outdoor.gift › About
About
outdoor.gift is not a startup and doesn’t want to be one. It’s a small, free app built around one question: how much? How much food, how much weight, how much heat, how much mountain. This page explains who builds it, why — and what pays the bills.
The idea
German Gift (poison) and English gift are the same word — both come from “giving”. In German it narrowed to the dose of a potion; in English the present survived. So the name stands on Paracelsus: “The dose alone makes a thing not a poison.” The wrong dose of sofa is poison; so is the wrong dose of mountain — the right portion lies in between. That’s exactly what the app calculates: servings, dry weight, drying parameters, pack weight. The right dose is the gift.
Who is behind it
One person, not a team: Jörg Zeitler from Dresden, Germany (imprint). Since my wife and I met, we have travelled together — on foot, by packraft, by bicycle, and for a few years now by campervan across Europe. Patagonia, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon and Zion, Sumatra and Kalimantan, from Ende on Flores to Komodo, South Africa and Namibia, four weeks cycling across Cuba on our own route. Nothing organised — we plan everything ourselves. This app grew out of exactly that planning.
I got into dehydrating through beef jerky in the US, and the topic hasn’t let go of me since. Our next goal is the Cape Wrath Trail in Scotland — and since we’re slowly getting older, every gram counts: 18 kg in Sarek was simply too much. So we’re moving towards ultralight — not as dogma, but as the right dose.
I build software with one fixed principle: transparent and GDPR-compliant — as an engineering rule, not a marketing phrase. AI tools help me build; every piece of content is editorially reviewed and the responsibility stays with me. What I haven’t tested myself, I don’t claim.
How it pays its bills
The app is free and stays free. No subscriptions, no ads, no selling data — there simply is no data worth selling.
What covers the costs: clearly labelled affiliate links. Recipe pages and the buying guide link to dehydrators and gear — if you buy through such a link, the shop pays us a commission. Your price does not change. Every one of these links is labelled as advertising, and clicks are counted anonymously, never tied to a person.
And if nobody buys? The site keeps running. The costs are deliberately kept small.
Your data
No personal tracking, no cookies, no fingerprinting, no ad profiles, no external services or CDNs — fonts and scripts are served from our own server. The website counts page views anonymously (which page, from which channel), with no link to a person. The app runs offline on your device; your recipes and pack lists stay there. You only need an account if you want to sync several devices. Details in the privacy policy.
Contact
Questions, criticism, an error in a recipe? info@outdoor.gift — a human answers.
Try the app — free, offline, no sign-up →