Camping Lights

The only thing worse than setting up a tent when it’s raining is setting it up when it’s raining and dark! Having the right lighting when you’re camping can be the difference between a memorable camping trip and one you’d rather forget.
There’s a multitude of camping lights these days although they fall into three basic groups, electric, gas and those handy cranking models.

Electric Camping Lights

The big advantage with electric powered camping lighting is the convenience factor. It can be used anywhere in the campsite. Generally, battery powered electric lighting doesn’t get hot, so is safer to use around children, very important for those family camping trips.

Unfortunately it tends not to be as bright as it’s gas counterparts and you need to make sure that you have a good supply of  batteries and spare light bulbs. Most convenience stores carry the common types of batteries so re-stocking shouldn’t be a problem.

An innovation of the last few years are the LED lights now common in flashlights and lanterns which, to a large extent have improved the lighting output as well as the durability of the units. There is one issue with a LED camping light in that unlike traditional globes which dim as the battery runs low LED lights will suddenly just go out. Have plenty of spare batteries.

Gas Camping Lights

Gas powered lighting, generally provides much more light than it’s battery powered counterpart. This is suitable for lighting the general camping area but should never be used in confined spaces such as inside tents because of the fire risk. There is obviously a safety risk involved as the light is produced by heat, it should be kept well out of the way of children.

These lamps are powered by a variety of different fuels. Propane, butane, kerosene and dual fuel. Duel fuel allows you to power the lamps with unleaded gas which should be readily available in most areas. One thought to bear in mind is using lamps that use the same fuel source as your cooking equipment.  Obviously, as all these fuels are extremely flammable appropriate safety precautions must be taken when refilling them and carried out well away from any heat source and indeed, the general camping area where there is flammable materials.

As with the battery powered lighting you will need to consider having a supply of necessary spares such as mantles and a way to light the lamp. A lot of modern gas lights have electric ignition sources but these can fail and an essential part of any camping trip would be to have a means of lighting a fire, barbecue or cooking stove anyway.

Cranking Camping Lights.

Another great innovation of recent years is the cranking light which basically drives a dynamo inside the lamp, via the cranking handle, which charges the internal capacitor or Ni-MH battery. Typically, 30 seconds cranking can provide up to an hours light.

Some of these models come with many add ons such as solar power, built in radio and even a cell phone charger.  At least one of these should be part of your camping kit, if only for emergency situations. Being a rechargeable camping light you avoid that desperate situation of running out of batteries or fuel ensuring you can always see.

Best Buy

Time after time we’ve checked site after site only to find that the cheapest Camping Lights are to be found at Amazon.

Other sites may discount a few dollars, but this is lost (and more besides) after you add delivery charges on top.

As well as that, many other sites may offer a lower price, but they never have any in stock. In most cases they hope to lure you in with one product they don’t have, in the hope you’ll purchase something else from them while you’re there.

Our advice? Stick with Amazon for your cheapest camping lighting. They really are, consistently the cheapest source of camping lighting. In almost every case, products purchased at Amazon qualify for super saver and include free delivery. Certainly if you buy a couple of other things besides.

This is why we almost exclusively select Amazon as our best buy stockist, and why you can still get the cheapest camping lighting from them.