To say that Backpacker readers love the outdoors is like saying kids love Halloween: true enough, yet wildly understated. Our readers enjoy a consuming passion, one that guides everything from the vacations they take (national parks) to the places they shop (REI) to the way they vote (duh). It's a demanding passion, too: They expect hard-boiled survival tips on one page and thought-provoking narrative on the next.
Backpacker takes this challenge seriously, and is the rare magazine that attempts to give readers both authoritative service and ambitious storytelling. Our tagline--The Outdoors at Your Doorstep--is doubly fulfilled in each issue. Our field-tested destination, skills, and gear advice gives readers easy access to wilderness. And our feature well takes them directly to those places where human drama and the outdoors intersect.
Our design is also guided by these principles. Whether it is type and color choices that make our information packed Basecamp section easy to follow or photography that allows the reader to experience places they have only dreamed of, we are always working to make the magazine an indispensable guide for our readers.