The Sunday edition (9-16-19) of the NY TIMES, Travel section, has an article on renting hiking and camping gear. https://nyti.ms/2URSXLJ

For those new to hiking, it may be better to rent gear for a couple hundred bucks to make sure that you like it before spending potentially over a thousand only to learn afterward that you simply don't enjoy it as much as you thought you would. And if you're just hiking from time to time and are short on space, another benefit is not having to store stuff.

REI, Outdoors Geek, and Arrive, to name but three, rent top-line hiking gear and will ship it directly to your house. You can rent "packages" of gear (tent, pack, sleeping bag, stove, etc) so that you don't have to pick and choose, which is pretty nice for those who are new to hiking.

My former secretary spent $$$ on a treadmill that she was 100% sure she would use. You can guess what happened. I'd bet that if truth be told, a substantial percentage of those who buy gear thinking that they will use it a lot end up going out once or twice before the gear migrates to the basement to join the rest of the clutter.