National Geographic ADVENTURE

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro The Buzz: Three New Gadgets For Longer Weekends

1) Made of used coffee grounds and wax, Java-Logs fuel low-carbon-monoxide campfires and divert 20 million pounds of coffee from landfills annually ($3.50).

2) There are scads of rechargeable units, but the Duracell Mobile Charger has a handy USB slot to juice iPods, cameras, and phones. It plugs into wall outlets and car power ports ($25).

3) The Eye-Fi wireless SD memory card is a slick way to transfer photos to your computer with out cables ($100).

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Nau: We’re Not Dead Yet

Tobias seems to be very happy wearing a Nau jacket and holding a pitcher of fresh juice.

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Call it Nau Two Point D’oh: The uber-hip, ultra-eco brand that closed its doors six weeks ago with much lamenting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth (including some by yours truly) is back on its feet—well, knees—thanks to a defibrillator called Horny Toad. The Santa Barbara clothing company and a handful of post-Nauers bought the brand name and are relaunching August 1.

Expect the same Boulder Gothic design sensibility and commitment to sustainability that marked the first Nau. Don’t expect the same business practices, though—Nau’s stores are gone and the clothes now will be sold through independent retailers, as well as its website.

Will it last? Heck if I know. Getting Nau into wider distribution will help, as will eliminating the well-intended but counterintuitive policy that encouraged customers to buy in the store but receive the clothes in the mail. As with Nau, Horny Toad has done an amazing job of creating its identity (in this case, all-American treehouses and swimmin’ holes); the difference is that the Toad’s stuff sells well. As a fan of both Nau’s designs and its eco-idealism, I hope that the Toadsters can provide the right amount of support—and grounding.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Belkin Phone, SkypeOut Keep Money In

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Twenty years ago, my photographer friend Larry Pierce called his wife from his hotel room on a remote island in Tahiti, talked for 15 minutes, and unknowingly racked up a $400 bill. Ouch. Last week in New Zealand, I chatted with my family until even the cat was tired of me and it didn’t cost us a dime. Well, barely a dime.

Like 300 million other people, I used Skype, the voice over internet phone system. But this wasn’t computer to computer—I was calling our home line on Belkin’s Skype handset and talking just as I would on a cell phone.

Continue reading this story>>>

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear Review: Hobie ATR Standup Paddleboard

Text by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro
Photo by Joshua Scott

Five years ago the only guys who knew what “stand-up paddleboarding” meant were pro surfers like Laird Hamilton and Dave Kalama. Since then the sport has invaded beach scenes from coast to coast, attracting converts from outside the surfing world. Fitness fanatics have latched on to stand-up’s full-body workout—you stand facing forward, feet shoulder-width apart, and paddle canoe-style—while hydro-explorers have started using the boards to access hard-to-reach shorelines. The first time I tried it, I enjoyed tooling around my Southern California harbor, but the excitement wasn’t worth the hassle of schlepping an unwieldy, 30-plus-pound beast.

Now comes the Hobie ATR ($1,350). Using molded construction similar to windsurf rigs, the board weighs as little as 22 pounds. For carrying, there’s an inset handhold in the middle: easy peasy. I grabbed it with one arm, zipped across the sand, and in seconds the ATR was blasting through the water as if motorized. If you have decent balance, stability on mellow H2O should be no problem, thanks to the ATR’s lengthy, 11-foot deck (stand-up paddle surfing takes a bit more practice). Give it ten minutes—plus or minus a fall or two—and you’ll be walking on water your very first day.

We're also big fans of the Werner Spanker Paddle ($339; pictured).

Photo Contest: Most Beautiful Places in the Parks

Photograph by Keith Ladzinski

On the recently redesigned ADVENTURE website, we've posted a national parks photo gallery where we reveal—down to the exact GPS coordinates—our picks for the most beautiful places in the parks. Now it's your turn. Send us your most spectacular park photo for the chance to have it published in the magazine and win prizes from Yakima, JanSport, and SPOT Satellite Messenger.

Outdoor News: Announcing the TOGA Awards

According to a recent study sponsored by the Nature Conservancy, outdoor recreation worldwide has declined sharply since the 1980s. While they may have the widespread, long-term research to support this statement, we know there’s good stuff going on out there—and we are on the hunt to find it.

National Geographic Maps, in collaboration with ADVENTURE magazine, has just introduced the first annual Outdoor Geographic Awareness (TOGA) Awards to celebrate the people, gear retailers, manufacturers, and NGOs who are finding new and creative ways to promote geographic awareness and build outdoor participation. The TOGA Awards reflect National Geographic's mission to inspire people to care about the planet and to encourage people of all ages to explore their world.

Applications and nominations will be accepted online at www.natgeomaps.com/toga through Friday, June 27, 2008. The awards will be presented on Friday, August 8, 2008, at 4 p.m., at Outdoor Retailer in Salt Lake City.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear Review: SPOT Satellite Messenger

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The most important outdoor product of the last couple years isn’t a jacket, trail shoe, kayak, or mountain bike. It’s the SPOT Satellite Messenger, which lets you call for help almost anywhere in the world via the Globalstar satellite network.

Continue reading this story and see more photos>>

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro The Best Product Names of 2008

Text and photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Pity outdoor industry product managers. Every spring and fall, they're required to name 20 new things. Or 30. Or if they work for the North Face or Columbia, 6,482. That’s 20 or 30 or 6,482 clever, creative, and unique names that so perfectly embody the pants, packs, and parkas that they sell themselves. Yeah, right. I’ve actually given a dictionary of topographical terms as a lifeline to a few desperate cases.

Which might explain sudden popularity of products named “fen” that next spring. Sorry, everyone.

In any event, let us give props to the companies with enough cojones to let their goofiest, silliest, and most creative names off the leash and out of the conference room. These fun little aberrations are a blessed relief. And, who knows, maybe they even help sell:

“It’s just another messenger bag.”
“No, it isn’t, it’s the Tony Blair Squirrel.”
“Ohhh, cool! I want one.”

Continue reading this story and see more photos>>

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Gear: Twice is Nice for Carriers of Rice

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Skip the attempts at creative writing, let’s get right to the point: This super-rad Keen messenger bag is made of recycled rice sacks, which were discarded, discovered in a corner of Keen’s shoe factory in Panyu, China, and repurposed as this one of a kind carryall. Giant recycled rice sacks, how cool is that?

Continue reading this story>>

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Not Nau? Idealistic New Brand Goes Under

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

It was a valiant effort to reinvent the business of outdoor clothing, but Nau has shut down operations and closed its five retail stories, the most recent of which opened less then two weeks ago. After burning through $35 million in financing, the Portland apparel maker was unable to convince additional investors that its unconventional take on business, sustainability, and charity could be profitable.

Continue reading this story>>