Switchback Spring, May 22-24, 2027 in New Orleans, LA
•
Switchback at TRE, December 1-3, 2026 in San Antonio, TX
If you want to shop Japanese goods in America, Portland, OR is an increasingly good place to do so. Snow Peak has a U.S. headquarters there. Japanese retailer Muji survived the pandemic there when many of its U.S. stores didn’t. Uniqlo is arriving soon, too. And beyond that, there’s the Portland Japanese Garden, the Japanese textile store Kiriko Made and neighboring kitchen and homewares store Kokoro, dozens of excellent ramen shops, and even more independent specialty stores.
Later this year, another niche retailer will join the ecosystem: KōROGI, a shop devoted to Japanese camping culture. Until now, it has only existed online, but a 4,500-square-foot brick-and-mortar location is taking shape in the city’s southwestern quadrant.
Once open, owner Nate Matos’s maximalist aesthetic will be on full display. From a recently acquired taxidermy bear to his collection of vintage catalogs and a limited-edition hammock tent hanging overhead, his goal is to make KōROGI feel less like a store and more like a treasure hunt, where every visit uncovers something you didn’t know you needed.
“One of the best things about retail is that you don’t always have to go into a shop with something in mind,” Matos says. “Embodying that sense of discovery and newness every time someone comes in cannot be replicated in the same way online,” he adds.
Matos opened KōROGI online in June 2024 in a spare bedroom of his house. As an experiment, he sold a camera to buy some inventory from Japan, listed it on a website, and, as he puts it, “it kind of blew up.” He quickly outgrew the bedroom and upgraded to bigger and bigger storage units before opening a space that also served as his office. It’s currently packed to the gills with things like camping stoves, tents and tarps, coffee pots and kettles, lanterns, utensils, and more—all sourced from Japanese brands.
Before that, Matos was already visiting parts of Asia for his other business. He and a friend formed a car club and started dealing automobile memorabilia, such as a racing outfit autographed by Jackie Chan. He came across Japanese camping gear and old camping catalogs and started learning about how Japan came to understand car camping as it is today.
Japan’s modern camping culture took off in the 1970s and 1980s, during the country’s postwar economic boom. As incomes rose and more people started owning cars, Japanese families began taking road trips and camping vacations, much like Americans had started doing decades earlier. But while the two styles of camping share similar roots, they’ve divulged culturally.
Whereas the American style of camping values isolationism and survivalism, Japanese camping emphasizes comfort, craftsmanship, and time spent outdoors as much as adventure itself. While it’s often labeled “glamping” in the U.S., enthusiasts argue it’s better understood as an evolution of traditional car camping, shaped by Japanese design principles. Campsites are thoughtfully arranged living spaces with modular furniture, quality cookware, and well-made gear.
To keep KōROGI stocked with interesting goods, Matos regularly crosses the Pacific to visit Japan, where he combs outdoor stores like TreFac Sports—a renowned retailer specializing in repairing, restoring, buying, and reselling used gear—for both products and inspiration. His curiosity has also recently extended into Korea’s camping scene, which shares similarities with Japanese and American camping while developing its own distinct identity.
Across those trips, he has collected not just rare gear and ephemera, but ideas about retail. In opening KōROGI, he hopes to create a third space where people can gather and swap stories.
“That question of where have you been and where are you going is something that is so fundamentally built into any retail experience in outdoor recreation,” he says.
The shop’s footprint extends beyond its 2,250 square feet of retail space. Tenants in the building also share access to a gated outdoor patio, where Matos plans to host tent demos, cookouts, and other community events. He hopes to collaborate with neighboring businesses, too — perhaps partnering with the corner coffee shop for brewing sessions using camping equipment to demonstrate how to make a great cup of coffee in the backcountry.
Until the new storefront opens, KōROGI’s gear has a temporary home just around the corner at the conceptual space Landdd, where Matos is giving Portland a preview of what’s to come.
