Joy of Backpacking: Your complete guide to attaining pure happiness in the outdoors

by Brian Beffort

A comprehensive guide covering every aspect of how to backpack—from planning a first trip to advanced wilderness travel. For those new to the activity, longtime backpacker and author Brian Beffort covers the fundamentals, with sections on trip planning, gear, backcountry nutrition and cooking, navigation, and other essential wilderness skills. You will also learn what to expect on the trail and in camp, and how to stay safe with first aid, weather preparedness, and more. For experienced packers, this book is filled with practical tips and inspired ideas on how to update and refine your approach to backpacking based on trends in lightweight gear, high-tech gadgets, changing wilderness rules, and increasing opportunities for wilderness travel around the world.

Genres: Travel, Outdoors, Sports, Nonfiction

280 pages, Paperback

First published May 7, 2007

Reviews

[Rachel Matsuoka · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5. A great tool for preparedness whether you're backpacking, camping, and even just hiking. As someone who finds themselves facing a sort of culture shock especially when it comes to all the gear, this book gives me all the whys and hows I need to better decide what I need and what I don't. Just coming off of a hiking trip where we had to quit early due to weather and sickness, this book reaffirmed that we did the right thing and also gave me useful tips on how to better plan for next time. Unfortunately there are definitely a few spelling and grammatical errors (sad trombone noise).

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good advice!
-Judging the weather based upon the bubbles in my morning coffee.
-Judging how many hours left until the sunset based upon the width of my hand to the horizon.
-Tie small cords to zippers so that you can unzip with gloves.
-How to make tofu jerky.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Backpacking requires that one carry everything needed for a camping trip upone your person. This book discusses the equipment required and etiquette afield.

[Gabriela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book to read for those who are interesting in picking up backpacking and would like to learn some essential skills before they head out to the wilderness.