Not many camping stores look like art galleries, but Kamp does. Jason Gray's a photographer, and Mandi Gray is an interior designer, and when they were setting up the displays in their new store's minimalist Cherokee space, they had to warn each other not to make everything look too perfect, or people might be afraid to pick stuff up.
Still. There's an origami kayak hanging on the wall like tribal sculpture. It's a single seamless piece of white corrugated plastic, and it folds up like a lawn chair does. It's beautiful. And the 16-foot version is ocean safe, yet.
Across the aisle's a display of nature-themed jewelry handcrafted in New Zealand by Gold Pan Pete, who Kamp's owners discovered online. He turned out to be from St. Louis!
So are the Grays, but they love to travel, and they love the outdoors, and they love their two little boys, 5-year-old Harper and almost 2-year-old Ellison. "We're a transracial family," explains Mandi. "We adopted both at birth. So it's important for us not just to spend time with them while we're working, but to make outdoor adventures diverse and inclusive."
The boys will be around the store, which just had its grand opening yesterday, after school and on weekends, when the background music may change to Moana, Ellison's very appropriate new obsession, which is all about voyages.
Stuff you can buy at Kamp:
- Tree tents, so you can sleep high above the ground, literally reducing your footprint and dramatically improving your view.
- Grand Trunk hammocks, even a junior hammock for the little ones, in whimsical patterns.
- LifeStraw personal water filters, so you can drink safely from any water source.
- BioLite products, including a solar panel you can wear on your back while you're hiking, charging the dread devices as you go, and a cookstove that makes electricity from a wood fire's heat. No nasty propane required.
- Clever small things, like a bottle opener that's also a stick snapper.
- Backpacks and/or clothes by Fjall Raven, and Swerve; menswear-inspired women's clothes by Tradlands; ultrasoft clothes by Deso.
- Kamp t-shirts printed by STL-Style.
"Because of our scale, we can work with smaller vendors," says Jason, "which is an advantage over REI. We wanted curated products that are different and very functional." The companies are all noble, too, donating proceeds to developing countries and insisting on fair labor and sustainable fabrics.
Lessons you can learn at Kamp:
Jason founded Photo Flood St. Louis, which has 450 or so members and regularly "floods" a city neighborhood to learn its history and maybe savor a restaurant or bar there. He's worked with National Geographic photographers in the past, and he will teach photography classes at Kamp: intro, intermediate, advanced, nature and landscape, and urban landscape.
There will also be yoga classes, for adults and for kids, and storytimes with outdoorsy activities indoors.
On March 15, a high-altitude ethnobotanist from the Missouri Botanical Garden will speak.
And the Grays are always available to give advice about adventure.
