Re: Day hiker interested in camping, where to start?

There are dozens of bloggers, too, covering the business of hiking and backpacking (myself among them), and a whole movement in the UK of lightweight backpackers using blogs to talk about their experiences; most of the posts tend to be gear centric. Also, you can get great deals on second-hand gear on e-bay ... lots of packs/bags/stoves get used a barely a few times before the newbies lose interest in sleeping on the ground.