I don’t know about you, but the weather is perfect outside right now and I’m just barely holding on here at my computer until I can get clearance to go on a run, go climbing, or go paddleboarding on the river (I live in Portland, Oregon, where doing all this stuff within a short distance from my house is very easy.) (Also, I might be doing it right now! You can’t tell where I’m writing this. You don’t have a drone.)
If you also find your mind wandering when you’re supposed to be working and are, instead, daydreaming about the neighborhood block party or camping trip you’re going on this weekend, here are a few of the best outdoor deals that I’ve found while I’m supposed to be looking at other things. Don’t forget to check out our Absolute Best Prime Day Deals roundup and our Prime Day Live Blog for more discounts on our favorite, WIRED-tested products.
We test products year-round and handpicked these deals. We’ll update this guide periodically throughout the sale event.
WIRED Featured Deals
- A Power Station for Pumping Up Paddleboards: Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus for $1,299 ($600 off)
- Headphones for Roller-Skating Outside: Shokz OpenRun Pro for $125 ($55 off)
- A Nostalgic Water Bottle: Nalgene Sustain Tritan Water Bottle for $11 ($6 off)
- Your Kids’ New Mountain Bike: Cleary Meerkat 5-Speed for $354 ($256 off)
- Don’t Argue With Me, Just Get This Blanket: Yeti Lowlands Blanket for $130 ($70 off)
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The Best Outdoor Deals
Photograph: Simon Hill
“What does power have to do with being outside?” you say to yourself, contemptuously. The joke is on you, because my husband used one of these to blow up four paddleboards at the river the other day without breaking a sweat. This is the top pick in our guide to the Best Portable Power Stations, and in addition to powering little inflatable motors, it also has a decent mix of ports so you can fast-charge your gadgets with its 2,042-watt-hour capacity. It’s bulky and heavy, but it also has a telescopic handle and wheels so you can pull it out of the car and drag it around.
I have carried around several iterations of JBL speakers for several years, including earlier iterations of the Go. I especially like putting one on my bike or backpack to pump up little kids to bike to the park or to play music (softly) at a riverside hang. This one has IP67 dust and water resistance and it has clear and relatively full sound. Unfortunately, not all of the fun colors have the discount, but the blue and red do, which are my two favorites.
Photograph: Shokz
Shokz make some of my favorite workout headphones. The OpenRun Pro (8/10, WIRED Recommends) use the latest iteration of the company’s bone conduction technology, which means they’re markedly more comfortable and less buzzy in your skull than some of the company’s earlier attempts. They fit under a helmet and don’t block ambient noise if you’re running. And if you must have noise-canceling, you can actually put in a pair of earplugs and still hear your music through your skull!
The Nalgene has an honorable mention in our guide to the Best Water Bottles, which almost doesn’t seem fair because I am an oldie who remembers that Nalgenes kicked off this whole Water Bottle as Accessory thing. Tritan Renew is a BPA-free material that is made up of at least 50 percent certified recycled content. Nalgenes are light, sustainable, and inexpensive. Buy yourself a cool turquoise one, cover it with stickers, and carabiner it to the outside of your hiking pack.
Skratch Labs recently sent me several flavors of this mix and it tastes so good that my children sometimes request it. Voluntarily! We’ve had several heat waves lately in Oregon. It hasn’t kept us from going outside—we like to paddle and swim when it gets too hot—but I’ve been concerned about how to keep my family hydrated. This is an easy, and now more affordable, way to do it.
Photograph: GoPro
As we say in our guide to the Best Action Cameras, the best advice is usually the simplest: Just pick a GoPro. The Hero12 is reviewer Scott Gilbertson’s top pick and the camera he reaches for when he heads out the door. It has good battery life and excellent stabilization, it overheats far less than previous models, and you also get a free one-year subscription to GoPro Premium. GoPro’s subscription service gives you unlimited cloud storage, damaged camera replacement, up discounts on accessories (it renews at $50/year).
We like pretty much everything Solo Stove makes—my colleague Parker Hall has the Yukon fire pit and I currently have the latest iteration of the Solo Stove Pi (8/10, WIRED Recommends). This is the portable, lightweight version of that instantly recognizable steel fire can. Solo Stove’s shtick is that it has a double-walled design with airflow that creates a secondary burn, incinerating all those little irritating particles before they have a chance to escape the can. It does rip through fuel pretty quickly, though, so get a good stock before you start burning.
Photograph: Specialized
Few non-cyclists will believe me when I say that $6,000 is a fairly decent price to pay for a mountain bike this good, even when it doesn’t have a motor (which this one does). I really want an electric mountain bike (eMTB) so I can finally keep up with my much fitter, faster spouse and friends on the trails around our house. The Turbo Levo Comp (8/10, WIRED Recommends) uses the same frame as Specialized’s iconic Stumpjumper, except with a custom-designed, seamlessly integrated motor that allows partners of varying fitness levels to ride with one another.
This is the best blanket. I use this blanket almost every day. I spread it out in front of our tent so we can keep dust and twigs from getting into our sleeping space; I bring it to the river for picnic hangs. It’s washable and has a waterproof bottom, so you don’t have to worry about wet grass soaking through, and it’s heavy enough so that the corners don’t flip up in the breeze. Mine has lasted almost five years. Get one get one get one.
Our full review of the Cleary is forthcoming, and we will be including it in our Best Kids’ Bikes guide, but my 9-year-old has been testing it for a few weeks and I can’t wait to write about it. I really wanted to get my daughter mountain biking with me but she was too big for a 20-incher and just a little too small to comfortably fit a lot of 24-inch bikes. The Cleary’s bottom bracket is very low, so you short-legged ones can ride it comfortably. The seat moves backward as you move up so the reach is comfortable. You also can customize as you go by adding a kickstand, front fork, and bigger tires. It also has an internal gear hub, which means lower maintenance for us Pacific Northwesterners and our mud problems but also reduces the chance of chain dropouts.
You didn’t really think you were going to get away with a sales event where we didn’t mention Lifestraw, did you? I am mildly embarrassed at how often I use Lifestraw products. I live in Portland, Oregon, the city with the purest, finest-tasting water in all the land, which means whenever I have to travel, my children and I can’t stand water elsewhere and become instantly dehydrated. I use the Go water bottle series when we travel, and have only recently replaced it with the smaller and more packable Lifestraw Sip. But the most affordable is the personal water filter. Not only does it remove waterborne bacteria and parasites, it also removes microplastics. Each filter can clean up to 1,000 gallons of water before it needs to be replaced.
