Welcome to My Outdoors Life, a blog built around a single, simple passion: the great outdoors, in every shape and season it comes in.
Whether you live to summit alpine peaks, lose yourself on a quiet forest trail, paddle a glassy lake at dawn, or simply pitch a tent in the backyard with your kids, you’ll find a home here. Our mission is to talk about outdoor adventures of every kind, the planning, the gear, the mishaps, and the breathtaking payoffs, and to help you get out there more often, more safely, and with a bigger grin on your face.
How It All Started
My Outdoors Life launched in 2016, founded by childhood friends, lifelong hiking buddies, and dyed-in-the-wool outdoor enthusiasts Daniel Carraway and Mark Foster. What began as two friends swapping trail notes and gear opinions quickly grew into something bigger. Since then, the blog has expanded rapidly, with additional writers coming on board, each one just as dedicated to the outdoors as the day Daniel and Mark first laced up their boots together.
Between them, our founders bring more than three decades of combined experience in the wild. That experience covers just about everything: a single night under the stars, a weekend family camping trip, a multi-day backcountry trek, or a solo week-long disappearing act deep into the forest. From gear recommendations and packing checklists to tips that make your adventures both safer and more exciting, we’ve got a lot to share.
Here at My Outdoors Life, our promise is simple. We’ll keep bringing you the best, most practical outdoor advice you’ll ever need.
Get to know the team behind the blog below.
Daniel Carraway
Daniel is a self-confessed gear freak when it comes to hiking, climbing, and camping. He’s the kind of person who reads spec sheets for fun. To sharpen his skills and meet fellow adventurers, he attended the REI Outdoor School, and he’s never stopped learning since, always hunting down best practices and getting his hands on the latest gadget the moment it’s released.
A word of warning: don’t try to win an argument with him about the newest backpack or ice axe. He’s tested most of them, and he holds some very strong opinions. (He’s usually right, too.)
His biggest dream is to climb Mount Everest, and he began training seriously toward that goal in 2019. It’s a long-term project he chips away at between every other adventure on his list.
When he’s not obsessing over gear, Daniel lives for the quieter rewards of the outdoors, the beauty of a sunset seen from a mountaintop, and the unbeatable flavor of a meal cooked over a campfire and shared with his wife and son.
Ready for a new adventure at a moment’s notice, Daniel knows how to stay prepared for any situation and understands just how much the right gear matters. He’ll be sharing all of that hard-won knowledge with you in his articles.
Mark Foster
Mark earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouts of America, at just 17 years old, and he’s lived the scout life ever since.
He plans every trip down to the last detail, takes leadership seriously, and has a story or a tip for nearly every situation you could face in the backcountry. Listen to him for ten minutes and you’ll walk away having learned something genuinely useful.
Mark loves to push his limits when it comes to wilderness survival. He’ll happily set off on a 30-day adventure with no food and no equipment beyond a survival kit and a knife, and come back in one piece. (In fairness, that survival kit holds 122 carefully chosen items, so the man clearly knows what he’s doing.)
These days, Mark is hard at work on a book about his wilderness survival adventures, and he’ll make sure the readers of this blog are the very first to hear when it’s ready.
Garry Robbins
Garry Robbins is the newest addition to the My Outdoors Life team, and he arrives with a passport full of stamps and a serious set of stories to tell.
When it comes to camping and the off-road (4WD) world, few people have racked up the kind of miles Garry has. He’s driven the length and breadth of Australia, tackling everything from red-dirt outback tracks to remote coastal trails behind the wheel of a four-wheel drive. Before that, he spent several years living in Africa, soaking up a continent that tests and rewards every adventurer who takes it on. And as if that weren’t enough, he’s backpacked his way across North America, through Canada, and into parts of Europe.
That breadth of experience, across different continents, different terrain, and different ways of getting out into the wild, gives Garry a genuinely well-rounded perspective on outdoor life, whether you’re kitting out a 4WD for a long-haul trip or packing light for a backpacking route on the other side of the world.
These days, Garry has slowed down just a touch. He works full time, contributes to My Outdoors Life part time, and spends whatever’s left over doing what he does best: planning his next adventure outdoors. His expedition days may be a little less frequent now, but the wanderlust hasn’t gone anywhere, and you’ll get the benefit of all that hard-earned knowledge in his articles.
Wrapping Up
We’re confident you won’t just enjoy your time reading this blog. You’ll come away having learned plenty of new and genuinely useful things along the way.
The outdoors will always be there waiting for you, in fair weather and foul. So whatever’s on your horizon, your first overnight hike or your hundredth summit, our advice is the same: never stop exploring, and never give up on the next adventure.
See you on the trail.
The My Outdoors Life Team