Use NERDTree as your split explorer!
After watching Vimcasts: The file explorer and reading through Practical Vim: Tip 43 I wanted to make NERDTree my split explorer of choice, but some functionality was missing. Files could not be revealed with NERDTreeFindFile without opening a new NERDTree buffer, CtrlP would create new splits instead of reusing NERDTree buffers and I had let NERDTree hijack NetRW to get rid of it.
So I wrote a small plugin to clean up my .vimrc
Use the package manager of your choice to source this plugin (you need NERDTree of course):
Bundle 'scrooloose/nerdtree'
Bundle 'svenwin/vim-splitted-nerdtree'
Bind your prefered key sequence:
nmap <leader>n :call splittednerdtree#revealFile()<CR>