About

Who am I?

Hi, my name is Gilles Vauvarin. I'm a freelance web developer, born in France, who moved to Canada a few years ago where I now live with my daughter and partner. Growing up middle class, my parents would regularly take my sister and me camping during summer vacations. That's how I discovered the joy of sleeping under the stars and cooking meals on a camp stove.

As an adult, I've kept up my love for camping whether with friends, as a couple, or solo. Now I get to share it with my 5-year-old daughter, who just experienced her first nights camping under the tent.

What is Camping Gear?

Last year, I pulled my tent out of storage while planning a road trip through the Alps back in France. The rain fly had completely deteriorated and was sticky to the touch. The waterproof coating had clearly degraded, making the tent unusable. I tried to find a replacement part, but my tent model was too old and I came up empty-handed.

So I donated what was left of my tent to a secondhand goods charity and hit the internet looking for a new one. What a nightmare! I had specific requirements in mind: a lightweight tent I could carry on hikes and use for backcountry camping near mountain huts, a 3-person capacity for my partner, daughter, and me, doors on both sides for convenience, vestibules to protect gear from moisture and create extra storage space.

The problem? The internet is overflowing with tent options, each with dozens of technical specifications. To make matters worse, you have to search across multiple websites, each with different layouts and interfaces. I spent hours on this!

That's when it hit me: why not build a website to help fellow camping enthusiasts choose their tents, while also documenting useful information for my own future adventures and sharing it online? And that's how Camping Gear was born.

How does the site work?

I started by focusing on documentation, writing articles for the blog section since that's the easiest part to set up. Then, if there's enough interest, I'll work on building a tent comparison tool a sortable table with multiple criteria (price, technical specs, etc.). This part of the site requires significantly more development time. Plus, I need to get permission from outdoor gear suppliers to access their product catalogs, then process that data to display it in the comparison table.

The cost question

Websites require maintenance and paid server hosting. As a freelancer, every hour I spend on this project is time I'm not billing to clients. So I need to find a way to fund this time investment without impacting visitors the site needs to stay free. The only solution I've found to finance the project without implementing a paywall is to use affiliate links for the gear listed in the comparison table.

How does affiliate marketing work?

Affiliate marketing is a commission system that retailers offer to reward people who drive traffic to their sales sites. The commission is only paid if a visitor clicks on an "affiliate" link (which identifies the link source) and then completes a purchase of the product indicated by that link.

What does this mean for you in practice?

When you click on a Camping Gear product link in the comparison table and then make a purchase from the retailer (REI, etc.), they pay me a small commission (typically 3-8%). Important: this doesn't cost you anything extra! The price you pay is exactly the same whether you go through my site or navigate directly to the retailer's website. If you want to purchase gear you found through Camping Gear and support my work, just make sure to click through the link in the Camping Gear comparison table this identifies me to the retailer and validates my commission.

Why do retailers do this?

It's their way of thanking us for bringing them a customer. They factor these commission fees into their marketing budget, just like advertising. Basically, instead of spending millions on TV ads, they prefer to reward sites like mine that make links to their products.

My commitment to you

These commissions allow me to fund the time spent building and maintaining Camping Gear without asking you for money.

You might be thinking: "but he has every incentive to promote products to encourage visitors to buy." That's exactly what most sites using this funding model do. Camping Gear works differently I don't give opinions or recommendations on gear to influence your potential purchase. You choose freely based on your own criteria and budget.

Camping Gear simply provides you with a convenient, efficient tool to better select your gear according to criteria you've defined in advance. If you need guidance on defining your selection criteria, check out the blog section you might find useful information or links to other helpful resources.

If you find Camping Gear useful and want to support my work without spending more than the price of the tent you were going to buy anyway, please use my affiliate links :-)

Thank you!

Gilles