What's new for camping?

[haven]

In today's mail, I received a catalog from Camp-Mor, the big east coast camping store. Paging through the catalog, I was struck by how little seems to have changed in outdoor clothing and camping gear in the last 10 years.

There are a few new items: more LED flashlights, clothing with built-in SPF and bug repellent, gps route finding gadgets, and more personal hydration products (Camelbak, etc).

What other clothing or gear is new or substantially revised since 1998?

Chip Haven

[TheRoadie]

Eureka has a line of car camping tents called the N!Ergy line like this one, with built-in 12V wiring and some accessories. I would have been all over that 20 years ago. No need now.

You can also get Coleman drip coffee makers, propane powered crock-pots and toaster-ovens and bug zappers. Again - there's a market for these but it's not me.

And gasoline powered margarita blenders.

In clothing, I like the Columbia Titanium line for the easy-wash/dry fabrics; I don't remember anything so high-tech in 1998.

[grouch]

My take on what's new in camping is weight. Everything is being made with new materials to make things lighter for the ultra light weight gram counter backpacker types. Some really cool tents have shown up like all the Nemo tents.

[grahamfitter]

The most interesting thing I've seen in years is the JetBoil stove. It does one thing and it does it well. (That's boiling water wherever and whenever to make tea. Tea is very important.)

Cheers,
Graham