I have to say that I've never taken a radio of any kind on a backpacking trip either.<br><br>However, there have been a couple of times on car-camping trips where I was grateful for simple AM/FM radio, mostly for weather forecasts. It's often easy enough to tell that weather is coming, it's harder to guess whether it's going to last for a half day or a half a week.<br><br>Backpacking might be a justification for the tiny Clive Sinclair earbud-AM radio. FM doesn't have the range, though it makes sense in an urban kit.