In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, here’s a Green Rock Worm fly tied by my former colleague Alan Gregory. Slàinte!

If you thought your job was hard, try being a National Park Ranger. Andrea Lankford’s Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks throws a little wrench in your plans for that dream job. But…wait! Being a National Park Ranger isn’t all hiking and telling people about natural and national history all day long? Surely, you’re joking. I [...]

Before the days of GPS and Google Earth, cartography was both an art and a science revered by everyone up to the highest ranks of society. The elite would adorn their homes with finely drawn maps handcrafted by the most talented of artists. Explorers would create maps on the fly, creating routes to the new world. Traders would pass down [...]

It’s always tough for me to write reviews of products I didn’t like, especially from everyday people trying their best to express themselves while making a product people will enjoy. Unfortunately, I’d be doing a disservice to everyone if I wasn’t honest about my thoughts on a product I was asked to review. Bear that in mind when reading this [...]

This year, instead of doing my own research like I did last year, I’m being lazy and pointing you to the best holiday gift guides I can find. So, while these other bloggers do all the work, I’m sitting back with my L.L. Bean Wicked Good Mocs, sipping some Dogfish Head Bitches Brew from my BeerME pint glass, reading copies [...]

Gore-Tex, the venerable waterproof fabric maker, is holding a “Where in the World” guess the location type contest from now until December 17. Basically, Gore-Tex has a picture located here, and will reveal a little more of the picture everyday until someone guesses where it is. You do have to register on the site to participate, but it looks like [...]

I’m not huge into ultralight anything. My current backpacking stove, the MSR Whisperlite International, is a beast, but it gets the job done. As I’m thinking about taking day long and multi-day long fly fishing trips, weight starts to become an issue. When the main point of my trip is to simply hike a trail, I’m not so concerned about [...]

This past weekend, I saw 65 and sunny, sub-30 and frosty, rainy, windy, and foggy. In Maine in the fall, schizophrenic weather is par for the course. Layering is essential in order to cope with the ever changing meteorological moods of our state, but it’s also a delicate process. In order to avoid the dreaded Ralphie Syndrome (and any possibly [...]

Russ and Laura from The Path Less Pedaled have been mentioned many times on Part Time Vagabond, and have even contributed here and there. So when they asked me to review their new e-book, Panniers & Peanut Butter: The Path Less Pedaled Bike Camping Gear Guide, I jumped at the chance. After all, who wouldn’t want to learn this stuff [...]

Comfortable clothing is a key element to traveling well, but it’s also one of the more difficult aspects to get right. When GoLite sent me one of their travel shirts to test out, I was, understandably, a bit skeptical. I especially don’t like getting clothing through the mail because it never fits the way the manufacturer says it will. And [...]