We were all newbs once
No one was born an expert at anything, so take heart in your newb status as a backpacker. We all have to start somewhere. I started this blog because of all the repeat questions I kept seeing in Facebook groups from first-time backpackers. What gear should I get? How much water do I carry? Do I need a water filter? What kind of backpack should I buy? And I can remember my own first backpacking trip, when my pack weighed 40 pounds and I ditched a bunch of gear at the car before heading out. I’ve learned a lot through the course of my backpacking trips — day hikes, too — and it warrants more space than a comment on a Facebook post. The answers to those questions are more nuanced than you'd expect, and are quite individual. You'll need to learn to think for yourself, and I'll clue you in on what you should be thinking about. I believe you learn more by doing than by reading about it, but we also need to be safe and prepared for our first backpacking trip. So I’m writing about