Camping Equipment for Our Trucks

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Agreed completely Jamie, one fuel across the board. The little propane bottles are nice, but you can't refill them out on the trails unless you bring a larger propane tank with you and they take up a lot of space. I had a propane coleman lantern and I loved it, but after 3-4 uses I moved over to white gas.

Can you get butane lanterns?

One of the guys we were camping with had an older (but relatively big) MSR stove that got hot REAL fast, one of the ones with a fuel tank that had a pump. Can't remember the model, but it held up my dutch oven just fine.

EDIT:
Rule of thumb with coleman stoves. Don't pay more than $20-$25 for one. This is a perfect candidate:

Coleman Camping Stove
 
For storage, I am migrating to soft-sided bags or cases. For example, I put the essentials like straps, shackles, shovel, rope/bungees/etc in an electronic keyboard bag I got off Amazon for $34. It fits perfectly across or lengthwise Creampuff's cargo area and stays there year-round:
open

open

bag

bag


(Hard-sided cases are too space-inefficient imho.)

I have a Kelty Binto Bar for kitchen organization but it takes up far too much space and doesn't really allow for organization. I'm looking for soft-sided cases for kitchen crap now.

AeroPress and Bialetti Mukka Express for coffee/latte. :)

I have an old Coleman Xpert backpacker's stove that is amazing. However, it has a proprietary connection for gas bottles and Coleman stopped making stuff for it years ago. I'm working on my last compatible gas bottle for it, then will see if I can convert it to a standard connection.

Eno Lounger for lazing away time. Good to sleep in, weather and bugs permitting.

Kelty Car Tarp for shade, light rain protection, takes up virtually no space and is easy/quick to set up and tear down.

AntiGravity XPS for jumpstarts, device recharging; can be recharged off 12v while vehicle is running.

Coozie for beer. ;)
 
weejub said:
I did NOT do a search and did not see anything on our ONSC area, so thought I would start something here.

The goal of this post would be to compare equipment for overland camping use.
Click to expand...

FIFY :flipoff2:

lol JK

The Official ONSC Camping Gear Thread


needed to update or add to it anyway. Johnny can you merge the two threads??

:cheers:

if got a few things ill add to this thread
 
Can't merge threads, but this one has got almost twice the posts already, so let's stick with this one :D
 
James - Thanks! Would love to try before buying. We can just start it up on site - don't have to take it with me. I will be able to tell right away if it will work or not :)

The issue with Butane (and propane) is that at lower temperatures, they get REALLY inefficient. Butane is worse than Propane. My days of camping in <0 degrees or even <20 degrees may be over, though :) Who knows. I don't think I am going to amke the switch to a new fuel based on camping at super low temps, is what I am trying to say :)
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
Agreed completely Jamie, one fuel across the board. The little propane bottles are nice, but you can't refill them out on the trails unless you bring a larger propane tank with you and they take up a lot of space. I had a propane coleman lantern and I loved it, but after 3-4 uses I moved over to white gas.

Can you get butane lanterns?

One of the guys we were camping with had an older (but relatively big) MSR stove that got hot REAL fast, one of the ones with a fuel tank that had a pump. Can't remember the model, but it held up my dutch oven just fine.

EDIT:
Rule of thumb with coleman stoves. Don't pay more than $20-$25 for one. This is a perfect candidate:

Coleman Camping Stove
Click to expand...

Refilling the little green propane bottles with the big white 20lb ones is HARD and supposedly illegal. That is why we moved our scouts over to the larger bottles - one per patrol - we wasted so many of those little green bottles :(

Butane comes in a ton of forms, but the selection of lanterns for it is small it seems. I am just researching this and it also looks like it is less efficient at cold temps.

Thanks for the note on the stove. I am kinda leaning toward dual fuel now, thanks to you, Johnny! :) Some of those stoves are like carbs, though, you gotta know what you are doing to warm up the tube for easy pull and know your pressure valve, etc.
 
Last edited:
little_joe said:
For storage, I am migrating to soft-sided bags or cases. For example, I put the essentials like straps, shackles, shovel, rope/bungees/etc in an electronic keyboard bag I got off Amazon for $34. It fits perfectly across or lengthwise Creampuff's cargo area and stays there year-round:
open

open

bag

bag


(Hard-sided cases are too space-inefficient imho.)

I have a Kelty Binto Bar for kitchen organization but it takes up far too much space and doesn't really allow for organization. I'm looking for soft-sided cases for kitchen crap now.

AeroPress and Bialetti Mukka Express for coffee/latte. :)

I have an old Coleman Xpert backpacker's stove that is amazing. However, it has a proprietary connection for gas bottles and Coleman stopped making stuff for it years ago. I'm working on my last compatible gas bottle for it, then will see if I can convert it to a standard connection.

Eno Lounger for lazing away time. Good to sleep in, weather and bugs permitting.

Kelty Car Tarp for shade, light rain protection, takes up virtually no space and is easy/quick to set up and tear down.

AntiGravity XPS for jumpstarts, device recharging; can be recharged off 12v while vehicle is running.

Coozie for beer. ;)
Click to expand...


So much good info here, I may have the rest of my free time taken up today, fellas!!

Joe - love the soft case concept - it PAINS me to have hard cases unless they are full. I purposefully moved to duffle bags a while back for many things for the same reason - stuff just compresses down and if it rolls around a bit, who cares.

There are somethings I would like protected in a hard case, but that is the balancing act :)
 
GLTHFJ60 said:
I'm a big proponent of old coleman camping equipment because of the low weight ( :lol: ) and small footprint. The stoves and lanterns are very efficient with fuel and can run on gasoline in a pinch, which means if you're out of fuel to cook food, you've got bigger problems :hillbilly: (coleman stoves can't run on diesel :( )
Click to expand...

Got you covered brother. Diesel. Have only used mine a few times but love it:

MSR XGK EX Multi-Fuel Stove
 
Wow . . . Diesel. Nice :) I guess if you have a diesel truck that would make even more sense.
 
weejub said:
Butane comes in a ton of forms, but the selection of lanterns for it is small it seems. I am just researching this and it also looks like it is less efficient at cold temps.
Click to expand...

What Jamie said. Butane has such a lazy evaporation rate to begin with, made even worse when you slow down the particles (i.e. cold). The "one fuel" notion sounds great, just not super easy to achieve.

Now if we all started running propane injection on our rigs (including Moonshine) then some cool camper setups could follow. :D
 
To give you that fresh off the bus taste LOL :hillbilly:
 
As a space saving item my wife and I would use sleeves to make our thermo-rest into a chair. Advise only to do the 25" size and not the 20".

I used past tense because it's been so long since we've done any long term trips rather than just a car-camping weekend with folding chairs chunked into the back. If you do sporting events they make great stadium seats also.

thermarest_chair_6.webp
 
I pretty much gave away all my tents/stoves/flashlights/camping gear to club members and friends earlier in the year due to move. Didn't really want to take the time to sell so I spread the wealth. So now i'm down to the very basics which I will grow shortly.

I had a camp kitchen like the one that stan posted but its gone. My new camp kitchen is home made.

IMG_1571_M.JPG


13254092_10153752870492875_5109060153382092101_n.jpg



The one stove I kept is my mint, never used colman from the early 60's I found at a garage sale. Still has the cardboard and packing tape on it. As soon as Andrea gets here i'll be breaking it in after being stored away for so long

13237618_10153752878452875_2839698515120372510_n.jpg


And my tent is still the Oz tent RV5 with the deluxe side and front panel.
I gave 3 other tents away but no way was I going to give this one away.

Here it is without the front panel on it

oztent-RV4.jpg



Some i'm slumming it compared to the mountain of camping stuff I used to have... but I will rebuild. ;)
 
It's easy when you've got a suburban to put everything in :flipoff2:

@Rice that's the MSR that Dale has! I might need to pick one up for emergencies :D

MSR XGK EX Multi-Fuel Stove
 
After years of using the small green propane bottles we switched over to an 11lb propane tank last year with a Coleman adapter hose to use with all the Coleman camp gear (stove, lantern, camp fire, etc). So far it's worked out great. More than enough in the small tank for 3-4 day trip, cooking 2 meals a day (sandwiches at lunch) and running other accessories. It can easily be refilled for around $12. Secure mounts are available as well to keep it from bouncing around in your truck. We have a PowerTank brand mount that works well.

@little_joe hit the nail on the head with an AeroPress for a good cup of coffee while camping. Arguably the best tool in our cooking kit.

ARB Fridge - comes in handy for extended trips.
 
I need to find where the area swap meet is here to search for some old coleman lanterns
 
Oh and if anyone wants the dimensions of the camp kitchen to make there own I can grab them this weekend.
 
Very cool camp kitchen, Al!! I would love to get that.
 
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