Intro to the Gear Forum: Read this first

Welcome to the BootsnAll gear forum! We have a lot of gear nerds ready to help you with your query, but here are a few things to keep in mind before clicking that New Topic button to ask for help.

1. Where are you?
If you haven't filled out the Location field in your profile, we don't know where you live, and we can't point you in the direction of particularly useful stores or resources! It's important to use discretion when sharing personal information, but having at least country to narrow you down can be helpful. Also, some popular brands are just not accessible on some continents.

2. Where are you going? What are you doing?
We'd love to help you find the answer to what pack you should buy, but first we need some idea of what you're going to be doing with it! We don't want to suggest a $350 80L expedition pack for your weekend in Las Vegas, nor do we want to advise you to bring a rolling suitcase on your trek to Everest basecamp.

3. What type of person are you?
Got a short torso? 7' tall? Looking for durable quickdry pants in XXXL? If your screen name doesn't identify if you're a boy or a girl, it might help us suggest which travel underwear is the best for you!

By all means, jump on in with your specific questions, but some topics have been discussed again and again, and you may be missing out on some great advice from people who have posted numerous times. Here are some great posts from the archives, and a general tip on how to use the advanced search to hone in on what you might be looking for.

Honestly, how big is your pack???
How small of bag can i get by on?
Top Loading... will i regret it?
ladies, where can i find the perfect handbag?

Sandals, Open toe or not?
Ex Officio?
Cold weather travel

Coolest laptop for travel!
Talk me into a Digital SLR Camera
cell phone for the globe

Searching
The Advanced Search feature on the forums is a handy little tool for pulling up results on something you might not have time to sit around and wait on responses for. From the main index, you can search for any terms, but this can be too broad of a search. Using the http://boards.bootsnall.com/search.php page, you can use a variety of modifiers to zero in on what you're looking for.

Type your search words into the keywords field. ie: eagle creek explorer
Select the Travel Gear & Gadgets forum from the 'Search in' menu.
Select Topics from the 'Display results as' field.
Hit the Search button!

Odds are, this will narrow you down a little closer to what you were looking for.

There are a lot of great users with excellent first hand information here, so be patient, take a look around, and we'll see you around the forums!