Some people marry for love, some people marry for money. I joke that I married my wife for her backpacking gear. It wasn’t so much the big stuff—I have my own tent collection, and at 6’2” I’m too tall to fit in her sleeping bags or wear her packs. It was the little luxuries that won me over. Where I cooked with an aluminum pot and an off-brand canister stove, she had a JetBoil, and her Snow Peak Mini Hozuki was a better night light than any of the chunky lanterns I brought to our relationship. But of all our now jointly owned hiking gear, there’s nothing I covet as much as her Guyot Designs Squishy Bowls.
These two silicone bowls—at 26 ounces and 9 ounces, they’re more like a bowl and a mug—are indeed squishy. They squash into the bottom of a pack without eating up space or forcing you to stuff them with your spare socks like a typical rigid bowl. They’re great on trips where pack space is at a minimum: international destinations, overnight missions with a small pack. I’ve also tossed them into a compression sack with my spare layers to maximize space. But they’re also stiff and reliable enough for regular use. Thanks to their deep design—they’re shaped roughly like a globe with the top…
