A long-distance hiker has rounded up the small, cheap additions that transformed their days on trail — and most of them weigh mere ounces. The logic throughout is simple: anything you carry has to earn its place, and these items did.
The first fix targets the most hated camp chore: inflating a sleeping pad by mouth. After years of lightheaded puffing at altitude — plus mould blooming inside pads from all that moist breath — the writer switched to a tiny rechargeable pump like the Flextail or Alpenblow Lux. A few ounces, pad inflated in under a minute, pad lifespan extended. Easy win.
Water bottles get an upgrade too. The ubiquitous single-use Smartwater bottle works well for a 'one dirty, one clean' filter system, but reused plastic gets crinkled, traps grime in the threads and sheds microplastics into your drinking water. Purpose-built squeezable bottles from Mazama Designs (M!GO), Igneous Gear (NOBO) and CNOC (ThruBottle) do the same job durably and filter-compatible.
The quirkiest pick is the Trailbrush — a toothbrush head that clips onto a long-handled spork. It sounds absurd, but the writer says it multiplied their on-trail toothbrushing roughly tenfold by removing the friction of digging out a separate brush after dinner. Less weird but more debated: an umbrella. Used first for desert sun on New Mexico's stretch of the Continental Divide Trail, it ended up carried the whole way to Canada because it handles rain and hail better than any jacket — breathable, genuinely waterproof, no overheating. Gossamer Gear's version got the nod, with Hyperlite Mountain Gear's vented model on the wishlist.
Camp shoes come in for a rethink as well. Crocs are functional but bulky; Xero Shoes Z-Trail EV sandals take up about a quarter of the pack space, still work with socks, and grip well enough for the occasional stream crossing. For hygiene, the Kula Cloth — a reusable, antimicrobial pee cloth with odour-killing silver thread that snaps to the outside of your pack — replaces packed-out toilet paper and has become a non-negotiable.
The cheapest trick costs pennies: skip the pack cover and line the inside of your pack with a heavy-duty trash compactor bag. Covers fail in prolonged downpours because water seeps through the back panel; an internal liner keeps your quilt and down jacket dry even if the whole pack gets soaked.
Rounding out the list: a large fanny pack (the writer uses Chicken Tramper Ultralight's 2.5L Trailmix Switchpack) so snacks and drink mixes are reachable without stopping — which also shifts weight forward and helps balance; a genuinely comfortable foam pillow like the NEMO Fillo for trips where sleep matters more than grams; and, finally, one deliberately impractical luxury. A knitting project, a book, fairy lights, even a pool floatie — anything that forces a proper break instead of grinding miles from dawn to dusk.
Why should holiday travellers care? Because almost all of this applies to any camping or multi-day trek, anywhere. Most items cost less than a restaurant meal and together they remove the small daily annoyances — cold damp gear, crumbly teeth routine, snack-stop friction — that quietly sour a trip. If you're kitting up for a hiking holiday this year, this list is a smarter shopping starting point than any big-ticket purchase.
