 When I got into hiking and backpacking about five years ago, I guess, I was so excited in the beginning. I wanted to make sure that I have every single piece of gear possible. I wanted to look the part and I wanted to make sure that I'm prepared, which is important, but I realized that you don't have to have all of the fancy gear in the beginning as long as you have the 10 essentials to keep you safe on the trail. And I also realized that it takes time to even learn about your gear and learn about what you like, what you don't like, what you're comfortable with, and what you're not. And that's why whenever someone is new to hiking or backpacking and they ask me questions about gear, I always encourage them to take it slow, you know, take some time to try things out before you commit to spending money on gear because good quality gear can be expensive and you don't want to just invest a good amount of money with gear that you may not like down the line. And you could do that through things like either borrowing gear from your friends who are already into hiking or backpacking if they are open to that, or you can even rent gear from outfitters. I know that there are a lot of local outfitters depending on where you live that are open to rent their gear and there are larger outfitters like REI here in the United States. And what's great about REI is that if you are a member, not only you can rent gear from them to try and use when you are going out camping or hiking, but you can even purchase gear from them and try it. And if you don't like it for one reason or the other, you can still return it. They are super flexible, which is great, especially with the outdoors gear. But anyway, for me at this point of time, and after five years, I think I went through many iterations of trying a pair of shoes, not liking it, trying something else. And I think at this point of time, I know what I like and I am happy with what I have. And that's the reason why I'm making this video. I wanted to share with you 10 items from my favorite pieces that I bought over the past five years that I absolutely love, that I would buy again if I have to, and that I would highly recommend without even thinking about it twice. This is not a sponsored video, but you might find some affiliate links in the description box referring to all of these items either on Amazon or REI. Alrighty, I'm very excited for this. So let's get started. And I'm going to start with my new hiking shoes. They look pretty dirty, but these hiking shoes are absolutely amazing. I tried some hiking shoes from Colombia. I tried Meryl hiking boots, but this is my best and my favorite hiking shoes. This is the Soloman X Ultra for Midgortex. That's what they are called exactly. And I'm going to put the price right here because I don't remember exactly. I love these shoes for many reasons. First of all, with hiking boots, I'm going to refer, for example, to Meryl hiking boots. They were great. I was very happy with them back then. But I found that the majority of these hiking boots, they are very stiff and they're not the most comfortable in general. Like, you wouldn't just wear them on a normal day to go and walk. But these were super soft from the inside. Like, I can see myself traveling with these, just wearing them casually to go for a walk in the city or whatever. They are extremely comfortable. And you know how usually you need some time to break in hiking shoes? That wasn't the case with this one. I bought them to read online and reading some good reviews and recommendations. And I took them for the first time at Pike's Peak, a very strenuous hike in Colorado, one of the 14ers. And they were extremely comfortable. I probably shouldn't have done that, but I was trying to get comfortable wearing them before climbing Kilimanjaro. I absolutely loved them. I took them on many other 14ers. They were extremely comfortable. I took them up on Mount Kilimanjaro and they were so lovely. They are waterproof. They have very good grip and the color. I think even black and this orange salmon color like is really pretty. You can try to convince me otherwise, but I think this is the best hiking boot out there. Alright, so that's number one. Number two, I have my Osprey three liter hydration bladder. This is absolutely amazing. Osprey is a good brand and I'm very happy that I invested in this water bladder. In the past, I used to take water bottles with me. It's so funny when I did the Grand Canyon rim to rim, I was literally carrying a big jug of water that was attached to the outside of my backpack. Oh my God, when I see that photo, I just can't help but laugh. But with this system right now is just makes the whole hydration system very practical. So with this hydration pack, all you have to do is you would put it in your backpack and then it's got a hose that connects to it. And then that would basically go right like you're wearing your backpack. It goes through the backpack. And this is how you hydrate, which is super convenient. And I do have two videos. One of them is a general review about this bladder. You can find it up here. And then the second one is how to clean this water bladder, which is very important. I mean, you are going to be putting water that you drink throughout the day and you want to make sure that it's clean. So you have to keep cleaning those regularly. The video is going to be up there as well. But I love this hydration bladder. There is no problem with leakage. I mean, you just fill it all the way. Just want to make sure that you don't go above the the max fill right here. It's very secure and it works amazing. Highly recommend it. Okay, next my little favorite C2Same Ultra Sill Day Pack. I love this day pack. I think I've been using them for over a year right now. But this is a small collapsible day pack. I have one in this color. Alex has got a blue one. And basically it just turns into a day pack, just like this. This is very convenient for when you go backpacking and you know that you're just going to leave your tent. You're going to leave your bulky, heavy backpack and you're going to be taking some side hikes or short hikes. This works very well. When I also was on Mount Kilimanjaro, we would get to camp, drop all of our stuff and take acclimatization hikes. So I would take this small one and I would have my small emergency kit, water, snack or two. And it's really well. It's not supposed to be waterproof, but I took it on hikes where it was raining. I even took it on a hike in Idaho, a snow hike, really. You can watch it up here if you'd like to. But it was incredible. It always works amazingly well. And it's very compact. Sometimes I would have small carabiner. I think they come with their own carabiner, which is this one right here. I'm using it for something else, but it comes with its own carabiner and I would usually just attach it to my backpack. Very, very lightweight, very convenient. And next up, I have a two-way radio. This one is from Midland. This is very useful, especially because me and Alex, we hike the majority of the time together. And I think if you are hiking as a couple or you are hiking with a friend, it's important to be able to communicate with your partner. Sometimes one person wants to stay in the back, one person wants to hike faster. And if you are worried or interested in the safety or the well-being of the other person, it's good to know that they are safe and it's good to know that you can communicate with them. So I would usually have one on me, Alex would carry the other one, and this way we can communicate all the time. I love this one. Trekking poles. This is where the name trekking pals come from, really. But these are black diamonds trekking poles. When I just started hiking, I didn't really appreciate or even understood why people are even using trekking poles. I thought that it's more for older people or people who have difficulty walking. But then with time, I understood the importance of trekking poles. And right now I take them with me pretty much everywhere, unless I'm going on a hike that requires more scrambling and there isn't really a need to use trekking poles. But I love using the trekking poles. They are very important and very useful because they alleviate some of the pressure on your lower back and your knees. Because if you think about it, when you are hiking on the trail, you really have two points of contact or two points of pressure, which are your feet. But then when you have trekking poles, that's four points of contact. And this way the weight is distributed and there isn't a lot of pressure on your knees. Especially if hiking is something that you want to do long term and you want to keep doing it even when you get older, this is a perfect way. I love trekking poles also when we are hiking downhill because that's when most of the injuries happen. And so I love trekking poles, especially these from Black Diamonds. They are great. I took them with me on many 14ers here in the United States. I took them with me when I hiked the Inca Trail. I took them on Mount Kilimanjaro. Usually with international treks like this, the companies would offer you an option to rent trekking poles. But I always love to take them with me because I feel like sometimes you just, over time, you develop that relationship with your gear. And I feel like they have a lot of character with all of the scratches and being able to travel around the world is just incredible. It's funny how this is a rubber that I usually like to use when I'm traveling. So usually if you're traveling with trekking poles, you're flying, you have to check them in. And if you don't want to rupture your duffel bag or whatever pack they are going in, you want to make sure that you have a rubber stopper like this. But I kept mine when I was hiking Kilimanjaro and from all of the walking and the pressure. Now it's stuck in there. Like these are the original rubbers. So I have an alternative right here. But anyway, that's not important. That's just the detail. Love the trekking poles. This is my favorite day pack. This is the Osprey Tempest 20 liters for women. And I'm going to leave a comment right here with the version for men. But I absolutely love this day pack. There are many reasons why I love it, but I'm going to touch quickly on the features that I love the most. For me, the most important thing about the backpack is making sure that it's got a soft frame. I don't like the heavy bulky backpacks that have, you know, very rigid frame that it doesn't feel comfortable for your bag. But this one, it's got some foam, if you can see it right here, that it makes it so soft. And then also I feel like it bends easily, that it usually adopts the shape of my back, which is important to me. So it's really, really flexible, super comfortable. It doesn't even feel like you're carrying a backpack when you are hiking in it. I love that they have hip pockets right here. One of the things that I really enjoy about this one is this little pocket right here. Because usually when I'm hiking, I have my GoPro with me. And this is the stick that I have for the GoPro. It fits perfectly in here. So I would just walk in it and then grab the GoPro whenever I want to, which is really, really convenient. I love this piece right here. This is a backpack that I take whenever we go rock climbing as well. And when we go rock climbing, I usually use this to attach my helmet to the backpack, which is really helpful. The other thing that I absolutely love about it is that there is a compartment right here just for the water bladder, because the majority of backpacks, you would have to put your water bladder that I showed you earlier inside of the backpack. So with this one, it's separated. So all you have to do, you fill your water bladder and then you just slide it in here and it's separated. The rest of your items, they don't have to be mixed with the water bladder, which is really, really cool. Next up is the peak design clip. So this is more if you are a person who takes their camera on the trail. I think Alex was the first one to find out about the peak design clip. And since then, I can't imagine now hiking without this. So the way this works, you would attach to your backpack like I would attach it somewhere right here. You basically just clip it and then there is an additional attachments that you can attach to the camera and you would just slide the camera up and down. It's very convenient instead of having to carry the camera in your hand or around your neck. This is super, super helpful. I love the peak design clip. We have a lot of other gear from peak design. We have their camera bag. We have the tripod from peak design, but this is absolutely gorgeous. And that also makes for a great gift. I have been using this Jetboil for the past three to four years, I believe, especially when we go backpacking. This is great to make hot water. Usually when we go backpacking, we take meals like mountain house meals. So all we need to do really to make a meal is to make some hot water and then add it to the mountain house meal or whatever other brand we're going for. And that's it. So this has been working really, really well for us. And we were also told that it works great at elevation. If you are hiking in snow and doing some glacier hiking or mountaineering with elevation and with having to melt some snow to get water, we were told that this one doesn't take as much time to melt snow and get hot water. We haven't tried it in snow really, but I guess we should maybe we'll do it this year. But love the Jetboil. It's definitely worth every penny. Another backpack that I bought specifically to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This is REI backpack 40 liters for women. And the reason I bought this one, although I love the Osprey that I showed you earlier, is because for Mount Kilimanjaro, they recommended between 30 liters and 40 liters and the 20 liters wasn't enough. So that's why I went with this one. When I went to REI, like I said, the first thing I look for is a soft frame, soft back frame. And you can see right here it's got some padding. So it was super comfortable on my backpack. I was a little bit hesitant in the beginning, but there was a guy at REI who told me that he has the same backpack. He loves it. And now I absolutely love it. It unzips all the way, which makes it easy to find things around the backpack for the water bladder. There is a pouch inside of the backpack, which I usually like it to be on the outer side of the backpack, but I don't mind it. And this worked really great, super comfortable. Right now, I don't use it just for hiking, but really for traveling. When I went to Guatemala a few months ago, that was my travel bag and I absolutely loved it. We have two more things and I should be done. This one right here is my favorite, Merino wool balaclava. Balaclava. I bought this one also for Mount Kilimanjaro. It's super helpful, especially in colder temperatures. It just keeps your head very warm. And Merino wool is a great material. It absorbs any sweat or moisture. It keeps you warm and it's overall a great material. And let me show you right here. That's what it looks like. My very favorite mountaineering jewel bow sunglasses. Alex got his pair first. I'll leave the price right here, but they are absolutely gorgeous. They are cool. They look cool. They are very stylish, but they work great when you are hiking in snow. If you are doing a lot of glacier traveling, because when the sun is out, once it hits the snow or a glacier and it reflects back, it's really strong and it can be hurtful to your eyes. And this is a great way to protect your eyes. I love them so much. I took them for the first time on Mount Kilimanjaro. I don't wear them on regular hikes, at least I try not to. I have just my normal athletic glasses, but this is more for mountaineering activities and for glacier traveling. I think that covers everything that I had in mind for today. I hope that you guys enjoyed this video. I hope that you either found it informative or entertaining in one way or the other. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. My name is Habiba. This is Trekking Pals and I will see you very soon on a new adventure.