Introduction
*Update 07/05/2017: A member of the UL forum on Reddit was nice enough to create a TLDR summary of all the gear. So if you want to get right to the full gear list, scroll all the way down to the bottom of this post. Thanks to u/cwcoleman!
The most popular post on my blog right now (and for a while now) covers the cost of a good yet affordable set of UL backpacking gear for a beginner. That was roughly three years ago, and I while I still think it's a pretty solid gear list, of course I have given plenty of thought on how to improve or expand on this conceptual gear list. So here's another crack at it, but this time with a few changes to the given context going into this project, and naturally some changes in gear selection as well.
This new gear list is aimed more at either a traditional (i.e. "heavy") backpacker with some experience that wants to transition into a solid UL kit right away, or someone new to UL backpacking that has already tried things out with cheap/borrowed/DIY gear but now wants an upgraded and improved set of UL gear. Some of the gear mentioned you may already have, or maybe even something just as good or better. In which case, the transition to UL will be even cheaper and easier.
If you are entirely new to backpacking and the outdoors in general, then this gear list is probably not for you. I suggest you start with some entry level cheap/DIY gear before you move on to a bigger transition like this, which is more of an investment of both money and future free time to actually get out there and use the gear. Remember, not everyone likes or becomes passionate about wilderness backpacking, and it can be a fairly demanding activity. You can read more in depth advice for new backpackers here.
Yet another way to look at this gear list is with a hypothetical: if my house were to burn down tomorrow and most of my gear with it, the new gear list I would buy to rebuild my gear closet would be more or less the same as the one this post describes. And for anyone that is new to my blog and my experience, well stick around here long enough and you'll see that I'm pretty crazy about the outdoors--and especially UL, long distance, wilderness backpacking. That's why I've been backpacking for over two decades now, got into UL around 7 years ago, and still pretty much everyday I daydream about getting back out to the woods.
