filled with discussion, both internally as a company and as nine individuals in pursuit of social justice. At Kammok, we exist to promote human flourishing through adventure outside, but people cannot flourish when racism is putting lives in danger every day. We believe community is transformative to create lasting change, and we all need to address the racial divide in this country. We champion love as our chief core value, and staying silent about systematic injustice is not loving. As an ally to the Black community, people of color, and underrepresented voices in the outdoors, we are committed to fighting for justice, and to acting on what is right. Immediately, we are donating to nonprofits, matching employee donations up to $2K to organizations fighting against injustice, inequality, and racism. This isn’t a one-time donation. As part of our ongoing commitment to give 1% of revenue to social and environmental initiatives, we are identifying organizations that build inclusivity and equity in the outdoors so that Kammok can invest and enable them long-term. We've supported Explore Austin since 2017 to empower youth through outdoor mentorship, and we will continue to support as we expand our scope for giving. We have a platform, and eyes and ears from a receptive community that shares our mission to elevate time outside for all people. We ask our Kammok community to reflect on the impacts you can make. These are our first of many steps to hold us accountable for the change we wish to see. It's on us to work towards change together.   Greg McEvilly CEO/Founder and Team Kammok