Home All writing Essays Feautres Gear Profiles, News, and How-to's

Features

Gear

Outside Online •

Why These Three Women Outdoor Leaders Are Facing More Challenges Than Ever

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today.
Let’s face it: It’s a tough time to be anything besides a white male. And while the outdoor industry has long been a fantastic place to find our joys in nature, the industry—like many others—has been male dominated, especially when it comes to leadership roles at the brands that make the gear we all use...
Outside Online •

6 Ways to Carry Your Phone on a Run

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
I’m somewhat baffled when I see people running with a phone in their hand. I get why you want your phone with you: for safety, for taking spontaneous photos, for emergency calls from loved ones. But awkwardly gripping a sweaty phone during a run is hard work (tightens your muscles and throws off your b...
Outside Online •

The Best Trail-Running Shoes for Every Terrain

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today.
Today’s trail-running shoes are more advanced than ever, incorporating cutting-edge materials, innovative designs, and clever blends of foams, plates, fabrics, outsole rubbers, and lug patterns. This combination results in shoes that excel across diverse terrain like never before.
A great pair of trail s...
Outside Online •

The Best Trail-Running Shoes for Every Terrain

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
Today’s trail-running shoes are more advanced than ever, incorporating cutting-edge materials, innovative designs, and clever blends of foams, plates, fabrics, outsole rubbers, and lug patterns. This combination results in shoes that excel across diverse terrain like never before.
A great pair of trail...
Outside Online •

Fanny Packs Are Back and I’m On Board, Sort Of

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve been wearing a fanny pack lately. And not ironically, as part of a retro costume with roller skates, leg warmers, or a boom box on my shoulder.
I’d been seeing them on the streets and trails for a while, but I had successfully fought the resurgence of the 1980s...
Outside Online •

The Best Running Shoes for Training and Racing

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
We are experiencing one of the most thrilling eras in the history of running shoes. In recent years, cutting-edge materials, innovative geometries, and creative combinations of foams, plates, fabrics, and soles have resulted in faster, lighter, and more comfortable models than ever before.
The good new...
Outside Online •

The Best Thing You Can Do at the Beach, and Three Smart Things You Can Do for the Beach

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
Growing up in San Diego, I used to beachcomb with my mom. We’d walk slowly, staring down at the sand at our feet with the sound of waves and seabirds in the background, looking for sand dollars and interestingly shaped shells. It was calming. Mesmerizing. We’d lose track of time.
So when I found myself...
Outside Online •

Camp Shoes Make Life Better

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
There’s nothing wrong with wearing running shoes or hiking boots around camp, whether you’re backpacking or car camping. They work. They protect your feet, as shoes tend to do. But I’m a firm believer in the value of camp shoes—lightweight, easy on-and-off footwear to wear when spending nights outside....
Outside Online •

Reviewed: The Travel Yoga Mat I Take Everywhere

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
For the past few years, I’ve sought a yoga mat I could easily travel with—something lightweight and foldable that would allow me to unroll anywhere: the back patio of an AirbnB, a hotel room, the basement of my brother-in-law’s house during Thanksgiving week. Unrolling a yoga mat is like having a porta...
Outside Online •

8 Funky Shorts (and Jorts!) I’m Loving This Summer

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today →.
Shorts can be boring. They’re just short pants, often made out of a lightweight but durable polyester blend—which makes them great for warm weather running, hiking, gardening, lounging, biking, camping, or just about any outdoor activity—but predictable. Earlier this summer, however, I discovered the p...
Outside Online •

Best Bikinis for Beach Bums Who Refuse to Grow Up

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today.
I’ve always felt that the right two-piece bathing suit reigns supreme over a one-piece for active women of any age or body type. The top of a bikini provides sports bra-like support—or at least more support than the top half of a one-piece bathing suit. Bikini bottoms tend to stay in place better than th...
Outside Online •

Best Bikinis for Beach Bums Who Refuse to Grow Up

I’ve always felt that the right two-piece bathing suit reigns supreme over a one-piece for active women of any age or body type. The top of a bikini provides sports bra-like support—or at least more support than the top half of a one-piece bathing suit. Bikini bottoms tend to stay in place better than the bottom of a one-piece, which, with movement, inevitably creeps and needs constant readjusting. And in the summer heat, the lack of fabric around the midsection just feels better.
Having grown u...
Outside Online •

Can You Comfortably Wear a Long-Sleeve Sun Hoodie in Summer Heat and Humidity?

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up!
Subscribe today.
It seems like every major outdoor brand is selling a hooded sunshirt this summer. There’s a good reason: It’s a pain to coat yourself in sunblock every time you head outdoors for a hike, fish, paddle, or float. Throwing on a lightweight, long-sleeve shirt with a hood that covers the back of your neck is...
Outside Online •

My New Splitboard Sometimes Frightens and Frustrates Me—That’s One Reason I Love It

It is fairly terrifying to trust a strip of fuzzy fabric to keep you from careening backwards down a steep, snowy ski hill while trying to climb up it. That fuzz’s friction is all I could think about the first time I splitboarded up Steamboat, Colorado’s blue runs at seven a.m. while my family was still nestled in their beds in the condo nearby. I had only ever splitboarded once before on demo gear, so I was putting a lot of faith in my new Pomoca Free Pro 2.0 skins affixed to the bottom of my 2
Outside Online •

The Best Winter Running Shoes for Road and Trail

Winter running shoes have come a long way from the heavy, clunky, almost boot-like waterproof kicks offered a decade ago, and most shoe companies are now creating one or more weather-defying models.

Earlier this winter, a small fleet of runners and I tested this year’s offerings in Boulder, Colorado to find the best of the bunch. (Many of last year’s models are still available, as well.) This season’s top picks range from relatively lightweight (for a waterproof shoe) and agile runners with tra
Outside Online •

I Own Expensive Skate Skis. Here’s Why I Still Reach for My Old Beaters.

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

The year I moved from beachy San Diego to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in Boulder, Colorado, I decided to learn how to skate ski. All the endurance athletes around here are doing it, I thought, and I considered myself among that crew. I rented a pair of slightly banged up Fischer SCS demo skis from the local outdoor shop and headed to North Boulder Park, where, graciou
Outside Online •

I Love My Fleece Tops, but Should I?

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

It’s winter, which, for most outdoors people, means that it’s fleece season. Cozy, comfy fleece season.

Fleece dates back to 1981, when Yvon Chiounard worked with Malden Mills (now Polartec) to create something that felt as warm and cozy as his favorite wool sweater, but that dried quicker and compressed down smaller for backpacking trips. Since then, outdoor adventurers of a
Outside Online •

Why My Favorite Strength-Training Equipment Is a Backpack Made for Distance Running

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

Two years ago during one autumn week, I carried a load of food, water, a change of clothes, and some recovery slides on my back while running the Appalachian Trail between huts for four days. As one would expect, I worried how my body would hold up under the added weight. By the end of the trip, however, I felt stronger than I had when we’d begun.

Back at home in Boulder, Col
Outside Online •

This Obscure Piece of Gear Made Me (a SoCal Gal) Fall in Love with Winter

In my late-20s, I moved from San Francisco into a ski-lease cabin on the North Shore of Lake Tahoe with just my yellow lab, Hannah. I’d left the comfort of roommates and city life for a quieter existence that better-suited my inner mountain girl (who had yet to fully emerge from my Southern California upbringing and post-college urbanite self). I—we—lived alone most of the time, though there was no telling when one or more of 16 lease-mates might drive up from the city to stay a night or two (or
Outside Online •

Why a Simple Camping Mug Is the Perfect Holiday Gift

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

I bought my first tin camping mug from a gift shop in Yosemite Valley at the end of my first-ever car camping trip. I was a senior in college and traded the U.C. Santa Barbara Halloween party scene for a fall weekend in the trees. From the moment I picked up that blue mug with its white speckles off the shelf, I loved everything it represented: the experience I’d had that week
Outside Online •

4 Favorite Road-to-Trail Running Shoes

My favorite neighborhood running loop in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado makes choosing a pair of shoes a challenge. The route starts with a walk down a sidewalk past a few houses to a path that cuts through the middle of a community garden. There, I run across wood chips, weeds, and hard dirt, hit another sidewalk, and run concrete for about a mile, crossing two busy streets. At mile 1.3, I turn onto a rocky singletrack through tall grasses up, and then down, a very steep, loose, rocky hill wi
Outside Online •

The Best Trail Running Shoes of Winter 2024

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

It is impossible to name the single best trail running shoe for everyone. Every runner’s body, gait, speed, experience, and ride preferences are different, so every runner will interact differently with each trail shoe. The shoe that your best friend or your sister-in-law loves may be uncomfortable for you and make running feel slow, sluggish, or even painful. Finding the perf
Outside Online •

These Are Three Great Do-It-All T-Shirts for Women

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

I’ve been on a quest to find best do-it-all T-shirts for women and that means more than being able to breathe and feel good while I run, hike, ride, climb, do yoga, lift weights, paddle, and yes, sleep. To me, a perfect T-shirt can also be worn casually without screaming “I work out!”

Throughout my testing over a few months of doing all of the above, I came up with the follow
Outside Online •

My Love-Hate Relationship with Wraparound Sunglasses

Heading out the door? Read this article on the Outside app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app .

In the 1980s only the freaks wore wraparound sunglasses—the hyper-serious professional beach volleyball players and pro triathletes who did entire Ironman races in just their Speedos and shields. The predominant take-over-your-whole-face sunglasses worn by these athletes were Oakley Blades. I may have been a kid back then, but I still had some sense of style and judgment, and
Load More