At nomad nature travel, we review the gear required to have great nature, wildlife, adventure travel and outdoor living experiences.
Whether you’re a birdwatcher looking for optics, a wildlife photographer looking for camera gear, a snorkeler or diver looking for underwater gear, someone heading out into the jungle or out into the waves, or you spend a lot of time on the road/outdoors, our objective is to provide you with reviews of quality products that enhance the experience; plain and simple.
This is how our review process works.
Gear selection
Our gear selections are based on gear we’ve used and tested ourselves and/or that for which we have done a considerable amount of research.
Field testing
Ideally, we are testing or have tested as much of the gear we review as possible.
This involves taking things out into the field to see how it performs in real world conditions.
Third party research
In addition to field testing, we want to make sure that what we’re recommending has the kind of expert backing and deep social proof that most people who are serious about their gear purchases take into account before buying anything.
This includes:
- Extensive reading of product reviews by real people.
- Auditing user reviews using common best practices to identify products with likely fake reviews–filtering by most recent reviews, scanning for suspicious lack of detail in reviews, repetitive wording used throughout different reviews, poor grammar and spelling, mentions of competing products, vague praise and lack of detail. If we notice or smell BS, we don’t promote it.
- Consulting brand history for recalls, manufacturing issues, and product information.
Quality control
Of course, people in different niches are always going to have differing opinions (and experiences) when it comes to gear.
You could talk to a seasoned diver who swears by Cressi masks and another who says Cressi sucks and ScubaPro is the best.
Same goes for pretty much anything. In photography, you’ve got team Nikon and Team Canon. With flashlights, you’ve got team Olight vs team Fenix. Binoculars: team Celestron vs team Bushnell.
What all of the brand names above have in common, however, is that they are reputable ones in their industries.
We emphasize this because eRetail marketplaces (particularly Amazon) are full of cheap crap. If you’re looking for a tactical flashlight, you can find products claiming to put out many thousands of lumens that cost under twenty bucks.
Such a flashlight doesn’t exist. It’s a generic POS made by a factory in China that anyone can purchase from and brand with their Amazon store name. Same holds true across a ton of different niches and industries.
I don’t use this stuff and I would never recommend others use it. I’m serious about nature/wildlife travel and outdoor living and, therefore, I only want to use and recommend quality stuff.
If I wouldn’t use it myself, I don’t endorse or recommend people spend their hard earned money on it.
The intersection of quality and price
With the above in mind, for the most part, I’m not reviewing the most expensive gear for any given niche.
At nomad nature travel, we are all about frugality and value-for-money. Ocassionally our reviews will feature some of the most expensive products in a particular category (safari cameras) because the most expensive, cutting edge stuff is markedly superior.
But a lot of the gear we review are quality products from respected manufacturers, just not their most expensive pieces of equipment.
Availability
We also make sure gear we are reviewing is easily available.
Our two main affiliate programs are Amazon and Scuba.com. We have an interntional audience and the idea is to make sure that whatever we are recommending is available in multiple locations.
Sometimes certain products can’t be shipped to a specific location (as someone who is constantly on the road, I know that can be quite difficult).
Going above and beyond
We want people to read our reviews and feel like we have gone above and beyond when it comes to informing them.
This means the inclusion of not only deeply-informed and well-researched opinion, but facts and figures related to materials, standards, and use cases that make reading our reviews more informative and enjoyable.
What we do NOT do
Now let’s discuss something we don’t do when reviewing gear.
no sponsored reviews
We don’t review a company’s gear in exchange for monetary compensation.
We will review products that have been sent to us by manufacturers that have reached out to us and (importantly) whose gear we believe will actually be interesting to our audience. But the promise is to always be objective. If somone sends us something we use, we’re not going to brush aside anything we consider to be a defect or a potential reason someone might not want to purchase it.
Wrapping up
With all of that said, we hope you get a lot out of our reviews. Also, we are only human. If you ever have a recommendation, suggestion, or correction, we are always open to hearing it and making changes to anything we’ve written where appropriate.
You can reach out to us at info@nomadnaturetravel.com.
