Have you ever wished you could try outdoor gear before buying? Do you want to invite friends along who don’t have gear? Do you need the gear for just one trip but hate to lay out the cash for it?
Wooded Nomad comes to the rescue for all those situations, and more.
How Wooded Nomad Solves the Gear Dilemma
Quality gear is often key to fully enjoying your outdoor adventures. But good gear is pricey. Experiencing sticker shock is a common phenomena when walking into an outdoor retail store!
There might be many reasons why you don’t want to invest the money to buy gear (like the ones we started this post with)…So rent it! You save money, you save time maintaining the equipment, and you eliminate storage issues
Or you get to try before you buy. You can find out whether you’ll like the activity before investing. You can decide if you like the product enough to shell out the cash.
“We want to get people outside as cheap as they can do it with good stuff.”
What They Offer
So far, the inventory at Wooded Nomad is focused on camping and backpacking, and urban events like festivals, staff outings and beach days:
- Tents, sleeping bags, sleeping pads, cots and canopies
- Camp chairs and hammocks
- Cookware, lighting, dry bags, coolers and solar panels
- Backpacks, daypacks and child carriers
- And the list goes on…
As they grow, they’ll keep adding inventory based on what their customers ask for. They’d like to add winter sports, bike packing gear and possibly paddling gear.
This is How Easy it Is
Wooded Nomad makes it super easy to rent from them. If you live in the Twin Cities, stop in to their shop and take a look around. If you don’t, take a look at their inventory on the website.
You can choose individual items if you just need to fill out your own equipment stock. Or you can choose one of their pre-picked bundles for the number of people in your party. The pricing is based on the items you choose and how many days you’ll be renting them.
Once you’ve reserved your item(s) you have several options:
- Pick up at the shop and drop back off when you’re done.
- Have it shipped to your home and you ship it back.
- If you’re flying, they’ll ship it to your (Continental US) destination. You use the prepaid shipping label and ship it back from there when you’re done.
What a deal!
About Wooded Nomad
Jesse and Erin King are the founders and owners of Wooded Nomad. Like many small businesses, their idea was birthed out of their experience. They were pricing gear for a Colorado backpacking trip and realized how much it would set them back.
Not finding any options to rent the kind of gear they needed sparked the idea to start a rental business themselves. Wooded Nomad was born in May of 2018.
Erin shares:
“At first we were online only, running it out of our house. We were getting orders and realizing that our house isn’t big enough to set up tents, and clean them. It was starting to take over our house, and we quickly learned that we needed a space.
“We had all this fantastic gear and we wanted to be able to show it off and not just have it in our house in secure totes.”
Jesse adds:
“Online shopping is a huge thing now. But if you want to order a pack, you want to make sure it fits. You don’t want to invest in something and realize it doesn’t work for you. Being able to come in and see the item, physically try it on before you take it out is a big plus.”
A Couple More Reasons to Shop with These Folks
Jesse and Erin love community involvement, and have sought out relationships with other local businesses. (For example, the morning I met with them in their store, they had brought coffee from a local brewery and doughnuts from a local bakery—yum!)
This couple are also dedicated to giving to non-profit causes. They donate a portion of every sale to organizations they believe in that also support getting people in the outdoors or the environment.
Where You’ll Find Them
Wooded Nomad’s storefront is at 1229 Tyler St NE, Suite 295 in Minneapolis. Their website is WoodedNomad.com.
Their store hours are limited (they both still work other jobs), so check their hours before heading over.
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