Tag: outdoors

5 Best Rain Jackets (2024): Cheap, Eco-Friendly, Hiking, and Running

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I also like Lululemon’s Cross Chill ($198), which has a very slim fit and is made from nylon and Lycra with a polyester lining. However, it’s just not quite as soft or stretchy as the Showers Pass jacket. All runners sweat, but our tolerance for cold and damp differs (my husband doesn’t even wear a rain jacket!), so your options are a little more flexible. I’m also currently testing the Tracksmith Downpour ($400), which, for its exorbitant price, gets you a PFAS-free DWR on a 3-layer jacket with many excellent features like a brimmed hood and a 360-degree mesh panel for breathability. I want to test it for a few more weeks in the horrible Oregon rain, but were it not for the cost, I would probably consider this the best jacket I’m testing right now.

Best Rain Jacket for Biking

As much time as I spend in the rain, I never get quite as soaked as I do when ebiking my two children to and from school. If you’re a dedicated cyclist who spends hours training outside, you will probably be better off with a lightweight, high-visibility jacket that can stretch as you move and vent heat. However, if you’re an everyday bike commuter, you likely want a less technical jacket.

Cleverhood is an independent, Rhode Island-based company, and its signature garment is the biking-friendly Rain Cape. The rain cape is OK, as it can fit over your heavier clothes without too much fuss. The anorak is my favorite, ho. Like the cape, it’s cut very generously to allow for a flannel shirt and a small down jacket underneath. It’s cut longer in the back to cover my tail as I’m riding. It also has a protected flap under the front zip so I don’t get wet when I open it up, and an enormous kangaroo pocket that’s handy for stowing my shell gloves, masks, and even bike locks in a pinch.

I also like that the hood is designed to fit under my helmet, which means I can move my head and neck around a little more easily. I do have to note, though, that I now have several Cleverhood jackets and have busted the zipper on one of them.

★ Alternative: If you bike a lot on the road, then you probably want a stretchy, high-visibility cycling jacket. Showers Pass is also great for this, and the Cloudburst jacket can also be worn cycling (without a hood, as you will probably be wearing a helmet).

Best Rain Jacket for Hiking

This year, Arc’teryx completely redesigned its classic line of Beta jackets. The standout feature is a new PFAS-free Gore-Tex expanded polyethylene (ePE) membrane that keeps wind and rain out, and lets sweat vapor escape. In addition to being lighter and thinner, it’s also more sustainable than the previous Beta jackets.

Arc’teryx notes that the new jacket took two years to develop and now has four layers: a soft backer fabric to wear against the skin, the ePE membrane, the recycled nylon face fabric, and a C0 DWR coating (C0 refers to the fact that there is a total absence of harmful fluorocarbons). Comparing this year’s Beta to last year’s Beta, I can feel that this year’s Beta is lighter, the interior is softer, and overall the fabric is more flexible. I wore this on all-day hikes in the spring on the Oregon coast, with high winds and pouring rain, and it kept me dry underneath. I particularly like features like the very strong rubberized cuffs that stay put over my gloves.

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May 2, 2024
Best Binoculars (2024): Nikon, Celestron, Swarovski, Zeiss
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One caveat: Cabela’s frequently sells the pre-2018 model of these at a steep discount but doesn’t label it as such. I have not tested that model, and while the deal is pretty good, the optics are definitely different and potentially inferior.

More Great 10×42 Binoculars
- Best luxury upgrade: Maven B1.2 42mm ED Binoculars for $1,000. These are in my top three all-time best list. If you can afford these, but not the Leicas, don’t feel bad. Images are clear, sharp, and crisp with no distortion or softness in the edges. I used them every day for two months and only noticed purple fringing once. They’re expensive but well worth the money.
- Budget pick: Nikon Monarch M5 10×42 for $267. These are the stronger-magnification version of our top pick, and everything I say about those holds true for the 10×42 as well. For those on a budget, these are a great 10×42 option.
- Another good budget pick: Celestron Regal ED 10×42 for $320. The Celestron Regal EDs are what I call a sleeper deal. That is to say, you’ll find very little information about these online, but they’re excellent binoculars, and the price is almost impossible to beat. You get great field of view (6.5 degrees), a sharp clear image, and very little chromatic aberration. I have not tested a better binocular that costs less.
- Another upgrade: Nikon Monarch HG 10×42 for $997. Nikon’s Monarch HG offer a slightly wider field of view and are brighter and sharper than the Vortex or the Celestron. I like the Maven B1.2s better, but that might be a matter of taste. If you want to keep going price-wise, the Swarovski EL 10×42 for $2,399 are deservedly legendary.
What if you want 8X magnification, but not the size and weight of 8×42 binoculars? That’s where 8×32, 8×30, and even 7×32 in some cases, come in. They offer the same magnification, but a narrower field of view—it can be more difficult to track small objects like a warbler flitting through foliage, but with a little practice it’s not too hard to manage. For hiking and traveling light, this size is a good compromise. I am still in the process of testing more models in this size range, but here are my picks so far.

When I head out hiking, the Celestron 8×32 Trailseeker ED (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are the binoculars I want around my neck. They’re light enough to hardly notice them, but have great optical performance for this price. The Trailseekers offer phase and dielectric-coated BaK-4 prisms, which is rare in this size binocular at this price (another way you might see this listed is roof prism binoculars with multi-coated optics). It works. The ED glass keeps fringing and other chromatic aberrations under control even in very bright, high-glare conditions. With a roughly 7.9-degree field of view, I find birding with these to be very similar to my 10X42, both the power and objective lens size are smaller, but the field of view ends up almost the same.

Small, lightweight, and portable. Comfortable eyecups. Easy to focus. Very little chromatic aberrations.

These Pentax are also excellent for the price. The 7.8-degree field of view is wide enough for most uses and the extra-low dispersion (ED) glass is very effective. I saw basically no chromatic aberrations, even on the edges. Even better, the sharpness to the edge is outstanding, better, in fact, than the Celestrons, but the magnification is less and the FOV is also slightly narrower. As with most of our picks, these are waterproof and fogproof. The focus knob is also very smooth. And at 20 ounces, I didn’t mind having them around my neck all day. If you’re hiking and this is in your budget, these are also a great choice.

More Great 8×32 and 7×32 Picks:
- Another solid option: Nocs Field Issue 8×32 for $175. These Nocs (8/10, WIRED Recommends) are compact and lightweight, but still provide a nice sharp image. They’re not quite as nice as the Pentax above, but they’re also cheaper. As with Nocs’ other binoculars, the Field Issue are waterproof and fogproof, and they come in a variety of colors. They offer comfortable eyecups and a nice oversized focus wheel that you can’t miss. These manage to hit the sweet spot between magnification, price, and weight.
Compact binoculars often involve a significant compromise in image quality. Depending on your use case, the weight savings may be worth the trade-off, but in general, I suggest that birders and hunters stick with 32-mm or larger binoculars. Yes, you can bird with 8x25s, but it’s often frustrating.

Maven’s C.2 series is the first compact binocular I’ve tested that didn’t leave me frustrated. Yes the 28-mm field of view is narrow when you’re used to 42 mm, but these are so small and light—just 4.5 inches and weighing only 12 ounces—that I barely even noticed them around my neck. If you want compact, lightweight optics that still deliver a bright, sharp image, these are the binoculars to get. They’re good for general-purpose use—wildlife, sports, travel, or any time you want binoculars but don’t want to know you have binoculars.

More Great Compact Binoculars
- Another option: Zeiss Terra ED 8×25 for $399. I have not tested these extensively, but I’ve used them enough to know that they’re lightweight (10.9 ounces) and deliver a very good, sharp image. They have 8X magnification and come with a nice rugged, waterproof case. The folding design means they also easily fit into your pocket. The downside is that they’re more expensive than the Nikon Monarch 8×42 yet offer a much smaller field of view.
- Best budget compact: Nocs Standard Issue 8×25 for $106. These are detailed below, but the short story is that these are wonderfully compact and light, and the price is right, but the image quality could be better. These are a great choice for the ballpark or general use, but not as good for birders and hunters.
Before I dive into why the Nocs are great for kids, let me be clear: Nocs are not kids’ binoculars. They’re fine compact binoculars that fit well in the ultralight category above. I “borrow” them from my kids all the time. I wouldn’t suggest these as the best first pair of binoculars for young kids (in that case, see our budget pick below), but for anyone over the age of 8, these make a great, compact, first pair of binoculars.

You get good magnification, with a waterproof (IPX7 rating) and fogproof design in a lightweight package (11.8 ounces). These also have two things that specifically make them great for kids: rugged construction and a nice, rubberized grip. I can’t tell you how many trees and rocks these have bashed into while around my son’s neck, and they’re still as good as new.

More Great Kids Binoculars
- Budget pick for kids: Let’s Go Binoculars for $20. If you have little ones that are new to binoculars, the price tag of the Nocs might be too high. If you want to see if your kids actually use their binoculars before diving in, there are a multitude of options. I’ll be blunt: None of these are great, but they’re cheap and light and don’t cost a fortune. Another option is the Obuby Binoculars for $20.
When you think stargazing you probably think telescopes, but binoculars can work too, especially larger, higher magnification models like these Celestron Skymasters. The first thing to know is that these are huge, most of the time you’ll want to use them with a tripod, which is not included in the price (they do include an adapter, which I used to put them on a photo tripod, which worked fine). The Porro prism design (see below), with 15x magnification and 70mm objective lenses make these are nice and bright, perfect for getting good views of the moon. They also work for larger clusters and nebulae. They do work for birding as well, but its more like using a spotting scope. They’re nice for digiscoping though if you’re viewing something reasonable stationary, like water birds.

As with all Celestron binos there’s a nice big, smooth focusing knob, and they also have long eye relief which makes them easy to use with glasses. There is a fair bit chromatic aberration, especially with bright stars or the moon, but I didn’t find it distracting. In fact, for the price, these provide surprisingly great views.

Best Binoculars for Special Use Cases

Fujinon 14×40

Photograph: Fujinon

Image-stabilized binoculars: I am still testing, as this is a huge category, but so far my top pick are the Fujinon 14×40 Techno-Stabi Image-Stabilized Binoculars for $1,300. If you’re on a boat, these are the binoculars you want. They offer industry-leading stabilization of plus or minus 6 degrees, there’s hardly any image lag, they carry an IPX7 waterproof rating, and as an added bonus, they float. I did most of my testing on an SUP, which is about the most unstable watercraft I could come up with, and these made it possible to bird-watch without going ashore. They’re not cheap, but they definitely deliver.
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April 28, 2024
11 Best Sleeping Bags (2024): Ultralight, for Car Campers, Warm Weather, for Kids
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John Muir famously set off for the mountains with “some bread and tea in a pair of blankets with some sugar and a tin cup.” I admire his ultralight spirit and disdain for comfort on the trail, but I’d be willing to bet that if Muir were around today, he’d bring a good down sleeping bag with him, if for no other reason than they’re lighter than old blankets. The tea is essential though, I can’t argue with that.

Whether you’re following Muir into the backcountry, are planning the perfect family camping trip, or are trekking the Camino de Santiago, there’s a sleeping bag for that. No matter how you travel, where you’re headed, or how much comfort you seek, after years of testing, we’ve found the best sleeping bags for everyone.

Adrienne So, Martin Cizmar, and Matt Jancer contributed to this guide.

Be sure to read through our other outdoor guides, including the Best Sleeping Pads, Best Tents, Best Camp Stoves, and our Camp Cooking guide.

Table of Contents
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The Best Sleeping Bag for Backpackers

Mountain Hardware’s Bishop Pass 15 offers the best warmth-to-weight ratio while also managing to pack down small and not be too expensive. It isn’t perfect, but it strikes the best compromise for most backpackers, being warm enough for the shoulder seasons and light enough (2 pounds and 5.4 ounces) that you won’t mind it even when you barely need it in the summer. I have slept in this bag for more than two weeks, with nighttime temps ranging from 28°F to 65°F, and, yes, it was too much in the heat as a sleeping bag. But on those warmer nights, I unzipped it and covered myself like a warm blanket. For everything else, I slept very well. It’s a versatile bag.

The Bishop Pass 15 uses 650 fill power down wrapped in a 20-denier water-resistant ripstop nylon shell. (Note: You’ll often see 20-denier written as 20D; see below for more on what those terms mean.) One of the great things about this bag is the draft collar and face gasket feature, which does a great job of keeping your head warm. With the drawcord cinched down, you can conserve even more body heat. This is one of the few bags I’ve tested where I didn’t feel the need for a hat. The insulation does a good job of staying where it should; I didn’t find any bad cold spots in this bag.

My only gripe about this bag is that it’s tight—there’s not much room for anything but me. That makes it efficient and keeps you warmer, but this is not a good option if you’re looking for something roomy (see the Therm-a-Rest Questar below). I also don’t love the zipper. The pull glows in the dark, which is great, and the zipper doesn’t snag much, but in my experience, it also doesn’t pull as easily as others. Still, those are minor gripes about a bag that gets the rest right.

Specs:
- Temp rating: 15°F/-9°C
- Comfort rating: 26°F/-3°C
- Fill: 650 Fill Power Down
The Best Sleeping Bag for Car Campers

Car-camping sleeping bags aren’t a place to spend lots of money. Should your best efforts to cocoon warmth around you fail, there is, after all, a car to retreat to. That’s why we love the REI Siesta Hooded 20—it’s plenty warm and affordable. It’s also not a mummy bag, because you’re not climbing Denali; why cramp yourself if you don’t have to? The Siesta’s rectangular cut makes for a much roomier, more comfortable bag. The Siesta is made of recycled polyester throughout, with a polyester filling. Despite that, the lining on this bag is noticeably softer than many others in this guide.

The Siesta’s 20-degree rating makes it enough for three-season trips, and unlike most rectangular bags, the Siesta has a hood, which helps on those cold nights. What makes this such a versatile bag, though, is the double zipper system. There’s a full-length zipper, which means you can turn it into a quilt on warmer nights, and there’s also a second partial-length zipper on the other side so you can have more airflow when you want it. (You can also now zip two Siestas together, which wasn’t possible with earlier versions.)

Specs:
- Temp rating: 20°F/-6°C
- Fill: 650 Fill Power Down
Best All-in-One Sleep System

The Zenbivy Bed 25 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is hands down the most comfortable backcountry sleeping experience I’ve ever had. It wouldn’t be my top pick for extreme situations, but so long as your expected temperatures fit in Zenbivy’s range, it doesn’t get more comfortable than this. The Zenbivy isn’t just a sleeping bag though. It’s a sheet, hood, and quilt-style bag that can be combined in various ways depending on what you want.

The top sheet that covers the sleeping pad is made of 50-denier polyester pongee, which is wonderfully soft and feels like your bed at home. The sheet has the hood portion of the sleeping bag attached to it. Then you lay the top quilt (made of 20D nylon) over that. This is the coolest, loosest way to use the system, perfect for those warm nights. This is how I did most of my testing since I sleep rather warm. Should the temperature drop, you can zip the quilt foot box up into a mummy bag configuration and zip the upper sides to the bottom sheet. I did this on a couple of cooler nights in the Keweenaw Peninsula when it got quite frigid.
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April 28, 2024
7 Best Sleeping Pads (2024): For Camping, Backpacking, and Travel
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What are these sleeping pads you speak of? When I was young, all hiking was uphill both ways and everyone slept on the ground in sleeping bags with only a half-inch of thin closed-cell foam between us and every pebble. We also filtered our water with our teeth and ate mainly raw meat and foraged ramps. Kids these days.

Still, I suppose there is something to be said for a comfy sleeping pad at the end of a long day on the trail, or even in the campsite next to your car. There are now many ways to make sure no peas (or pebbles) ever disturb your sleep in the outdoors. For years, we’ve been testing sleeping pads of all varieties in all kinds of conditions, and we’re happy to report that in all this time we’ve never had one fail on us. That said, there are some standouts and a few to avoid.

Be sure to read through our other outdoor guides, including the Best Tents, Best Hiking Gear, Best Camp Stoves, and our Camp Cooking guide.

Update April 2024: We’ve added three new Nemo pads, including our new favorite ultralight pad, the Nemo All-Season, as well as some more general buying advice.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more.

The Best Super-Comfy Car Camping Pad

Therm-a-Rest invented the self-inflating camping mattress. The brand has kept pace in the 50 years since, either innovating or successfully aping every major development in the field. The MondoKing is the most comfortable, deluxe mattress in the line, the flagship for picky car campers and those who are stationary in the backcountry for weeks or months at a time. This burly mat is a full 4 inches thick and weighs 4 pounds. You won’t want to lug it far, but even a large-bodied side sleeper won’t bottom out.

The StrataCore foam inside gives it an R-value of 7, so the claimed comfort is below the temperature at which vodka freezes. (In our nights of testing, WIRED has not independently verified good sleep at -20 degrees Fahrenheit.) It’s also very, very comfortable. Like the Megamat below, it’s 70-denier on the bottom with a stretchy 50-denier top that provides the natural sag of a real mattress. The MondoKing also has a nice firm edge, meaning you never feel like you’re about to roll off. The MondoKing is better than a lot of hotel mattresses and inflates and deflates fast enough that you might just roll it out the next time you find yourself on a lumpy hotel bed. —Martin Cizmar

Other Options
- Exped MegMat 10 for $180: This is the beefy, ultra-luxury pad that started the trend of huge car camping pads. And for that we thank Exped. The MegaMat remains a great choice and is pretty well equivalent to the MondoKing, though the MondoKing weighs less and packs down smaller. On the other hand, the MegaMat has slightly better insulation and might be a better choice if you sleep cold or are headed out in the shoulder seasons where colder temps are possible.
Best for Couples and Families

We’re big fans of REI’s in-house line, which is sturdy and works well without breaking the bank. On a recent camping trip, every family with kids under 10 had this mattress, including my own. It’s 56 inches wide and 6 inches tall, wide enough to fit Mom and two elementary schoolers and fit inside MSR’s 6-person Habitude tent. (Dad and the dog still had to sleep on the ground.)

It comes with a small stuff sack for easy transport that includes a manual air pump, but the universal nozzle means you can ditch the pump and use a battery-powered one for quick and easy inflating. The welded seams kept the mattress taut and bouncy through three days and nights of kids jumping up and down on it. The surface is soft enough to sleep with your face pressed against it if you slide out of your sleeping bag, and it’s insulated, but with an R-value of 2.6. I definitely needed a quilt under our sleeping bags for 40-degree nights. —Adrienne So

Other Options
- Kelty’s Kush Queen Airbed for $100: This PVC-free queen-sized airbed from Kelty includes a pump that makes inflating a snap (make sure you charge it before you go), and the 6-inch-thick pad is plenty comfortable. It is not an insulated air mattress like the REI above, so it’s best for warmer months, but it can double as a spare bed at home.
The Best Ultralight Sleeping Pad

When you venture into the backcountry, especially if you’re an ultralight backpacking nerd, every ounce counts. In the case of sleeping pads, there’s always a trade-off. You want the fewest ounces with the most R-value. Nemo Equipment’s new 2024 Tensor-insulated sleeping pads (8/10, WIRED Recommends) have the best R-Value to weight ratio of anything we’ve tested. The Tensor All-Season featured here sports an R-Value of 5.4 and weighs just 18.2 ounces. That alone is impressive, but what I love about the Tensor is that it’s thick, comfortable, and most importantly, dang near silent. I hate that swish of nylon that’s pretty much synonymous with backcountry sleeping. There is hardly any of that with the Tensor, making it well worth the money. The insulation is a double layer of reflective film, with a baffled air chamber design, which helps keep it quiet. The design also helps it roll up into a tiny stuff sack. It’s about the size of a 16-ounce Nalgene bottle. If you want to save a little weight and money, there’s also the Tensor Trail for $190. It weighs just 16 ounces for the regular wide, but the R-Value is quite a bit lower at 2.8.

Other Options
- NeoAir XLite Sleeping Pad for $210: The obvious competitor to the Tensor is Therm-a-Rest’s NeoAir XLite, according to WIRED reviewer Matt Jancer. The Xlite NeoAir might be light in weight but not on warmth. He has used it on icy glaciers without a chill sneaking up on his backside. You have to blow it up manually, but the easy-twist valve makes it simple, and he has been impressed with the durability over five years. No holes or scratches. It has a tendency to slip around, but it’s quiet.
- Sea to Summit Ultralight for $129: If you are the sort who cuts off your toothbrush handle to save weight, this mat is worth considering. It has an R-value of 1.1, making it a summer-only pad. But it weighs a mere 11 ounces, packs up very small, and is $70 cheaper than the Tensor. If most of your camping is in summer, it’ll do the job. It is a bit louder than the Nemo.
The Best for Backcountry Comfort

If you’re willing to carry a few extra ounces in exchange for some added comfort and a (theoretically) better night’s sleep, the NeoAir Topo is our favorite pad. At 21 ounces, it’s definitely on the heavy side, but it’s also 3 inches thick, and we promise you don’t feel the pebbles, or even small rocks, under this thing. The 2.3 R-value makes it a good choice for three-season camping or backpacking, and I found even the regular to be plenty wide enough. Therm-a-Rest includes a breath-saving pump sack, compact stuff sack, and field repair kit.

Best Old-School, Closed-Cell Foam Pad

I was sort of kidding in the intro here, but I also was not. This pad was my intro to backcountry sleeping, and I remain a fan (though, technically, mine was a no-name brand). The Z-Lite and its ilk weigh next to nothing (10 ounces for the small), fold up small enough to lash to the outside of any pack, and double as a chair, extra padding on cold nights, table, you name it. I am too old to use just a Z-Lite anymore, but I still have one around on almost every trip I take. Pairing it with the Nemo inflatable above gives me a wide range of sleeping and sitting possibilities for a total weight of under 2 pounds. That means I can carry more steak, and good backcountry food is really the key to everything.

Best 4-Season Backcountry Pad

If I were heading out to camp in the snow, this is the pad I would bring. Exped’s Ultra 7R offers (as the name suggests) an R-value of 7 in a pad that weighs under 2 pounds for the wide version. And I do suggest going for the wide version. I found the regular to be a bit on the narrow side, and the weight difference (5 ounces) doesn’t justify the lost sleeping space. I used this pad down to 30 degrees Fahrenheit and was very comfortable (in a 20-degree bag). Exped rates it to –20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Exped’s Schnozzel pump bag ($45) is also excellent and is necessary if you’re camping in the cold, as you don’t want the moisture from your breath inside your mat.

Other Options
- Nemo Tensor Extreme Conditions ($260): With an R-Value of 8.5 and weight of only 22 ounces for the regular wide version, Nemo’s new Tensor Extreme Conditions pad has the highest warmth-to-weight ratio on the market right now. It uses four layers of foil and offset baffles to achieve that lightest, warmest pad status. It will likely be our top pick for this category in a future update, but at the moment I have not had a chance to finish fully testing it in more extreme low temps. As with the Exped pad above, I suggest going for the wide pad, as the regular is pretty narrow.
Best Kids Sleeping Pad

Let’s be honest—if your kid is old enough to go backpacking, they’re probably old enough to be fine with an adult-sized sleeping pad that will age with them as they get older. However, in a moment of parental weakness, I bought my children child-sized sleeping pads to match their Kindercone sleeping bags, which have been useful for a surprisingly long time. My daughter is in the third grade and has had hers since kindergarten.

After all, 60 inches is pretty long—that’s almost tall enough for me to use. This one has an R-value of 4.5, and my kids have slept pretty warm on these for a number of years in temperatures as low as 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The separate valves for inflation and deflation make it much easier for little kids to not get confused and help set up. Weirdly, these sleeping pads are also much easier to roll up and stuff back into their sack than my own sleeping pad; REI may have secretly done me a solid there. —Adrienne So

Honorable Mentions

The following sleeping pads didn’t impress us like the ones above, but we’ve tested them and still like them enough if none of the others strike your fancy.

Sea to Summit Women’s UltraLight Insulated Air Sleeping Mat for $160: We debated for some time whether women need different sleeping pads. After some long conversations with our female testers, we decided there just isn’t much difference. That said, this is a fine sleeping pad for anyone. It’s very close to the Sea to Summit Ultralight above.
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April 27, 2024
The 14 Best Barefoot Shoes (2024): For Running or Walking

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You were born barefoot, and a growing body of evidence suggests you should have stayed that way. The technology and padding of the modern shoe protect your feet, but protection isn’t always what you want. Feet were made to stretch, flex, roll, and bend, and letting them do what they evolved to do can reduce impact injuries and provide a host of other benefits.

That said, please do not buy a pair of these barely there shoes and start walking or running the way you always have. That won’t work, and it can lead to injuries. You need to ease into all things barefoot-related, and to some degree you need to relearn how to walk and run. In this guide, we’ve got advice on making the transition from padded shoes to “barefoot shoes” (also known as minimalist shoes or zero-drop shoes), and we’ve rounded up our favorites. They’re as close as you can get to achieving that barefoot sensation without running afoul of “No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service” signs.

Be sure to check out our other buying guides, including our Best Running Gear and Best Snow Gear roundups.

Updated April 2024: We’ve updated our top picks to add the Xero Scrambler Mid boots and Vivobarefoot Pluma Knit baby shoes. We’ve also updated prices and links throughout.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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April 25, 2024
Trek Fetch+ 2 Review: A Solid, Though Expensive, Cargo Ebike

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One of the things that can be intimidating about buying a cargo ebike is how unfamiliar they feel. Whether a bike is designed with weird geometry and wheel sizes or odd features for heavy hauling, every ride can feel unfamiliar.

For traditional cyclists who want to haul a grocery store trip’s worth of groceries home but don’t want to mess with technology they’re unfamiliar with, the Trek Fetch+ 2 is a decent option. It’s more expensive than some of our favorite alternatives, but it has an easy-to-ride step-through design, well-made components, and great plastic buckets (and other accessories) for storage.

There are bikes with more advanced features for the money, but even after I spent a summer riding the Fetch+ 2, it barely needed a tune-up. For a modern cargo ebike with a classic cargo bike maintenance schedule, it might be worth spending a bit more cash.

On the Road

The Fetch+ 2 is the smaller of Trek’s two latest cargo ebikes, which includes the box-fronted Fetch+ 4 ($8,500), which is more oriented toward toting around dogs and children in between groceries and beer.

The Fetch+ 2 instead is a more traditional step-through cargo bike that employs a myriad of attachments, most notably two plastic panniers that hang off an extended rack on the rear. You can get a padded seat cover for the rear to let friends hold on and ride, or mount a couple kids’ seats behind you, but I’d still probably use this bike more for errands than transporting little ones.

Photograph: Trek

As an objet d’art, the bike is simple and unassuming, which is ideal for a bike this expensive. The battery is integrated into the frame, but a sizable bulge means nobody will fail to notice it’s an ebike. You can get it in three colors. I liked the black of our review unit, but the bright blue would probably be my choice if I was buying one.

While much of the bike will be familiar to anyone who has ever seen or contemplated a cargo bike, Trek really gets the geometry and style of this bike correct as far as making it very usable for many tasks. Even the dual-sided kickstand pops up and down with remarkable ease (shockingly rare on other large ebikes I’ve used). I particularly enjoyed using the rear panniers for hauling flats of berries and other easily squished items that tend to rattle around in softer panniers.

The panniers fit a ton of stuff; I was able to get four full-size grocery bags spread between the two black plastic totes. I like that they had little plugs in the bottom that you could feasibly use a plastic bag to cover and then fill them with ice and drinks.

Trekkin’

I spent a couple months using the Fetch+ 2 as my primary bike, and came away much more impressed than anticipated, given the specs and the price.

On paper, this is an expensive ebike to have pretty standard mid-drive cargo bike specs. The 85 Nm Bosch motor and 500-wH battery are good for 20-plus miles a day loaded down in any city, but they’re not better than models like the larger Xtracycle Stoker, which has the same torque and a 630-wH battery for $4,999. The Trek also doesn’t have a carbon belt drive and variable transmission, which we consider the best (and easiest to maintain) shifting mechanism for cargo bikes.

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April 19, 2024
Rad Power Bikes Radster Road Review: Safety First

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There’s eight gears, five levels of assistance, a twist throttle, and also a zero assist mode. Rad now has a new torque sensor which makes it feel infinitely better and so much more natural to pedal. It’s also much quieter. I previously put Lectric’s bikes in a similar category of affordable direct-to-consumers, but my husband rides a Lectric and became angry when he realized how smoothly and quietly I was pedaling, while he buzzed along.

It also has hydraulic disc brakes, front suspension with 80 millimeters of travel (feels great! feels comfy!), and a ton of features that make it seem way more expensive than it is. For example, you may have noticed I did not mention what class of ebike it is. While it ships as a Class 2 ebike, you can scroll through the menu and change which class it’s in, and thus what the legal top speed is, depending on whether you’re in the city or the country. It is very cool. In the menu, you can also do things like wipe trip data or set a passcode to lock the display.

Photograph: Adrienne So

It also has a bell! And signal buttons! What people I know have reported is that I often turn the signal on and forget to turn it off, or accidentally turn it on when I’m switching the assistance, and then my hand flies up to the point where I’m going automatically because I’ve been signaling with my arms for 30 years. That’s fun. Rather than turn signals, I would’ve preferred a brighter front headlight. Two hundred lumens is brighter than forgetting your front light, but I would really prefer 400 or even 1,000 when biking at night in the rain, which I often do.

A big reason why people often buy direct-to-consumer bikes is the proprietary accessories. Cars don’t ship without lights or storage options, so car substitutes have to have them too. The Radster Road does ship with fenders, a chain guard, and a rear rack with a 55-pound payload. It fit my Po Campo backpack pannier without issue. As compared to other direct-to-consumers, Rad Power Bikes has a whopping array of accessories; I would be remiss if I did not admit that as I was biking around with my children and spouse, I did think about attaching some locking storage and a pet trailer so that my elderly dog could come along too.

I do think $2,000 is the sweet spot for electric commuter bikes. It’s enough to cover some very solid components, but not so expensive that it deters you from biking because you’re worried about it getting stolen or damaged. It slots nicely into regular bike racks, and I can use a regular U-lock on the head tube, although I did feel more comfortable double-locking it on multiple parts of the frame. Unlike the Santa Cruz Skitch (9/10, WIRED Recommends), I did grab the Radster Road and hop on it when I had to run to the Grocery Outlet. Not every ride needs to be so dazzlingly fun that you can’t stop giggling—sometimes you just need to get somewhere, and you hate parking your car, and you’re super late.

I was wary of Rad Power Bikes for many years—it’s hard for a gear tester to set things aside like a bike arcing on you, or multiple lawsuits. However, it is clear that very many lessons have been learned over the past few years. The Radster Road does that well, for miles and miles.

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April 18, 2024
Milo Action Communicator: Hassle-Free Comms Without Your Smartphone

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As a group, we were all of similar ability and speeds, so range rarely became an issue while skiing. When someone did fall back from the group, stop for a couple of minutes, or even turn a particularly big, rocky corner, we would get a “Jeremy is out of range” alert. The Milos work best with a straight line of sight, and for our resort riding needs were more than capable. They didn’t always work from the resort bar though, which meant drinks orders were missed, but we’re not blaming Milo for this. Not much, anyway.

We were also impressed by Milo’s Proximity Mute, which turns down the microphones when you’re close enough for a normal volume conversation. This worked well, with anyone not close enough still able to communicate through the speakers to the gathered group.

Recent software updates have also added some voice commands to Milo, with more expected soon. We weren’t able to test these, but they include one-on-one side chats, allowing you to talk to individuals in the group with a simple “OK Milo, speak with Chris” prompt.

Milo founder and CEO Peter Celinski also told WIRED they’re about to launch a Long Range Messaging Mode that will allow you to use voice commands to record and send messages to specific individuals in your group. You get a confirmation when your message has been received and recipients can play back messages at their leisure, including multiple times. This will be a handy extra, and another reason to keep your phone safely in your pocket.

Hardest Button to Button

Milo is intuitive and, once you appreciate its limitations, extremely useful. But it’s not without issues. With the exception of the massive main mute/unmute button, the rubber controls are bafflingly difficult to use wearing gloves, especially considering skiing is cited by the company as a prime activity for Milos (alongside kayaking, surfing, hiking, and surfing).

Using the main button also requires accuracy—we estimated an 70 percent first time hit rate, although this did improve with practice. It’s very irritating, too, that the volume of each Milo gets reset to low when powered down.

Curiously, Milo doesn’t give a specific battery life duration, but, for the most part, our devices survived a long day on the slopes, though that did require each person to power down their units at lunch to make it through to the last lift.

In a group, the Milos create a secure mesh network so comms are more stable.

Photograph: Wired

A maximum of six Milos can be linked in a group, which seems a little limited, but given the high price of buying multiple units it might be a blessing. At $249 a pop, can you persuade your mates to invest? Milo does offer group deals—great for families—with four units plus armband and action clips costing $925 instead of $1,120.

We’ve not tested Milo on bikes or water, but in the mountains we quickly learned to appreciate how useful they can be. Chatting as you ski, sharing tips, and generally enthusing about being in the mountains is fun—and being able to keep tabs on a group and help as necessary is a real bonus. And, remember, the free alternative of phone communication isn’t possible when surfing and the like.

If you’ve got cash to spend, we’re happy to recommend Milo, especially as the brand rolls out more voice- and AI-based features. If the price were a little lower, the battery life a little longer, and the fiddly volume buttons a little bigger, Milo’s modern take on walkie-talkies would be a clear win.

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April 18, 2024
Review: DJI Avata 2 Drone

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If I need to stop suddenly, I can tap the brake button and it’ll bring the drone back to a safe hover. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to crash, and I managed to bring the drone down once by steering it directly into the post of the aforementioned fence. It dropped about 8 feet onto the stones of a beach, but was fine to resume flying, without a visible mark on it. This thing is impeccably built, and while I don’t doubt repeated high-speed crashes will damage it eventually, it’s clearly designed to withstand some punishment.

But what of those mind-bending aerial stunts on YouTube? Sadly, you can’t really pull them off with the motion controller. The drawback to its user-friendly simplicity is that it doesn’t work in the same way as a twin-stick controller. Think of it as a controller with training wheels. If you stop flying—to dive for instance—it will eventually stop moving and hover in place. Clever, but limiting.

For those that want to graduate to trickier manual flight, DJI sells the $199 console-style Remote Controller 3, which allows you to fly the drone in manual mode. Here, the training wheels are off and the slightest error can result in an embarrassing and potentially costly crash. You can also perform incredible tricks, if you know how.

For me, who’s keen to return the Avata 2 sample back to DJI in one piece, the RC Motion 3 feels like enough for now. It’s allowed me to capture some wonderful footage using the Avata 2’s electronically stabilized camera, which records video at 4K/60 fps or 2.7K/120 fps. There’s also the option to use a 10-bit D Log M color profile for more postproduction color grading too. The drone comes with 46 GB of built-in storage for videos and 12 MP photos, plus a microSD slot for those requiring more space.

My First FPV

Ultimately, the Avata 2 is the latest in a long line of DJI drones that makes it easy for amateurs to achieve great results. In this case, it makes FPV flying incredibly simple and intuitive, and its camera allows you to create some thrilling, smoothly cinematic sequences with very little effort.

There’s also very little in the way of comparable products on the market, with most FPV drones being kits built by enthusiasts, rather than consumer-friendly designs. As a result, the main alternative to the Avata 2 is the original DJI Avata. And for those who own the first-generation model, I’d say, aside from the Goggles 3, which aren’t retro-compatible, the improvements here don’t really warrant an upgrade.

Photograph: DJI

But if you’re new to the FPV game, I strongly advise you to choose the latest version. It is only $179 more, but there are improvements across the board, with enhanced flight performance, longer flight time, intelligent flight modes, and advanced safety features. If you’re looking for a gateway to FPV fun, they don’t come any more accessible than the Avata 2.

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April 16, 2024
21 Best Dog Accessories (2024): Dog Beds, Pet Cameras, Carriers, and More

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AT WIRED, WE really love our dogs. We also love each other’s dogs, whether they’re adorable little nuggets in New York City apartments, pit mixes in the country, or loyal heelers that spend all day, every day, within 6 inches of my left foot. For the past few years, my colleagues and I have been trading tips, tricks, and gear. These are the best dog accessories we’ve bought or tested for our very, very good boys and girls.

Don’t forget to check out our other pet guides, including the Best Dog Beds and Best Cat Toys and Supplies guides.

Updated April 2024: We’ve added the DoggoRamp, Neakasa S1 Pro, Eufy Pet Cam, and Blueberry Pet jackets.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get WIRED for just $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com, full Gear coverage, and subscriber-only newsletters. Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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April 11, 2024