Essential gadgets for your summer camping trip

By Phil Hornshaw

If you’re headed into the Great Outdoors this summer, you’re going to need some gear. Among the usual essentials necessary for any camping trip — backpacks, sleeping bags, tents and so on – are the little things that can make the experience more convenient.

We’re not talking about lugging a laptop or a TV along with you into the wilderness, although these days that’s definitely a possibility. But there are gadgets out there that can augment your camping experience quite a bit, from helping with food prep to providing nicer sleeping arrangements, to making sure water is clean and safe.

Find what you need

Where you plan to go camping, no matter the plan, has a serious effect on what you’ll need to bring with you and what sort of gadgets will be useful. Camping in the desert and more arid areas means you’ll need more water and better ways of carrying it; camping where there’s lots of water (but not necessarily safe to drink kind) might mean you’ll be lugging purification tools.

Once you know what kind of items you want, start shopping around for good prices. Outdoors stores such as REI are a great place to start – you’ll find all the essentials there, as well as cool items such as binoculars, GPS trackers, wearable camcorders and more, plus items you might not have thought you needed, such as headlamps or hand-cranked radios for emergencies.

Shopping around can help you find more items you might not have thought of, like two-way radios or folding pots for cooking, and, you might even score great prices on them, as well. Try other large outdoors stores such as Gander Mountain (with 5 percent Cash Back) or  more specialized brands. Coleman makes a lot of different camping accessories, including cooking gear and lanterns, and you can skip the retailer middle man and buy direct.