Must Have Geek Gadgets For Spending Time Outdoors This Spring

If there is one thing I know about my fellow geeks it is that we love our gadgets and as such we always find some cool new piece of tech that makes every life experience that much better. In the past we've talked about a few of our favorite gadgets for summer time fun, but today we are going to share a few suggestions aimed specifically at some of the challenges of being outdoors during the spring time.

Keeping Bugs Away!

Whether it be mosquitoes, ants or wasps nothing ruins a nice afternoon outdoors quite as much as bugs. Not to mention those little pests are known to carry and spread pesky little viruses like West Nile, Zika and even Lyme Disease (yes that is still around). Therefore it should be no surprise that are first few suggestions are going to help keep bugs at bay!

ThermaCell Mosquito Repellent Camp Lantern: The folks over at ThermaCell were nice enough to send us over this cool little dual action lantern and so far we have been nothing but impressed. The light produces 300 lumens which is plenty to bright to light up a full sized or a standard picnic table. The repellent, which can also be used as an independent unit, is said to offer 15'x15' protection from mosquitoes, black flies and a few other “no see-ums”. In other-words plenty of coverage for a small campsite or picnic area.

Rock Those Tunes!

No party is complete without some great music and what better way to enjoy that music than with a killer portable system? For those of you, that like me, grew up in the 80's and early 90's you'll remember the days with the boombox was king! It seemed as though everywhere you went someone had their beats blasting out of their own portable system. Then the days came where we decided to go more personal and portable with the walk-man and later MP3 players.

Monster is trying to put the boom back in boombox with the release of their new Monster Blaster Portable Bluetooth Boom Box. Dubbed the 'Boombox Re-imagined' the Monster SuperStar Blaster features bi-directional speakers with full range drivers in an angled 360⁰ orientation and a down-firing integrated powered subwoofer to offer plenty of sound for large outdoor spaces. For those that plan on being around the water it will also offer splash resistance, though we would suggest something like the BackFloat Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker if you are planning on enjoying the tunes in or around the pool.

Don't Get Lost Out There!

Your smartphone might be great at offering you directions when you are around town. However, using it as a functional GPS device while in the mountains or hiking in the backwoods just isn't practical. For that you'll need a dedicated GPS unit and while there are several great options from several great companies, there is only one unit that I can say I'll recommend 100% of the time. That is the Garmin Astro or new Garmin Alpha 100 series.

Both of these units not only offer you a fully function GPS unit with all the regular bells and whistles, but they both offer you the ability to track your four legged friends everywhere they go. There is nothing worse than being in the backwoods and loosing your family friends. With the Garmin Astro or Alpha you can track there movement on the devices pre-loaded topographical maps and see their distance from you and heading. The Gamin Alpha adds the training function with the help of Tri-Tronics electronic training. Allowing you to select traditional or linear progression plus tone or stimulation types.

Feed Those Hungry Geeks

Cooking in the outdoors can be challenging to say the least. Personally I prefer going with the simplest options possible, which usually means pre-made meals or sandwiches, but there are occasions that you'll want to chef it up. Nothing, and I mean nothing, ruins that experience more than forgetting your cooking essentials at home. The two things I've found that are essential for a good cooking experience while camping are a good portable bbq (gas preferably due to fire restrictions) and a nice portable stove.

The folks at Grub Hub have come up with a few ways to take the hassle out of camp cooking. The Grub Hub Camp Kitchen is a super portable unit the size of a large piece of luggage that organizes, stores and transports all your camp kitchen gear then sets up in less than 3 minutes to provide the ultimate camp kitchen and campsite. The full camp kitchen unit offers everything you need from the stove to the utensils to whip up your favorite meals in no time!

If the Grub Hub is a bit too much for your needs I wholeheartedly believe the Coleman single burner propane stove is the best thing ever. It is super compact so it fits anywhere and offers plenty of functionality for anything from heating up water for your pre-made meals or making coffee. Since camping isn't camping without a good BBQ I'd be a miss without adding a quick simple suggestion there too. Here I keep it simple with a Char-Broil Table Top Gas Grill. Small portable and always gets the job done!

Final Note: Now of course there are several other suggestions we could add to our short list here and we have discussed plenty of those in the past. We just wanted to highlight a few of the newest products out there that are on our wishlist and offer a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing. A few additions I'd always add are portable chargers or battery packs, an awesome flash light or camp lantern and of course we wouldn't be geeks without a multi-tool.

If you guys have suggestions for your favorite spring time tech gadgets be sure to let us know by dropping a comment in the comment box below. We are always looking for more toys and more ideas to build out our tech bundle.