Backpacking
Backpacking is a craft of carrying what matters, leaving what does not, and learning how to move well in the backcountry. Backpacking Light helps hikers go lighter without giving up competence, safety, or depth.
If you are learning how to backpack, start here. If you already have miles on your legs, this page is still a useful map to our gear analysis, skills education, field-tested articles, and community discussion.
Start With the Right Path
Questions Backpackers Ask
How do I start backpacking?
Start with short trips, a conservative gear list, simple food and water systems, and a willingness to learn. Backpacking Light is strongest when it helps hikers build judgment, not just buy gear.
What gear matters most for backpacking?
Shelter, sleep insulation, a pack that fits the rest of your system, footwear that matches the trip, and the judgment to choose layers and safety gear for the actual conditions.
What is ultralight backpacking?
Ultralight backpacking is not just buying lighter gear. It is a systems approach to reducing pack weight through skill, restraint, efficiency, and better decision-making in the field.
Where can I find trustworthy backpacking advice?
Look for experience, methodology, context, and transparent reasoning. Backpacking Light combines field-tested gear analysis, instruction, and community conversation to help hikers make better decisions.
Latest From Backpacking Light
Episode 146 | Dirtbag Rich with Blake Boles
Ryan Jordan interviews Blake Boles, author of Dirtbag Rich, about redefining wealth through time, purpose, flexibility, and outdoor freedom. They explore dirtbag culture, careers, housing, relationships, risk, and the pursuit of a life built around adventure, simplicity, and meaningful time outside before retirement.
On Wilderness and Flourishing
In this philosophical essay, Backpacking Light founder Ryan Jordan argues that wilderness is more than scenery, recreation, or resource. Drawing on Aristotle, and testing ancient and modern philosophies against the state of humanity's relationship to nature, he proposes a Wilderness Ethic of Flourishing: wild places cultivate prudence, courage, temperance, and contemplation in ways modern civilization cannot. This philosophical foundation offers a deeper case for preserving wild lands in an age of distraction, extraction, and political distortion.
Episode 145 | Backpacking at Altitude
How altitude affects backpacking performance, sleep, fatigue, acclimatization, and AMS - with practical strategies for planning safer trips.
Episode 144 | Trail Steepness vs. Difficulty
How physiology and biomechanics shape hiking effort across terrain - and why slope doesn’t predict time or energy linearly.
