Here at The Smart Hiker, we understand the importance of the role we play in your outdoor experience. It’s an important responsibility and we take the accuracy of our product reviews and informational content extremely seriously.
After all, your outdoor adventures are only as good as the quality and condition of your gear. As such, your safety is of the utmost importance to us.
That’s why we hold ourselves to the highest standards when making recommendations. Here’s how we select the products you find in our reviews and guides.
We DO:
Here’s the criteria that must be met before we feature a hiking or outdoor product on any of our posts or pages.
Rely Heavily On Facts & Solid Evidence
A lot of online hiking and review sites are full of fluff and sensationalism.
At The Smart Hiker, we aim to fix that.
Every guide, review, and piece of informational content found on The Smart Hiker is deeply rooted in facts and evidence based on testing and in-depth research.
Our editorial process also has a checks and balances system in place. We have a different writer and editor for each guide, review, and content piece.
That means our recommended gear is independently researched, tested, reviewed, fact-checked, and corrected for errors multiple times before you get your eyes on it.
Our goal at The Smart Hiker is to provide the most informative guides with the most accurate information. Our commitment to honesty and integrity to our readers helps us stay unbiased by relying heavily on research, facts, and evidence.
This is reflected in every piece of content on our site.
Thoroughly Test Equipment & Gear
As avid hikers and outdoor enthusiasts, our team loves testing and reviewing products. Whenever possible we test products and compare them against their peers in order to gain first-hand experience.
Whether we test our own gear or have been sent products for testing from the manufacturer, our commitment to honesty and integrity keeps us as unbiased as possible.
When we don’t have the ability to test and compare, we supplement with in-depth research and stay transparent by letting you know that information upfront.
dozens and dozens of hours go into testing and reviewing each of our products in order to give you the best results.
Extensively Scour User Reviews
It would be easy for brands to cherry-pick high-quality equipment and send it to us to review for top marks and maximum grading.
That’s why we rely on “the wisdom of the people” to make up our minds about a particular brand’s product quality.
We extensively scour positive and negative reviews about all products we recommend online.
We also often reach out to these customers to dig deeper, understand their experiences, and reflect them in our content.
Study the Product Line & Brand History
Have you heard the famous quote “History repeats itself”? Well, we believe this is also true for hiking gear.
This is why before recommending a new product line or brand, we dig through their history and operations extensively to try and assess the risks for you.
Here are just a few things we look into when considering a new product or brand:
- Brand & product line voluntary recall history
- Manufacturing plants and their recall history
- Place of manufacture
- Brand affiliations
- Level of customer service
- Return/refund policies
- Any name change to “hide” past horror stories
- Any recent change of ownership
Examine Health & Safety Information
The health and safety of our community of readers is the top priority of The Smart Hiker.
That’s precisely why we consider the safety, durability, quality, and functionality of gear and equipment before taking a product into consideration.
This is yet another reason, we test.
We don’t recommend anything we wouldn’t use ourselves.
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Our commitment is to honesty, integrity, and more importantly, the health and safety of The Smart Hiker community.
Take Health Considerations Into Account
Did you know that our CEO has flat feet and suffers from degenerative disc disease?
Because a lot of our guides consider specific situations or health issues such as flat feet, peroneal tendonitis, or any other health issue, we consider this and confirm that the recommendations are the best for the given guide.
Understand the Product’s Pricing & Positioning Strategy
There are various brands and types of outdoor gear for all budgets. We try to cover most of them in all of our guides, so you will always find a budget option, a value option, and a premium option at least.
We also try to cover age, fitness level, terrain/environment, and health considerations
Take Your Feedback Into Consideration
All of our articles give you the option to leave a comment so that we may field your feedback and experience with gear for the given situation.
We regularly field this feedback and consider it when making changes, updates, and/or recommendations.
Have something you want to add? Feel free to contact us with feedback or corrections or shoot us an email at hello@thesmarthiker.com.
We DON’T:
These are things we absolutely unequivocally will NEVER do on The Smart Hiker.
Take sponsorship fees
Many brands are ready to pay us good money to be featured in a prominent position on our pages but we always refuse these offers. We feel it’s our editorial responsibility to feature the best product for you because we put our love for our community and the great outdoors of money.
Post anything without thorough research
All our articles went through a thorough research process, and we don’t make recommendations lightly. So if you read it on our site, you can be sure it’s gone through all the points above, and you can trust the advice.
Put Profit Over People
It is the belief of The Smart Hiker that people should live their lives offline and outdoors, connecting with people (and nature) in real life. This website doesn’t just exist as a means to drive revenue. It’s a catalyst to connect people with nature, build community, and carry out our core values. Because of this, we always prioritize people over profit and protecting our sacred Earth over our bottom line.
