Every day, readers like you proudly share photos of their everyday carry on the site.
Not only is looking through their pockets this way super interesting, but it’s also a great way to find really cool gear you never even knew existed (yet somehow, suddenly need…).
When you hover over an item you like and click on it in these photos, you’re also letting other EDCers know you find that gear interesting. Each click gets recorded to create a data-driven ranking of the most popular gear, which you can find in our Gear section of the site found in the top menu bar.
Gear with the most views and clicks climbs its way to the top of this feed and lets the EDC community know what’s trending right this second.
The Climber takes the popular features from the “Spartan” and adds an extra layer of functionality with full-size scissors and a multi-purpose hook. As the name implies, these extra functions help with mountain climbing and rope-related tasks. The rest of its toolset covers your day-to-day functions with its sharp and easy-to-maintain main blade, smaller secondary blade, combination screwdrivers and can/bottle openers, an awl and corkscrew on the back of the knife, and tweezers and toothpick in the plastic scales.
This month we’re highlighting one member of Leatherman’s often-overlooked compact series of tools. They have a huge catalog of tools to choose from, but the Style PS is the way to go if you’re going through airport security. Unfold it to reveal a Phillips screwdriver, scissors, and a pair of spring-action needle nose pliers that are surprisingly useful for their size. The stainless steel build can handle being tossed around, and it has a built-in carabiner so you can attach it to your bag if your pockets are full. At 0.3 ounces, you won’t even notice it’s there.
CRKT’s sleek CEO folder stands out with its letter opener-esque slim and narrow silhouette which sits discreetly in your pocket thanks to its tip-down, ultra deep-carry clip. It deploys manually via thumb studs on smooth IKBS bearings, locking into a liner. The 3.1″ 8Cr13MoV, flat ground, plain edge blade gives you plenty of cutting edge to work with, coming to a narrow tip for precision work. Its glass reinforced nylon handles provide a solid, ergonomic grip and keeps weight down to just over 2 ounces total.
Designed in collaboration with custom knife maker Joe Pardue, the Utilitac II is a medium sized knife with a hefty construction, ready to take on your daily tasks. Known as the “Little Tank” by its users, the Utilitac II features a workhorse AUS-8A steel for its 3.5“ blade. This heavier blade makes it feel smooth as butter when deploying or closing the knife via its dual thumb studs. The flat hollow ground, clip point shape excels at precision work, aside from being generally proficient at piercing, cutting, and slicing tasks.
The smaller AAA platform for flashlights has usually traded down lumens for convenience and portability, but thanks to the continuous progression of technology, compact lights like the Olight i3T EOS now provide the function and output of its much larger brethren. This crowd-favorite EDC light is able to reach its 180 lumens maximum output from its Philips LUXEON TX emitter and hold it for 20 minutes, all on easy-to-replace alkaline batteries. A large rubberized tail switch lets you switch between its two modes: a 5-lumen Low for sweeping scans and when you don’t want to blind yourself or your companions, and the aforementioned 180-lumen High for when you need a burst of illumination.
The Spyderco Para Military 2 trends on as one of the brand’s most successful folders. Its popularity has created the demand for a smaller, even more pocketable version, and nowadays we have the Spyderco Para 3 and the Para 3 Lightweight. Still, the 3.75-ounce Para Military 2 holds up as a great EDC knife with its 3.44” CPM-S45VN blade that’s fully flat ground into the brand’s iconic leaf shape. It’s proven to be a reliable cutter and slicer, handling everyday tasks and more.
When you bring a pen for EDC, you want something that lasts and performs. The Tombow AirPress is a tough and durable carry-everywhere pen that features a robust metal clip and lightweight, rubberized, elastomer-coated body. It’s also a great pen to take in different conditions due to its built-in cartridge-pressurizing mechanism. Instead of using pressurized ink cartridges like most write-anywhere pens, this one primes and pressurizes its own ink cartridge when you click to deploy it. Because of this, the Tombow AirPress can write upside down, in cold conditions, and even on wet paper.
The KNIPEX Cobra XS is one of the most popular compact everyday carry tools and one look at its small size and innovative design makes it easy to see why. This precision-crafted German tool measures 3.9“ in length, but has a quick-adjust box joint mechanism that lets you grip up to a 1“ wide item all the way down to a flat sheet of paper when in its minimum position. Because it’s designed to fit in the fifth pocket of your jeans, you can always have this tool on you as a backup, and it’s great to have underneath a sink as you’re trying to get at nuts and fasteners in awkward spaces without a lot of clearance where larger traditional tongue-and-groove pliers and wrenches would fail.
The Streamlight Microstream is a classic AAA-sized design that continues to trend on our charts because of its pocketable size and performance for its price. Two versions of the light remain popular and relevant today: the original MicroStream, a compact, 3.6″ long penlight that takes AAA alkaline batteries, and the MicroStream USB, a slightly larger upgrade that runs on a rechargeable li-ion cell. Both lights use the same rubberized tail switch that for operation: a half press gives you momentary on, and a full press gives you a constant and useful 45-lumen output on the original AAA model.
Sometimes you need a knife that can reduce the bulk without sacrificing its cutting power; that’s why SOG crafted the SlimJim, which takes the top spot for November. Sporting one of the slimmest profiles in the market, the SlimJim honors its name with a 0.25” thickness. This profile also helps it keep its overall weight to a mere 2.4oz. But just because it features a slender profile, it doesn’t mean that its performance is compromised. The blade measures a significant 3.18” in its standard form and 4.18” in its XL one. The composition is AUS-8 steel for a formidable performance in camping, fishing, and survival that can remain relatively affordable.