As National Outdoors was developed, we first focused on creating an outdoors store that would have a depth of outdoor equipment, outdoor gear, and outdoor products that would satisfy the needs of outdoor enthusiasts. We came to realize that providing useful, relevant, and entertaining information about Outdoor Activities and Outdoor Recreation Areas, in addition to the Outdoor Gear Stores and Gear Reviews, was also important.

The approach that we decided to take for National Outdoors was to create an online Outdoor Magazine to organize the large amounts of information on outdoor destinations and pursuits that is out there. The first thing we decided about using an online magazine, or ezine, format was that we didn’t want to just sit at our desks and catalogue all the outdoor recreation areas throughout the country. We really wanted to try a new approach – one that encouraged local experts to share their passion for the outdoors with a broader audience. At the same time, we wanted to provide those same local experts with a chance to promote their services or products in an online outdoors magazine in a way that was effective and easy.

The resulting user-generated content that has been submitted to National Outdoors has been more relevant, timely, and insightful than we could have done ourselves. In exchange for sharing their knowledge of the outdoors, we try to reciprocate in different ways with content providers, often outdoor service providers or retailers. We have initially focused on providing free self-promotion in the outdoor magazine through opportunities such as static links on each post, regionally organized categories, temporary free advertising, and inclusion in the national outdoors directory.

What we have learned is that allowing users to control their own content encourages the information to be more locally focused as opposed to a generic summary written from afar, while the self-promotion ensures that writers remain professional. This mutually beneficial relationship is a powerful tool for smaller outdoor websites.

We haven’t forgotten the other sections of the site in the process; NationalOutdoors.net still provides a unique set of more than twelve outdoors gear stores that cover camping and hiking, outdoor clothing, backpacks and bags, ski equipment, mountain bike equipment, fly fishing gear, kids clothing, car racks, white water and rafting equipment, snowboarding gear, adventure travel products, and also the bargains and deals available on all these products.

This list may seem ridiculous, but imagine what it was like for us to have to narrow down over thirty thousand outdoor products to this relatively small list of outdoors gear. The different outdoors stores that you will find on this site will provide a tremendous amount of information about the varied outdoor equipment that is available and they each are powered by a highly respectable outdoor equipment retailer.

The most powerful way to use these gear stores is to search all the outdoors products at once through our search box. (Just be sure to use highly specific terms for the outdoor gear that you are looking for to ensure the best results for comparison.)

Please enjoy, and don't forget to come back and share your passion for the outdoors with all the other visitors to National Outdoors.