November 10, 2026:


Every year, TIME’s editors and correspondents work together to compile a collection of the most interesting and groundbreaking new products and innovations for the Best Inventions list. As holiday season approaches, the TIME team has pulled out a selection of the 10 best outdoors items from the list that would make a perfect gift for the explorers and adventurers in your life.

Gear for a more broadly imagined adventurer
Inclusivity is rarely the focus of outdoor equipment innovation. With the help of professional adaptive athlete Vasu Sojitra, The North Face set out to change this with the Universal Collection. The frame of the Universal Wawona 3 tent comes together with three poles of the same size, eliminating the need for designers to use color coding that would be useless to the visually impaired to signal which pole goes where. The tent’s doorway also features a low threshold that makes it easier to roll in a wheelchair, which should have no problem being stored in the tent’s cavernous front vestibule alongside any other camping gear. —Rae Witte
Buy now: Universal Wawona 3 Tent on The North Face

A collapsible hard-sided cooler
Hard coolers take up too much storage space; soft coolers don’t offer enough insulation. Coleman merged the best of both with its first collapsible hard-sided cooler. The Snap ‘N Go has a leakproof design, retains cold for up to 64 hours, and quickly folds to a third of its size. “You just pick the cooler up and it self-assembles—and with one tug, it collapses back down,” says VP of R&D for Outdoor and Recreation Scott Barbieri. It’s already outselling the company’s predictions: “I think it shows the desire for people to be outside and have easily transportable gear,” Barbieri says. —Derek Rose
Buy Now: Coleman Snap ’N Go on Amazon

Chemical-free mosquito protection
Mosquito-borne diseases cause over 700,000 deaths per year, making the mosquito the world’s deadliest animal. Protective measures typically involve synthetic chemicals like permethrin and Deet or natural repellents with varying degrees of effectiveness, but outdoor apparel brand Royal Robbins sees another way: fabric construction. Its Salathé Sun Hoodie is made with a proprietary tight-weave ripstop fabric that the company says is roughly 92% effective against mosquito bites in lab and field testing and doesn’t wear away with time, all while remaining lightweight and breathable. As an added bonus, the fabric also offers UPF40+ sun protection. —Derek Rose
Buy Now: Royal Robbins Salathé Sun Hoodie on Amazon

A faster water filter
Designed for the outdoors, Escape is a high-flow pressurized water purifier that holds 5.25 gallons and filters 1 liter per minute, removing viruses, bacteria, parasites, and microplastics. —TIME Staff
Buy Now: Escape on LifeStraw

Petroleum-free and functional
Windbreakers are usually made from petroleum-based synthetics like polyester or nylon, and treated with forever chemicals—that’s what makes them windproof, water resistant, and durable. But it’s also what makes them an environmental nightmare. “We believe as a company that nature holds the solution to the problems we face as an industry,” says Armedangels Impact and Innovation Director Julia Kirschner. The team instead designed a windbreaker with Tencel Lyocell, a wood-pulp fiber, as the main fabric, tightly woven and treated with a PFAS-free water-repellent finish. The result is a breathable, water-repellent windbreaker that doesn’t rely on the oil industry or shed microplastics. —Matthew Huff
Buy Now: Armedangels Windbreaker on Armedangels

A cozy, knit, inflatable sleeping pad
After decades of creating some of the lightest sleeping pads for camping, Cascade Designs’s latest release is also one of the plushest. At 30 oz., the new Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad is still quite light. But instead of crinkly, unbreathable nylon, the inflatable mattress is constructed from a stretch knit polyester usually reserved for apparel, which feels smooth against your skin and is virtually noiseless when you shift in your sleep. It also inflates to 4.6-in. thick, unprecedented for a mattress that—when rolled up—is hardly larger than a 1L Nalgene water bottle. —Adam Schram
Buy now: Therm-a-Rest NeoLoft Sleeping Pad on Amazon

A multitool purpose-built for mountaineering
More climbers die on Mont Blanc than on any other mountain in Europe. To help the Chamonix mountain guides who work to prevent this, French knife manufacturer Opinel involved several ENSA-certified guides to develop and test a multi-tool tailored to their specific needs. Designed so it can be opened with one gloved hand, the Neo7 Alpine includes a serrated stainless-steel knife (perfect for cutting breakcord) and a quarter-inch bit holder (sized for ski and snowboard adjustment and repair). “Instead of trying to do everything, it focuses on doing the most important jobs very well,” said Francoise Detroyat, Opinel’s Marketing Director. —Erica Zazo
Buy now: Opinel Neo7 Alpine Folding Knife on Amazon

A more flexible sleeping bag
Marmot’s Wraptor sleeping bag has dual-flap magnetic closures instead of zippers for flexibility and a foot vent to help campers regulate body temperature. —TIME Staff
Buy Now: Wraptor on Marmot

Naturally waterproof cotton
Cotton is infamously bad when wet, absorbing moisture and causing hikers’ hypothermia. Ventile, developed for the British military in 1943, is a cotton weave that leverages the fabric’s desire to expand when wet; when densely woven, the damp fibers actually create a natural elemental barrier—no weatherproofing chemicals required. American Trench uses the elegantly utilitarian material in its new Ventile Shell Jacket. Here, the fabric’s waterproofing is aided by a light water-repellent finish and thorough internal seam taping, a technical manufacturing process rarely attempted by factories outside of southeast Asia. The Ventile Shell, however, is manufactured in Clifton, N.J. —Daniel Varghese
Buy now: American Trench Ventile Shell Jacket at americantrench.com

Truck bed glamping
Vehicle-based camping is on the rise, and Wild Land’s Wingman is here to meet the moment. The Wingman is a hardshell topper tent that transforms a pickup truck bed into a two-story camping system with the press of a button; founder and CEO of Wild Land’s distribution partner Cinch Outdoors Jake Jackson describes it as somewhere between a traditional tent and an RV. The second-story sleeping area—for example—is decked out with a transparent PVC skylight, built-in Bluetooth speakers, lighting, and a high-density foam mattress. Purists might say it’s not camping, but for Jackson, “It’s as close as you can get to the wildest parts of nature with a hotel-like experience.” —Derek Rose
Buy Now: Reserve Wild Land Wingman on Cinch Outdoors