Affiliate & Advertising Disclosure
This page explains, in plain English, how Camp Smarter makes money — because a site built on telling you to buy less gear owes you total honesty about the times it suggests you buy something.
What affiliate links are
Some links on this site are affiliate links. That means if you click one and buy something, the retailer pays us a small commission — typically a few percent of the sale. It costs you nothing extra. The price you pay is the same as if you'd gone to the store directly.
We participate in affiliate programs including Amazon Associates and outdoor-retailer programs through networks like ShareASale, Impact, and CJ Affiliate. When an article contains affiliate links, you'll see a short notice near the top of the page saying so.
Our affiliate policy (the part that matters)
Our whole pitch is that you don't need that much gear — so every affiliate link here follows three rules:
- Essential-first, never haul-first. We link to the gear that solves a real beginner problem — a sleep system that keeps you warm, a stove that works — not a list of 47 things to buy before your first trip.
- The numbers come first. Every recommended product carries real specs: weight, temperature rating, price, and what the budget alternative costs. If we can't show the numbers, we don't link it.
- We say when the answer is "buy nothing" or "buy used." Our guides regularly conclude that a thrifted pot, a borrowed tent, or simply going without beats a new purchase. Budget gear gets our respect, and overpriced hype gets called out.
We only recommend gear we would take on our own trips, and our comparisons include a "what to skip" verdict whenever we find duds. Affiliate relationships never determine our recommendations.
Display advertising
This site may display ads served through an ad network (currently set up for Mediavine Journey). These ads are how the site earns revenue from readers who never click a product link. We don't control which specific ads appear, but we choose networks with standards against deceptive or predatory advertising, and we keep ad placements from interfering with reading.
Sponsored content
If we ever publish a sponsored post or accept a sponsored newsletter placement, it will be clearly labeled as sponsored at the top of the content — and we'll only accept sponsorships for gear we'd recommend unpaid.
Digital products
We may sell our own low-cost guides (such as a first-timer's trip planner or a printable packing checklist). These are our own products, priced to be genuinely useful rather than premium courses — if a guide doesn't save you visible money or a miserable first night, we don't want your money for it.
Questions?
If you have questions about how we make money, or you spot something on the site that feels like it conflicts with this policy, we want to hear about it. Contact us at hello@campsmarter.com and a human will reply.
Last updated: September 27, 2026.