I met this couple with little 1 man whitewater rafts called packrafts and was totally intrigued!

I have to get one!

I have discovered there are a handfull of people doing packrafting in the UK but i think its much bigger in the States and Canada.

google is helping gather info a little but I wondered if any of you guys packraft and have any advice or could direct me to good websites, forums etc?

If it was like this:

http://www.amazon.com/Sevylor-QuikPak-K5-Inflatable-Kayak/dp...

My father in law has one he bought at REI... It's pretty cool and uses a pump very similar to and LEI pump.

EDIT: Just did a little more looking and it looks like you may be more referring to something more like this:

https://www.google.com/search?q=packraft&ie=UTF-8&oe...

Anyway,... That's pretty cool too!

There is pretty much only one manufacturer of these - https://www.alpackaraft.com/

NRS also do one which is almost half the price but its not as tough (the alpacka's are tough enough for serious white water) but would be fine for flatwater lakes, slow moving water and so on. Their are also really light ones from Flyweight Designs which are a choice for trips which are mostly hiking with a few water crossings.

I have done a bunch of open canoeing, sea kayaking and kayak surfing so I'm hoping that it will be a shallow learning curve. So many possibilities for backcountry trips though.

Looks cool to me,... I like the idea of a small light weight craft heavy duty enough for white water but small enough to deflate for an easy hike.

Not cool enough to buy one though,... I barely have enough free time for kiting