Who I Am
My name is William. I earned my Eagle Scout and never stopped going outside. I hike most weekends in the mid-Atlantic region — usually the Blue Ridge, a section of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, or Shenandoah National Park. A few times a year we pack up and head down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for beach camping on the barrier islands.
I have two kids under 10 who come along on a lot of the easier hikes and campouts. Their feedback on gear is sometimes the most honest thing I collect — they have no patience for anything that is complicated to set up, heavy to carry, or annoying at a campsite. Some of their complaints have changed my scores.
I started TrailCraft because I kept getting frustrated reading gear reviews that were either clearly sponsored or written by people testing gear in conditions that do not resemble how most people actually use it. This site is the notes I have accumulated over years of regular outdoor use — what works, what does not, and what is actually worth the money.
How I Review Gear
Every product I review, I have used. That sounds obvious but a lot of gear review sites are written by people who have read the spec sheet and synthesized other reviews. I do not do that. If I have not used it, I do not publish a review of it.
I score on five dimensions: trail or field performance, build quality and durability, weight and packability, value for money, and brand integrity — which covers warranty strength, whether the company actually honors it, and whether customer service is a real human being or a dead end.
I tend to favor smaller brands over large ones not out of ideology but because in my experience, smaller companies with founder-level accountability tend to make better products and back them up better. That shows up in my rankings. If a larger brand makes the best product in a category, it gets ranked accordingly — several do.
I update reviews when I get meaningful new information — a product change, a warranty change, or enough additional miles to have a different opinion. The update date on each review reflects when content was last meaningfully changed.
Affiliate Disclosure
Some links on TrailCraft are affiliate links. This means if you click through and buy something, I may earn a small commission — typically a few percent of the purchase price — at no additional cost to you.
Those commissions help fund the testing. Buying gear to review costs real money, and the affiliate income helps cover that.
My rankings are not influenced by affiliate relationships. No one pays to get ranked. No one pays to get a higher score. The brands I rank at the top are there because they made the best products in my testing. In several cases the brand I rank #1 has a smaller affiliate program than the brand I rank #4.
This disclosure is here because the FTC requires it and because you deserve to know how the site works. If you want to support TrailCraft at no cost to you, buying through the links here is the best way to do it.
Where I Test Gear
Most of my testing happens in the mid-Atlantic region. Specific areas I cover regularly:
- ▲Shenandoah National Park, VA
- ▲Appalachian Trail, Virginia section
- ▲Blue Ridge Parkway, VA and NC
- ▲Great Smoky Mountains National Park
- ▲Outer Banks, North Carolina (camping)
- ▲Linville Gorge and Roan Highlands, NC