Why does it have to be boring? A neat twist on drying stuff like apple chips and pineapple and ginger and rhubarb and other interesting flavors is candying which combines drying them to around 20% moisture content and then sugaring the foods so that remaining surface moisture is bound up in sugar crystals which micro-nasties have a hard time getting into. Sugared fruits in dry storage can last years but they generally get eaten pretty quickly so I really can’t say how many years. Delicacies are very nice to have in long term storage. Candying is similar to brining in that the food goes into a completely saturated solution so the mineral (salt in the case of brining and sugar in the case of candying) is literally crystallizing around the surface of the food.