Picture this … you’re out camping in the woods with your friends one weekend, everyone decides it’s time to head home – but it’s so peaceful out that you decide to stay by yourself an extra hour to enjoy the tranquility of the forest. An hour goes by and when you leave, you go to start your vehicle and it doesn’t start. You left your trunk cracked open and killed your vehicle battery. No biggie you think … dig out your cellphone and … Oh No!!! The battery is dead! This actually happened to me once. I had to walk miles to get to the nearest phone.
Have you ever thought about adding some solar powered camping gear to your supply list? With all the gadgets people bring into the woods camping with them these days … how can you camp without it? Aside from your gadgets, it’s great to have at least a solar powered batter charger, weather radio, or flashlight in case of emergency.
Solar Energy Facts
- Solar Fact #1 – 99.99% of solar energy goes to waste!
- Solar Fact #2 – Solar Energy is much better for the environment than traditional forms of energy.
- Solar Fact #3 – In 8 minutes, sunlight travels 93,000,000 at 186,282 miles per hour to reach the earth!
- Solar Fact #4 – One hour of sunlight produces more solar energy than the entire world uses in one year!
- Solar Fact #5 – Not even heavy clouds or pollution can stop the sun’s rays from reaching our earth.
- Solar Fact #6 – Leonardo Da Vinci predicted in the mid fourteen hundreds that we would find a way to harness solar energy.
- Solar Fact #7 -Solar energy is measured in kilowatt-hours. 1 kilowatt = 1000 watts (the same amount of electricity would light a 100 watt light bulb for about 10 hours)
- Solar Fact #8 – Solar energy can be contained in batteries or used immediately.
- Solar Fact #9 – Solar Energy is becoming more and more popular. You will be seeing an increasing amount of solar power being used in the years to come.
- Solar Fact #10 – There are lots of inexpensive solar powered products available to the average camper such as flashlights and lanterns, battery chargers, cookware, weather radios, and water purifiers.
Solar Powered Camping Gear
With the availability of a free power source such as sunlight, you can easily add a bit of solar powered gear to your camping provisions very easily and inexpensively. You can find solar powered flashlights, lanterns, string lights, water purifiers, ovens, battery chargers, and all-in-one solutions. The great thing is that most of these things are very affordable! Solar power is here to stay, it can greatly reduce your cost for batteries, and one other thing … it’s FUN!
Let’s take a look at some of the most common solar powered camping gear.
Solar Powered Battery Chargers for Camping
Plan on bringing your cell phone into the woods with you camping? What better way to make sure that you can recharge your battery especially on those long camping trips out in the wilderness. Many people use their phones as music players as well and that can kill your batteries pretty fast. Solar powered battery chargers can charge lots of different electronic equipment such as cell phones, digital cameras, tablet computers and more. With all the gadgets that the modern family brings tent camping, having a solar powered battery charger will be one of those things that you can’t figure out how you ever went camping without one before!
Prices on solar powered battery charges can range from about $20 – $100.
Solar Powered Lanterns & Flashlights for Camping
Everyone brings some sort of light camping with them … why not bring some solar powered lights! There are a lot of different products available for very reasonable prices these days. We recommend looking into solar powered lanterns, flashlights, and maybe some string lights to decorate your campsite with. It’s a good idea to still take some good quality bright battery powered lights with you camping but you can drastically decrease the amount you spend on batteries by using solar powered lights a lot more.
Prices on solar powered lights can range from $10 – $40. You can also get small solar powered LED key chains for under $5.
Solar Powered Cooking
Did you know that you can also cook your food with solar power? Now I know that us campers usually cook over the fire and with small portable grills but I have to admit … it’s pretty fun cooking with the sun! Solar powered ovens are not for every camper though … they do come with a heftier price tag.
Solar powered ovens tend to cost between $250 – $1000.
Check out these solar powered ovens
Solar Powered Weather Radios
Solar powered weather radios are great to have, especially if you will be camping deep in the forest or going on very long camping expeditions. Many of the solar powered radios are also a flashlight and battery charger all in one. If you want to add all three of these solar powered pieces of camping gear, you might want to consider one of these all-in-ones.
Prices on solar powered radios and all-in-ones can range from $25 – $60
Check out these solar powered weather radios and all-in-ones
Hopefully we were able to educate you more on the available options for solar powered camping gear that is available today! Solar powered gear is a great asset to your camping trip, saves you lots of money on batteries, and is a lot of fun to use. There’s just something very satisfying about harnessing the free energy of the sun and seeing it work to enrich your life in some small way. Our world would be a much better place for everyone if solar energy was the main source of power. The way we’re burning through our non-renewable energy resources, I think maybe someday in the future there will only be solar and wind energy left. If that is the case … well …
Thanks for reading and f you have any comments or suggestions about this article, please leave a comment below! We would love to hear what you think. Also if you know about any other solar powered items that would be good for us tent campers … please let us know in the comments below as well!
A couple of years ago one of the local chain stores had solar powered led Christmas lights on sale for 75% off. I wasn’t sure what to do with them so I bought 4 of the clear light sets. Each are only 10 or so feet long, but they work great for camping. I use some to light up the picnic area. You can see pictures here: http://itsstill.me/2013/06/15/camping-at-prairie-creek-campground/