Unexpected Outdoor Awesomeness: Huckberry Ain't Just An Online Store

So I promise not to be a shill. I'll be doing reviews, definitely, but ... I have to be honest. Huckberry makes me squee.
Huckberry is an online destination, "your favorite store, your grandpa's favorite store, and your favorite magazine all rolled into one." Absolutely, the gear they feature is freakin' badass. These collections are painstakingly curated shops, clearly collected with -- I gotta say it -- love. They're damn-sexy, manly-outdoorsy without being sexist or hipster-douchey ... and almost always drool-worthy. Many of the items are also outdoors-geektastic, like the BioLite Campstove, Portable Grill, and Smartphone/Tablet Charger Bundle (squeeeeeee!). Also, beard oil!
But much better, they actually have a truly gorgeous "journal." It's a thoughtful and visually rich outdoor, travel, and adventure lifestyle blog with quality writing on par with straight-up magazines like Outside and Backpacker.
Some cases in point: A while back, I drooled over this gorgeous photo essay and interview with the founder and writer for Sidetracked, a bike-friendly, yet very broad-scope web publication about outdoor/adventure travel -- also ridiculously gorgeous itself.

Huckberry image from Sidetracked profile. All of this post's imagine belongs to these nice Huckpeople, not me.

 A little earlier, I was wooed by another interview/photo essay about the German photographs Jörg Marx who captures images of the Schwarzwald (Germany's famous Black Forest), its wildlife, and its hunters. This past week was a portrait of the haunting, stunning night photography of Iceland captured by Andy Lee.

Dark Iceland.

Surfing, kayaking, biking, camping, you name it -- if it's outdoors and engaging, Huckberry writes about it.

BADASS modern-day camper. YAAASSSSSS!

There are also substantively useful posts; one of my favorites so far is a how-to for folding up your skivvy essentials into the tiniest possible volume, the "skivvy roll" (or "grunt roll" as the Marines call it, apparently).
Sometimes even the gear they have available for sale tells a story, such as the "Weekly Pocket Dump". Herein they snag awesome people who lives that apparently are way more exciting than mine, and have them dump out their pockets. The result -- photos that say a lot about how much people care about the form and function of the objects they interact with daily -- is itself visually engaging, and naturally leads to the discovery of lots of really cool stuff.

And to prove it's as much about the story as the selling, I'm pretty sure nearly all the linked cool stuff is sold elsewhere; the links all head to Amazon.
Heck, they even have Explorers Grants to pay their success forward. I'm so applying next time around!
The company is "bootstrapped, profitable, and proud" -- and if you'd like to learn more about them, the owners were profiled by Signal v. Noise here.