Independent buying guides
For trampers and campers in New Zealand sorting out gear before a Great Walk or a weekend away. Each guide answers one buying question, gives sourced figures in NZD with check dates, and shows every calculator's formula.
Each guide answers one buying question and shows the figures behind the answer.
How to choose
Wind, rain and the ground you can actually peg into decide this, not the sleeping capacity on the label. What to settle before you compare tents, in NZD.
Photo: nikhil more · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Budget and prices
DOC hut fees are published, so the only unknown is your gear divided by the nights you use it. Worked in NZD, GST included, with the arithmetic shown.
Photo: Olympic National Park · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Packing and load
Base weight plus food plus water is the whole sum. Three worked kits for a three-night Great Walk, and what each one weighs as a share of body weight.
Photo: User:James086 · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The decisions that actually change what you end up with.
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Photo: Claus Ableiter · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Weight, volume and what gets left behind.
1
Photo: Jotpe · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Temperature, weather and terrain, with real numbers.
0
Photo: nikhil more · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
What the total comes to once everything is counted.
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Photo: Olympic National Park · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Intervals, parts and what they cost.
0
Photo: Original photo: Michael Pereckas on Flickr Modified by Gazebo on February 3, 2015 with the addition of comment and XMP-cc:License metadata and the removal of JPEG IFD1 (thumbnail) metadata. · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Standards, warnings and the checks worth doing.
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Photo: Ryan Hodnett · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Each calculator shows its formula, units and assumptions. Nothing is estimated for you in secret.
Adds up a kit list against a weight target and a body-weight guideline.
total = base weight + consumables (water litres x 1 kg + food days x food per day); share of body weight = total / body weight x 100
What a cross-border order really costs once shipping, duty and tax are added.
landed cost = (item price + shipping) + duty + tax, where duty = item price x duty rate, and tax = (item price + shipping + duty) x tax rate
Turns a price into a cost per use, so a dear item used often can be compared with a cheap one used rarely.
cost per use = (price + consumables over the whole life) / (uses per week x 52 x years)
Every figure in a guide is taken from a named source, with the date it was checked. Where a number is an assumption or an example, it says so in the same sentence.
We do not run paid product tests, we do not publish reader reviews, and we do not claim to have handled every product mentioned. Where a claim needs a lab or a long-term test we do not have, the guide says that plainly.
Photographs are free-licence images from Wikimedia Commons or Openverse, credited to the photographer with the licence named. Charts are drawn from the figures printed in the same guide.
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