With the advent of the Internet and online shopping, the potential to become more informed buyers has lost its promise.
Instead, product reviews have mostly become a for-profit enterprise that only benefits manufacturers and those who make a living reviewing products.
So the title of this site is “Nick’s Excellent Camping and Backpacking Adventures.”
But there haven’t been many adventures to write about in the past year, and zero since Joyce broke her ankle last September.
That is about to change.
Continue reading Where Have the Excellent Camping and Backpacking Adventures Gone?
Chris and Kat live just north of Santa Cruz, California. They lost their home and most of their belongings in the recent fires. To make matters worse, three of their kids also lost their homes in the fires.
Continue reading Can You Help My Friends Katharina and Chris?
Like almost most Americans, we are isolated at home due the our local state, county, and city “stay-in-place” orders. Life isn’t working out according to plan. After a full-time engagement of four years of house remodeling projects, this was going to be a year of extensive backpacking and camping. I should point out that during the previous four years, we did are fair share of camping, probably more than most people. I also did several backpacking trips during each of the past four years of my retirement. Currently, in the State of California, most backpacking and camping opportunities don’t exist. Most places are closed to use. At the same time, we are in a high risk population as regards coronavirus infection. I’m scheduled to reach my 70th year milestone on the planet and Joyce isn’t far behind. Approaching 70, the fact is very real I don’t have a lot of backpacking years ahead, so I would like to maximize each year going forward.
Given all of this, it is wisest for us to stay in place until life equalizes and gets back to some sort of normality. So we are stuck at home, or perhaps better stated, we are willing staying at home for a while.
Staying at home for extended periods of time is a new state of being for many Americans today. Many aren’t handling it well. So the purpose of this post is to share my experiences as a retiree for the past four year, and more importantly, the 18 years I spent working from home – often for months at a time. The following topics will be reviewed with a focus on how to maximize your time, or better yet, how not to waste time. Continue reading Lockdown or Liberty: How to Deal with Stay-in-Place Orders
When upgrading to a new (or newer) vehicle and needing to dispose of your present vehicle, should you
The answer may surprise you.
Continue reading Should You Sell Your Vehicle to CarMax or Trade It In?
We at PopUpBackpacker have been closely monitoring the outbreak of COVID-19, especially paying attention to social media and its influencers, who provide more valuable advice than the CDC, state and local health departments.
Continue reading COVID-19 and PopUpBackpacker.com
As we do at the end of each year, we spent the last two weeks (and New Year’s) of the year camping. Leaving home on Dec 20th the forecast was rain, rain, and more rain (L.A. got over three inches) and desert lows in the 30s. Is this camping weather?
Continue reading Camping Weather and some thoughts on 2019 & 2020
As we near the end of October, many campers are “winterizing” their campers and putting them into storage. Given our location and easy access to year round camping we “winterize” differently.
This summer we bought a pair of Honda generators as I shared a while back. These were purchased only for use in summer when temperatures are in triple digits (meaning we won’t have any camping neighbors). They also can be used for backup electricity in case of a power outage. We won’t need them for at least 6 months, so it was time to winterize them – meaning to do any required maintenance and prep them for storage. Just in case you have Honda EU 2000 series generators and haven’t read the manual, other than the Quick Reference Guide, here is the maintenance schedule.
You know what I’m talking about — almost every Wal-Mart, Big Box Hardware Store, and even many convenience stores have those cages where you can exchange your 5 gallon propane tank for a “full” tank.
So, is it a good deal to exchange your tanks?
The short answer is No. Continue reading Is it a Good Deal to “Exchange” Your Propane Tanks?
In the not so distance past, the US Postal Service was a very customer-unfriendly organization. We had to do things their way, seems someone removed the words “customer” and “convenience” from their dictionary. In the early days of Fax machines the post office tried to get Faxes classified as First Class mail, and since the USPS has a monopoly on First Class Mail, every Fax would have to be sent to them first and then hand delivered by a postal carrier. That idea didn’t work. I remember back in the ‘80s or early ‘90s the Postmaster General decided that Fax machines were competition and all these machines were removed from USPS facilities. Cooperation with UPS or FedEx? No way?
Today the USPS has a convenient presence on the internet; one can buy stamps at grocery stores, drug stores, and even Costco. You can print your own postage via private companies like Stamp.com. UPS and FedEx now deliver packages to the USPS for final deliver by the Postal Service – a benefit to everyone, including the public. You can communicate electronically with the USPS, track packages and even obtain special services via your computer for when you are away camping. Overall I think the USPS does a great job. The only time we have had problems is when we did something wrong, such as send a package to the wrong address. Here’s a couple of services we use a lot that folks might not be aware of. Continue reading How the Post Office Can Help You When You Are Camping