Getting to Know Gura Gear

Getting to Know Gura Gear – bags for photographers, travelers and adventurers
Co-founders Trevor Peterson and renowned wildlife photographer Andy Biggs created
Gura Gear in 2008 to answer a problem critical to traveling to extreme locations: weight
limits on photo gear.

Talking over the campfire after a long day of photographing wildlife, they discussed
what the perfect camera bag would be – and on the back of napkin, the Kiboko backpack
was sketched out.

Over two years of development, eight rounds of prototypes, and one patent application
later, the Kiboko camera backpack was launched. Seventeen years later, Gura Gear is
still designing and creating the best bags for photographers, travelers, and adventurers—because the journey never ends.

Since the beginning, Gura Gear products have been made our with X-Pac® VX21, a high-tech
sailcloth used on racing yachts. In fact, Gura Gear was the first in the world to use the
VX-21 fabric in wide production for bags and backpacks. We were fortunate to sit down
with Maja Beaton, Gura Gear’s Senior Marketing Manager who joined the company almost two
years ago, who was kind to answer a few questions about the company and the many successes it has enjoyed.

Is there significance to the name Gura Gear?

Yes, it has significance to Africa. The entire Gura Gear product line – the Mara, Masai, Koboko,
Chobe– is named after Africa. The name resembled the African landscape, how Trevor and Andy fell in love with Africa along with the world of travel and safari.

How did Trevor and Andy discover X-Pac® fabrics?

They were aware that Dimension-Polyant made technical racing sails and believed that this type of lightweight and extremely durable material would be perfect for its bags.

They had the idea of making a very lightweight, weather resistant bag that could carry all their equipment, which was literally bomb proof. From day one our bags have been made with X-Pac®. We’re the only brand on the market that uses only X-Pac® VX 21 and VX 42 fabrics and have been using it for all our bags since Gura Gear was launched in 2008 – that’s 17 years!

What makes Gura Gear bags so special for camera gear?

Trevor has designed all the bags with meticulous care and function. Every inch of space and every detail when it comes to these bags matters. We found that many bag brands on the market make their bags to fit a certain amount of gear, but they’re cutting out inches and inches. Ours really take advantage of the space. We are the only bags on the market that fit 400mm, 600mm and 800mm telephoto lenses. We’re talking about $14,000 lenses.

Does Gura Gear offer bags that are more multipurpose?

We have a lot of great options to include outdoor bags and many travel bags. Whether you are
skiing, or fly fishing, it’s all there. And we’ve expanded into a travel line. One of our bags was
featured in Outside magazine as the best duffle, and we’ve also been featured in Carryology.
We’ve had a 75% revenue growth since. Our clientele went from being your Africa, safari,
Antarctica, Alaska shooter, to a much younger demographic and people wanting the best quality.

These bags aren’t cheap to make, and we don’t really make that big of a profit on them, but we’re giving people a product that’s going to last. And that’s the biggest thing. Our customers trust us.

You had mentioned that with Gura Gear, ‘you buy once, cry once’.

Yes! That’s what I call it. Gura Gear is expensive, but you’re going to buy it and you’re going to
cry and you’re going to get over it because you’re never going to have to buy a bag again.
I call our whole line, the end all line. It’s the end to all your problems, and it’s the end to you
having to buy another bag. Our products are like a blessing and a curse. The way that we keep
revenue growth is by introducing new colorways, new product launches.

We have never had someone return a product or complain about a product because the X-Pac® material literally does not break. Thanks to the X-Pac® team for creating a product that stands up to everything that they claim.

What is Gura Gear’s distribution channel?

We sell through retail channels and direct to consumer. Right now, we are in B&H and Sammy’s among other big camera stores.

Does Gura Gear distribute globally?

We recently opened a warehouse in Europe and just launched Asia. We are growing very much.

What are some surprising developments with the product line that you’ve seen
since you joined the company?

We just did an expo in Vegas called WPPI. It’s the biggest wedding expo globally.

We were promoting our Kiboko 22L+ – marketing specifically for women photographers that had back issues. I was telling Trevor that as a woman and a female photographer, these bags are so crucial. We have weight on our front, and we have weight on our back. When you’re shooting a wedding, no one wants to be exhausted. We’re already doing enough. You’re going from probably dropping kids off at daycare, running your dog, going to do this, going to do that to then going to shoot a wedding. And you have all this stress on you. Women need less stress. If women can feel the comfort of having that support on their back from a bag, let’s do that!

So, we started giving a show discount for women specifically. We had women photographers coming to our booth, buying the bags, dumping the gear out of their old bags, into our new bags, then taking their bags and throwing them into the trash bin outside of the expo, sending us photos. They’re saying this is the most amazing bag. I’m like, “yes, because its light!” We’ve really taken the brand from one specific target market to a much broader market.

Sounds like Gura Gear has quite a following of loyal fans.

I’m very proud to say that we do have quite the following. And since I’ve been with Gura Gear, I
have not had one customer complaint, not one return. We’re growing at a fast rate. We are
showing people of the younger demographic that we have something for you, and we have a lot of great options for women.

What’s up next for Gura Gear?

In June, we’re exhibiting at B&H’s Bild Expo in New York City where we will have two booths.
B&H, which carries our whole line, is gearing up to bring in 25,000 people. We are doing so
much marketing around it to include doing a partnership with FujiFilm. We will have so many
incredible activations. We work with Sony ambassadors, Nikon Ambassadors, Canon
Ambassadors who will be there as well.

At our first Bild Expo, about two years ago, we sold out of everything we had at the booth. We’re expecting to sell more this year as well. We put all our marketing into our staff, we go to New York City, and we have a great time. We meet all our friends and it’s wonderful. Every big brand is there.

Our marketing around Bild will focus solely on X-Pac®. We’ll be running a lot of marketing –
why X-Pac® is number one, why we only use X-Pac®, why it’s expensive, why it’s the best &
why Gura Gear keeps using this material 17 years later.

Thanks to Maja for sharing all her enthusiasm and passion for Gura Gear with us!
For more information on Gura Gear, please visit https://guragear.com/