Gifts That Started It All | The Outdoor Gear That Changed Everything
November 27, 2025The best outdoor gifts aren't just bits of kit, they're gateways to adventure. Here at WildBounds HQ, we were reminded of this small but significant point as we were putting together this year’s Gift Guide. During a discussion of what makes a great gift, people started to share their stories of little things that sparked a love for the great outdoors. Soon, the team were going misty-eyed with memories of childhood penknives and first sleeping bags, revealing rose-tinted recollections of cherished handheld torches and battered water bottles. We thought you might like to hear these little tales too. So, here are some of the team’s favourite items of outdoor gear; a selection of small but meaningful gifts that opened the door to wild places, telling of memories, mentors, and moments of discovery along the way.
SILVIA, BUYER
When I was 14, my dad and I decided to climb up El Teide (Tenerife) over two days. This was the first “serious” hike I ever did. We began the second part of the ascent at 2:00 a.m., aiming to reach the 3,715m summit for sunrise. However, there was something that made navigating the dark, volcanic trails much more complicated… we didn’t have a light source! We still managed to accomplish the goal, and this remains a funny story that we tell everyone. That same summer, my dad got me a mini handheld torch so that I never saw myself in that situation again. This still comes with me on every trip.
JOSH, MARKETING MANAGER
A pocket knife kick started a love of the outdoors for me. My grandparents got me my first little folding knife around my 10th birthday and with my grandad’s help we went out and made a little bow and arrows with it that afternoon. The whole process was great fun, from mooching around the woods trying to find the right trees, stripping the bark and after a little careful carving, the chance to shoot arrows into a cereal box. I had that first little stick bow until I was almost 20. Needless to say it ignited a love of spending time outdoors, learning about nature, and whittling. I still try to carve out time for those hobbies to this day.
DAVID, ECOMMS COORDINATOR
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what started it off…though I do recall receiving a gift that changed everything. Waterproof trousers. You wouldn’t think there’s much to get excited about but these binbag-esque protectors of the dreich and dewy countryside were a revelation for wee David. Suddenly I could sit wherever I liked, or scramble unabashedly through the sodden undergrowth and seldom acquire a soggy trouser. Pure brilliant.
MATT, COPYWRITER
My oldest bit of outdoor kit is a battered blue aluminium water bottle. It came from the big camping shop at the bottom of our road, just before I headed off on my first ever Cub Scout camp, aged 8 1⁄2. We spent a few nights at Buckmore Park in Kent, which was less than 10 miles from home, but felt like the back of beyond. That bottle remains a trusty outdoor companion. It’s been sent tumbling down a Welsh mountainside and once fell out of a canoe in northern Sweden, but was heroically rescued on both occasions. Thirty-something years later, it’s still going strong - albeit with plenty of dings and dents.
ELLIE, HEAD OF CUSTOMER SUCCESS
My parents gave me a sleeping bag for my birthday when I was 7. It marked the start of my love of camping, which began with starlit bivvies on the patio of a little holiday cottage in the Welsh borders, soon progressing to nights in a tent at the bottom of the field and even wild camps on ‘little mountain’ (a scrubby bit of common up the hill) with my dad. To this day there is still no place I'd rather sleep than in a tent, whatever the season or weather, as long as I’m snug in a cosy sleeping bag.
JOLY, COPYWRITER
Back in the early ‘90s, my school organised a sponsored walk in the Yorkshire Dales. It was only 24km over easy terrain, but for a 10-year-old it felt like a heroic undertaking. My dad appointed me map-reader and presented me with his old map case – a World War Two relic in stiff khaki canvas. He'd presumably pilfered it from the cadets in the 1950s, and the celluloid viewing panel was still covered in pencil annotations from some long-forgotten game of soldiers. Our sponsored walk was rigorously signposted, but I pored over my map all the same, delighted by the newly discovered pleasure of finding my way somewhere. I’ve still got that map case.
Looking for a little something that might help kindle a love of the outdoors? Check out our Christmas Gift Guide