Simon Thomas

Out of the Box It fitted. I don't mean "it'll do once it's broken in." It fitted straight away. No pressure points on my head. Nothing on my ears. Cardo says the Pro-Fit pad set is flexible and moulds to different head shapes. I went looking for a sore spot over six hours the way you look for a leak in a tent, and I never found one.

Where It Really Shines Yes, it’s a hammock. Obviously. But where it genuinely surprised us was how often we used it not as a bed, but as a chair. Set it up right, and you can sit at a comfortable angle, lean back and… just be. Read a book. Tap away on a laptop. Watch the world go by. There’s something oddly civilised about it, even when you’re parked up in the middle of nowhere.

Lisa and I have been carrying and using our GNS AEB-L Stainless Steel Fixed Blade Bushcraft Knife since 2018, and somewhere along the way it stopped being “a knife we’re testing” and just became… our knife. Which, if you’ve ever owned more blades than you care to admit (guilty), is saying something.