Why a Simple Camping Mug Is the Perfect Holiday Gift 

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 weekend breathing in the pine trees and campfire smoke, the crisp air and fluttering aspen trees, the massive granite walls and flowing rivers. I was in love—with the mountains, with camping, with my new mug.

I used that mug the rest of college. I’d fill it with my morning Grape Nuts and sit on the deck or couch chomping away, dreaming of how the low-in-the-sky fall sun lit up the wheat-colored Valley floor dotted with dark green pines. Every time I used it, I’d be reminded of the camping trip I’d had, and the many, many more I wanted to do. That mug signified adventure. Multiple moves, roommates, and life changes later, I don’t know what happened to my Yosemite mug, but any camping mug has (almost) the same effect, calling to me with the promise of a weekend in the woods.

With that promise in mind, here’s a gift idea for someone on your list: an empty cup. But not just any old empty cup. A camping mug (like the Primus 4-Season Mg .3L) that’s lightweight, durable, ready for hot cocoa, coffee, granola, or whiskey—and overflowing with the idea of an unforgettable outdoor experience. Up your game by nabbing a summer car camping reservation (many book six months out, to the day), print it out, and stick it in the mug. Or fill the mug with a backpacking permit, or a laminated topographic map of the trails that lead from a campground. Voila—you’ve given the gift of daydreaming about summer camping in the middle of winter. You’ve given the gift of adventure.

Give an Empty Case

A couple of years ago, a friend organized a group of us to celebrate her birthday rafting down the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon. Leading up to the trip, she sent us each a Hydroflask Dry Storage bag and a copy of The Emerald Mile. (She is a very thoughtful friend.) The dry storage bag was large enough for a phone or camera and attached via Velcro strap to anything—a rope on a raft, the handle of a larger dry bag, the loop on a Nalgene bottle.

That dry bag represented adventure to be had, served as crafty functionality on that trip, and has kept my phone safe and dry on subsequent river trips, paddle board sessions, and more water-based adventures since.

For watermen and women on your list, consider the gift of a watertight bag or case of some sort. Fill it with a promise of SUP, raft, canoe, or kayak outings, or other splashy fun come spring.

Give an Empty Bag

For the person on your list who is perhaps tired of their regular gym routine, or could simply benefit from a new activity, a chalk bag like this one from Prana can signify a winter of rock climbing indoors and all the strength training, ninja-esque playfulness that comes with it. And if you live somewhere climbing can take place outdoors in the winter, all the better. If not, climbing indoors through winter makes for great climbing outdoors come spring and summer.

Fill a chalk bag with…chalk, or with a punch card to the local climbing or bouldering gym. Or, write a sweet note promising to belay your partner, child, or friend on the rock or plastic wall inside or out.

These little gifts—a mug, a drybag, a chalk bag—carry big meaning and give your friend/family/loved one/adventure partner a whole lot more than something tangible. And can you really put a price on adventure?