My Favorite Gear, EDC, Bags, and Bullet Journal [Gift Guide 2023]

In this video, I'm going to be giving you my 2023 gift guide. These are my favorite gear, clothing, and everyday carry EDC recommendations. Going to be giving you my notebook and a couple like small pouch things that I think you will like if you are into bullet journaling or just like want to be organized with your stuff. This is going to be great for you. The first bag that I want to tell you about, I don't actually have with me just yet. What you're going to see is my cousin Josh— shout out to Josh— who told me about this bag It's the Topo Designs Global Briefcase. First things first, I want you to listen to the sound of these beefy zippers unzipping. I mean, that is a tremendous zipper. I mean, you can see how thick those things are. Those are like 3 C's thick zippers. You can see the capacity of this bag. It doesn't take up that much space on the body, but you can see that it fits a lot of stuff. There's one of these Topo, like, pouches that I was telling you about right there, and a couple of good front pockets you can fit in, like any— like phone, field notes, little Streetscapes action that I'm going to show you later, AirPods, little hand sani. Lots of space in there. You can see the little, little chain, the little dongle for the keys. The other thing that I like about it is that you can take out these backpack straps and wear it backpack style like the Rover Pack. And of course it also has the like crossbody and a messenger bag style as well. So that is the Topo Designs Global Briefcase. There are two other bags that I recommend. Now one of them, and this just went out in the newsletter, is the GORUCK GR1. I love this bag. GORUCK also makes an M22. I'm pretty sure it's called the M22 because That's also a gun. No, I'm right, it is the M22. They actually just got it back in stock. This is the first time that I've seen the M22 in stock this year. My friend Michael Easter told me about it. It's his favorite GORUCK pack. So if I wasn't using the GR1 here, I would be getting the M22. Either one, you can't go wrong. The other thing that I like about the GORUCK pack that I put into the newsletter version of the gift guide is that they now have a kids version of that pack. And is it overpriced for a kids backpack? Yes, probably is. But my niece has one of these and she is the coolest at school. So it's actually— ooh, it's on sale right now, so down to $99. This is a pack that will never blow out, wear out, and even if it does, they will repair it for free. So I think it's like $120, $150, but if you buy this pack, especially if you have a lot of kids or you think you might have a lot of kids, this pack will last through all of your kids. You don't have to get a brand new one every 3 or 4 years, probably end up spending more money on it. Get the GORUCK Kids Pack and it will last you multiple, multiple children's lifetimes. The other one that I recommend, also Topo Designs, this is their Rover Pack.. It is much lighter, leaner, and they also have a mini Rover pack that, especially if you're looking for some retro cool for the kiddos, can't go wrong. Topo Designs Go Ruck, that's what I recommend in terms of bags. Two other little EDC things that I want to recommend, again, Topo Designs, very good. This is where— these are how I organize all of my pens. And other knickknacks. I also have a larger accessory bag that I put a first aid kit in. My wife carries these around for kids' snacks during the day and her pack and the diaper bag. So they come in multiple sizes. This is like the small pencil case size. Get a bunch of these. They're not that expensive, relatively speaking. Again, they last forever. I've had this for like 8 years. Little EDC thing that I've really been liking is this Alpaka pouch. What this has is a spot for— this isn't the exact version, this is an older one— but it has a little spot you could put some cards or cash in here. It will fit a couple of Field Notes notebooks. And another thing that I like about it is it makes it easy to slide in some pens and pencils. So right here, by the way, my favorite highlighter. There we go. Okay, Mr. Pen. This is what I recommend. I love these highlighters. They're gel highlighters, which makes it— they just don't bleed as much. I really like them. Blackwing pencils. This is a small one. The Fisher space pen. There's a couple of like smaller EDC, everyday carry pens that, uh, fit into like with a notebook like this. But what I like about this, uh, Fisher pen— I had another one in the newsletter— pop it out, it fits on top of itself, so you still feel like you're writing with a normal pen, kind of like auto-extends that way. So check out these alpaca pouches. You can find them at Huckberry. The other thing I actually have this coming for my oldest son. There is a— you can also get this at Huckberry— is a kind of wooden knife set. And the cool thing about it is you can assemble— it's a kit, and so you assemble the wooden knife, and it has the same type of like lever action, you know, working action that a pocket knife would. So it just— and it, you know, it's not sharp in the sense that they're really gonna like cut and hurt themselves, but they could definitely poke themselves or someone else, and it would hurt and it would draw blood. So it's just like, it's a good very first step if you have young boys who are ready or think they're ready to start using knives. This is a good first, like, step into doing that. So I don't have that. I'll show you, I'll show you a picture of it. This is the wooden knife safety kit that I was telling you about. So it comes fully disassembled and you can put it together with your child. And I'm gonna do this for my little— for my 8-year-old son. So that's something I'm looking forward to doing with him. One of my favorite things to do each year is recommend and share my favorite books of the year. I just did a whole video about that, so if you want to check it out, make sure you look at the card that's popping up in the corner right here, and it's also going to be linked in the description below. So check out those books, favorite books of the year. As somebody who's made well over 100 videos about bullet journaling, to not recommend a bullet journal style notebook to you— and I have to say very happily that to me, the Bullet Journal team is making the best bullet journal notebook. The X Edition is fantastic, and I just love overall how they made updates to the bullet journal in the last couple of years. It looks so good. And the other thing that I like about it, besides that it gives you all this like background information on like, here's the size of the bullet journal, the number of dots in it— because y'all remember that I used to do these videos and I would count the number of dots so that if I was thinking about, okay, what's half a page, there's 37 dots in the Bullet Journal dot grid. So if I want half page, I need to kind of count out 18, and I need to have that, and I would make little marks. Bullet Journal does all of that for you now. So, uh, X Edition, I think this is the best bullet journal out there right now. So if you're getting a new bullet journal, or there's someone in your life that either loves to bullet journal, or you think would get a lot of value out of bullet journaling, just get the Bullet Journal Edition X. In this next part of the video, I'm going to record myself showing you things on the internet that I recommend. This isn't like the best way to do a gift guide, but I want to tell you about these things, and I want to make sure that when I sent— well, I guess I'd be sending you to a link, but I just want you to see like, hey, this is what I like, this is where you can get it, and this is what I recommend. Here's what you want to be looking for on the internet. Links to everything in this newsletter edition. So, and it'll be in the description as well. But if you're not signed up to the newsletter, make sure you do that. You just come right here, add in, and you'll get my Saturday review. And also the to-do's day productivity email is going to start back up in the new year as well. So this is everything. The couple of things that I wanted to show you, one is this Alpaka Zip Pouch Pro. The other one that I was referring to, this is the updated edition. It'll fit a little field notes. So definitely really like this. Okay, a couple other little things that I just wanted to run through with you. This is a local herbalist and tea maker here in Nashville or just outside of Nashville. She's wonderful, great, great person, great family, and I love their I love their tea. My favorites are Immortal Monk and Daily Strength and Mountain Man. This coffee from Groundwork, I'll just say this is my favorite coffee that I've gotten from a coffee shop in a long time. In fact, my two favorites— I was telling my mom this, my mom and I both love coffee— it's this from Groundwork and then from Dynamite Coffee from where I used to live in Black Mountain, just outside of Asheville. Has one called Suplicar Clemencia, which is Spanish for beg for mercy. And that's how dark those dadgum beans are roasted. I really like these towels, these like activity quick dry towels, a lot of from Nomadix and the National Parks collection. A lot of times when you get these like workout towels, they don't actually like help you get dry at all and they stink really quick. But I haven't had that problem at all with Nomadix, so definitely check them out. And then this other really cool thing that I wanted to show you is the Field Notes Streetscapes Edition. I mean, just so cool. I'm going to get a couple of these and like color them in with my kids. I know they will really like doing that with me. And I recommend Blackwing color pencils with that. Check these out. I still have— yeah, I'm showing you this, I have them right here as well. All right, last thing to tell you about that I love, and this is a little bit more on the fancy side, but this Huckberry Flint and Tender Trucker Jacket is my favorite jacket of all time. Now I have the unlined waxed canvas Trucker, but they also have a wool and a flannel lined edition. In fact, I think you can only get— I don't think the unlined is available right now. And the reason that I went with the unlined personally is because I thought if I'm cold, I can just line it myself with my own flannel shirt. And that's what I've done. So my favorite flannel these days is the Patagonia Fjord flannel. It is the thicker, kind of mid-weight version flannel, 100% organic cotton. And so between this, the Flint and Tinder waxed canvas trucker jacket, I have exactly what I need to look great and to be warm this winter season. This is a jacket that has only gotten better This is a jacket I can apply more wax to, or probably like have someone that knows what they're doing apply more wax to it to continue to like make it very long-lasting and excellent. This is— these jackets are the kind of things that your kids fight over. This is an heirloom quality piece. I've been so pleased with this jacket. It's probably the fa— my favorite piece of clothing that I've ever owned. So I highly recommend having, uh, a jacket. It doesn't have to be this jacket, this is just my favorite one, but having something that, you know, like, if you can swing it responsibly, getting something like this that you would kind of like buy it hoping and thinking this is something that my kids are going to like wearing, you know, maybe maybe not when they're teenagers, but when they're older. That would be really cool. That's everything that I loved, that I enjoyed, that even like I recommend for potential purchases in the holiday season. So I hope you like these. I hope you find something that you think would make a good gift for someone that you care about, or even a little something special for yourself. Make sure you check out the book recommendations video that's linked below and in the end screen. And I look forward to sharing more videos with you as 2023 winds down and we get ready for 2024. Have a great day. See you soon. Bye.