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.

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The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Digging Out from Down Under

Glacier plane landing in the shadow of Mt. Cook, New Zealand's highest peak.

Text and picture by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The National Geographic ADVENTURE fall apparel guide shoot wrapped Sunday afternoon on the southeast coast of New Zealand's South Island. Thanks to Air New Zealand and the International Date Line, I was home by Sunday evening and experienced my longest Father's Day ever.

Now the second wave of fun begins. Today is Boxing Day--all the clothes get cleaned, sorted, packaged, and returned. Then comes weed whacking the nearly 11,000 images we shot over 11 days. Despite our best intentions, we had almost no time for in-depth editing on location--that's the downside of a two-person crew.

The hardest part is holding back the pictures until they run in the October issue. New Zealand was on its best behavior for us, with stunning weather at every turn. By traveling in late fall, we had almost every park, location, and lodge to ourselves. Kris, Linus, and Gabe couldn't have been better models nor traveling companions. They (and New Zealand) did their jobs impeccably--now let's hope I did mine.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Another Roadside Attraction: Montezuma Valley, California

Photo by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Molokai Wins Development Fight, But At High Cost

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The hand-painted signs are posted on trees, mail boxes, and front porches all across Molokai. “No to La’au Point”, they say, or simply, “No”. Living’s not so easy on the Friendly Isle, where jobs are scarce for the 7,500 residents, as I found out when the magazine sent me there last November to shoot a cover. But the people cling to their way of life, resisting the tourist pox of other islands, and have doggedly fought the proposed La’au development on the pristine southwest corner of the island.

Now the developer has fought back: The Singapore-based landowner closed its beautiful lodge at Molokai Ranch and fired all 120 employees.

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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.

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The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro Swimming with Sharks

Text and photos by West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

The first time you swim with sharks should be dramatic. There should be storm-tossed seas, fang-like Farallon Islands jutting from the water, hungry great whites thrashing as the first mate chums stinky fish guts overboard. You’re shivering into your cold chain mail shark suit as the grizzled sea dog captain growls, “Arr! Don’t be a-worryin’, lad! I’ve only lost three customers to the sharks—this week, harhar!”

Yes, that would be a great shark story.

But it’s not my shark story. For me, there was no “arrr”. Just three six-foot grey reef sharks--and me in my underwear.

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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.”

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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?

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