The biggest, shiniest things were front-and-center at Outdoor Expo. It was easy to get distracted by the overlanding section, where I enjoyed crawling into rooftop tents and the svelte, Icelandic MINK S camping trailer, which is about the size of a double bed but somehow feels spacious.
If the campers weren’t snazzy enough to give a car-camping tent self-doubt, the Isabella Camp-let trailer was there to finish the job. Folded up, it looks like a cross between the trunk of a Mustang and an IKEA storage bin. Set up in its full splendor, it’s probably the Buckingham Palace of tents. I say this without ever having gone on a luxury safari, or having visited Buckingham Palace, but I am certain that its multiple bedrooms and built-in furniture have more in common with a house than a tent.
In any case, I was on a mission, and the rooftop tents—even an extra-cushy Latitude Tents model perched atop an adorable vintage Mini Cooper—were not what I was seeking. It’s clear that overlanding is a fast-growing trend, but the idea of it isn’t new, and even the most advanced equipment isn’t necessarily category-defying, however cool it may be. Show me a camping trailer that will fold up and fit under my bed, or one that is affordable without taking on a mortgage, and we’d have a different story.
But no. What I sought turned out to be one of the smallest and most easily overlooked items at the show. It was an oat-based snack bar, maybe two square inches in size, and it was the most revolutionary thing I have seen in trail food in recent memory—and perhaps ever. Here I will admit that I was, indeed, hungry when I came across the One Good Thing booth, but I have since reassessed my judgment and deemed it to be sound. What’s exciting about OGT is not the product itself but the wrapper—which doesn’t exist at all.
