REI membership: is it worth it?

[A-Polly]

freeradical wrote:
I wish they still carried 1:24K USGS topos.

There's no REI near me, but I have happy memories of buying quads from a local bookstore, now gone. They stored maps in beautiful wooden drawers. Fortunately, we can get USGS topos from here:
https://store.usgs.gov/maps
Use the search button for 7.5-minute maps, those are the 1:24,000 topos. Download PDF for FREE, pay $ for paper. The USGS store has improved a lot, downloading is quick and easy.
What's nice is that both old and new maps are available. For instance, you can get the San Francisco North quad from 1947 and 2015, plus the versions in between. Lots of other sorts of maps, too!

[bobinmurphy]

hal wrote:
Unlike other REI fans, I'm NOT a fan of REI branded products. They are almost always poor imitations of much better equipment.

Same here. Like a friend of mine says, a visit to an REI store to find what she's looking for, then surfing the Internet to find the same thing at a much more reasonable price.

As a former ScoutMaster I always found Campmor had a much wider selection of products and better prices.

[NewtonMP2100]

......REI stuff on sale can be a deal sometimes....but the regular prices do tend to not be 'bargains'.......

[particleman]

freeradical wrote:
I wish they still carried 1:24K USGS topos.

Try this to print quads online.

http://www.natgeomaps.com/trail-maps/pdf-quads/

[3d]

Don't you regularly get 10% off with the REI membership? 20% off sometimes? A good pair of boots is going to cost, what, $150? Tack on the membership at checkout and it's a no-brainer. The cashier will remind you.

[GuyGene]

vision63 wrote:
[quote=rz]
They just opened an REI close to my house. We went in and looked around. Lots of expensive stuff. If that's your cup of tea, I guess it might be worth it.

I basically buy from the clearance racks.
Way OT, but vision, this reminded me of what I did a few years ago:

I walked into a department store to meet Ethyl, and two ladies behind the counter asked if they could help me, to which I replied, "Yes, I'm looking for my wife, but I'm afraid she ran off with Clarence Racks." They immediately got my joke, slapped themselves, and said, "You just made our day." Ok...

I might could benefit from REI joining. I'll check it out.

[vision63]

GuyGene wrote:
[quote=vision63]
[quote=rz]
They just opened an REI close to my house. We went in and looked around. Lots of expensive stuff. If that's your cup of tea, I guess it might be worth it.

I basically buy from the clearance racks.
Way OT, but vision, this reminded me of what I did a few years ago:

I walked into a department store to meet Ethyl, and two ladies behind the counter asked if they could help me, to which I replied, "Yes, I'm looking for my wife, but I'm afraid she ran off with Clarence Racks." They immediately got my joke, slapped themselves, and said, "You just made our day." Ok...

I might could benefit from REI joining. I'll check it out.
miley-laughing001:

[Yoyodyne ArtWorks]

I don't think you earn dividends on sale priced merchandise. Back in the Eighties REI had great prices, now not so much. I think it got trendy and yuppiefied and that drove up prices.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

bobinmurphy wrote:
As a former ScoutMaster I always found Campmor had a much wider selection of products and better prices.

It might be closer if I checked through the year but REI was much better than Campmor in bike lights (seasonal sale?). Campmor won by a few percent in food (Mountain House). As always, shop around for best prices.

[Robert M]

Space,

Just checked and the membership is only $20.00. Doesn't seem like a lot of money for a lifetime membership at a generally reputable store. You could do much worse for that kind of bucks. Just a few cups of fancy joe from starbuck will cost you more than that.

Robert