Camping is an enjoyable experience and you would want to capture those special moments if you’re with friends or loved ones or even just yourself and even the scenery that your camping in, but nowadays you can use your phones to take photos and instantly upload them to your social media accounts. But what happens when you run out of battery, and you have nothing to recharge it.
So, how do I charge my phone when camping? There are many products on the market that help you charge up your phone while you’re out in the wilderness, products such as a solar panel chargers, generators, portable batteries, there are even camping equipment where you can charge your phone and other electrical devices that you might take with you on your camping trip. If you do use a portable charger just make sure that it is fully charged before you leave and while your camping it is kept in your tent to keep it dry until it’s time to use the charger.
How do you keep electronics charged while camping
Camping allows you to get away from everything especially if you do live in the city. But nowadays we can’t seem to get away from our electronics as it makes our lives alot easier and a good way to communicate with one another.
But while you are out camping you won’t have any electric socket to plug in your devices to charge or is there?
Well, you won’t need to worry about that as there are many different products available on the market today that can help you charge your devices while you are out camping and they tend to vary from portable products to using a generator.
There will be features that you would need to look for that will help you make a decision on what kind of product will help you charge your devices depending on what you will be taking with you.
The features that you would need to look for when your looking to charge your devices are:
- Length of battery life
- How many hours you can charge your device for
- Is it portable
- How you will charge the portable charger
- What devices are compatible
- The weight of the charger
- Will you need other leads
- Price
Length of the battery life
How long your battery will last to charge your devices before you have to recharge it is important. The last thing you want to do is have forgotten to recharge your portable charger only for your devices to run out of battery.
The life of your battery will differ depending on each product and the type of product you go for. For example, a portable chargers battery life can offer a battery life for a phone from 5 hours all the way up to 100 hours before you have to recharge your portable device so if you don’t use your phone much your charger can last a while.
Also, look at the MHA ( milliamps ) as that shows you the amount of amperage that it produces to power your device the higher the MHA the more power it has to offer your devices.
How many hours you can charge your device for
When your out in the woods or countryside your phone can only last for so long so the number of hours that your portable battery can charge your phone will make a huge difference.
There are many different portable chargers on the market that offer longer battery life for your devices, this is going to be based on the number of milliamps that it produces, the more milliamps it has the more power it can hold and give more power to your devices.
With a standard handheld portable chargers, they will display how many hours they can charge your phone for, they will range from 12 hours up to 100 hours. The mid-range for these chargers are usually about 34-36 hours. Now saying that the hours that I am explaining are for your cell phones. If you have a small tablet or even a large tablet they will use fewer hours.
The reason for this is because they are larger than a cell phone so they will require alot more power and will naturally eat up more power from your portable charger. If you decide to take an iPad mini with you for example then you will need to take into consideration your portable charger will need to be alot more powerful and hold alot more power for longer times.
Is It Portable
While your out camping, you will naturally need to carry your charger with you, so how portable will your charger be will be a vital factor. You can use solar-paneled chargers which you can attach to the back of your backpack or rucksack and go for a hike.
The great thing with using a solar-paneled charger you can use the sun to recharge your portable charger and have plenty of charge for your devices even if you are using a LED lamp for the night. So the portable factor will play a part, with this you will need to take into mind the weight of the charger the last thing you want to do is be carrying a charger that will add too much weight to your backpack.
How you will charge the portable charger
Before you head out on your camping weekend I would highly suggest that you charge up your portable charger so that you have plenty of charges and that you can charge up your devices.
If your camping for the weekend then depending on the charger that your taking with you make sure there is plenty of charge on the portable charger. If you have a charger that uses a solar panel to help charge your portable that would work better as you can use the sun to help charge up the portable charger.
If your portable charger needs to be plugged into the wall, then I highly suggest that you buy a portable charger that has more power and charge your portable in the wall, before you head off to your weekend camping trip.
Keep in mind how you will be able to charge your portable if you do not have any wall outlet, are their other ways and you will find using some form of a solar panel to charge your portable charger will be more beneficial.
What devices are compatible
Your portable charger will need to be compatible with the devices that you plan on using to charge. The last thing you want to do is use a charger that doesn’t charge up your device because you realise that it is not compatible.
You can check that the portable charger will be able to charge most devices from laptops, to cell phones, to tablets depending on what electronics you will be taking with you, even electric toothbrushes if you are taking that with you.
The weight of the charger
When you do use a portable charger you will certainly need to look at the weight of it. The weight will make a difference especially if you’re doing alot of hiking as it will weigh you down but this will depend on the device that you plan on charging.
If you’re charging a cell phone, the weight would not normally be that much for your portable charger. The average weight of a cell phone portable charger is about 280 grams or 9.87 ounces. You can get heavier ones or even lighter ones it just depends on how much power it supplies your devices, these will have larger lithium batteries so will add more weight to your power source.
If your camping using your car then you won’t have many problems caring a generator where you can hook up your devices to. The weight for the generators will still matter but not as much because you will have the car to hold a d carry it with you to the campsite.
Will you need other leads
When charging your devices you will need the necessary leads to charge them up, usually, most chargers do not provide the leads for your device.
You will usually get the leads where it chargers up your portable charger, you can get the cable attached to the chargers depending on your phone model or device model, but a majority of the time you will need to have your own leads or cables to use to charge your device.
Price
The main thing we tend to look at is always the price, once we have done some research on our portable chargers then it always boils down to how much we are willing to pay for that product.
When you are ready to purchase a portable charger make sure that you do spend a bit of money to get something that is good and worthwhile. Look at it as a long term investment once you have brought it once you can reuse it as many times as possible, and on as many camping trips as you can.
What type of chargers are available for camping
The market these days offer alot of different portable chargers that you can use to charge your devices, and there are some that are designed and used specifically for camping.
After looking into them myself I found that everything will depend on the type of camping that you’re going to be doing.
If it is car camping then you will have more space to carry a heavier charger. You can also use camping equipment that incorporates charging capability.
The following portable chargers are some of what you can use while you are camping:
Solar panel chargers
Solar panel Generators
Lightweight foldable solar chargers
Power banks
Solar panel chargers
Camping has changed over the years and like any industry technology has helped the experience alot more with newer technology that makes doing tasks, having shelter, and just surviving and using tools more efficient.
Nowadays being energy efficient is a big thing, and solar panels are one of those technologies that have been incorporated into camping.
You can find that most types of equipment use the aid of solar panels to help use the sun to re-energize the product that is being used.
Solar panels come in different various sizes, if you’re using an RV for camping then you will use a solar panel that is designed for camper vans or RV which you can attach to the roof of your RV so capture the sun through the panels.
Solar chargers use the sun to generate electricity, and it takes the sun’s Ray’s and uses these small cells in the panel to help generate electricity, and the cells are all connected to one another to help store the sun’s energy and electricity.
There are many different solar chargers on the market these days for all your portable devices. Which one do you go for will all depend on what your devices you will be using and how much charge they will need.
Each solar charger will depend on how much electricity they can generate from the sun’s heat and this will depend on the amount of voltage the solar panels can generate, so you will need a voltage regulator in place to help convert the sun’s heat.
There are some common chargers that use solar panels, I have written an article on the best portable solar chargers over here. And below are the different types of solar chargers on the market today.
- There are smaller portable chargers that are available that can charge your phones and iPods using one or two panels.
- You can get foldable solar panels that that fold out that hold anywhere between 4-6 panels and placed somewhere on a bed of rocks or wood and can connect your device to charge it up.
- Camping equipment can now be integrated with solar panels that can help charge the equipment and other devices.
- The most common one are ones that you can see in public places to help charge up your phones for free, to help with road signs, etc.
Solar-powered Generators
Another type of portable power is a solar generator. Now the most common thinking is with a generator you will have to use some form of petrol /gasoline. That’s not what I mean here, you can now buy a solar generator where it is portable.
If you’re looking for a home generator that will stay stationary and stay at home that will be something different, with a portable generator you can move it around from your RV to a campsite or even different events.
If you use a generator with diesel fuel it can leave some smell behind or and is even noisy, so it usually kept outside but the noise can be quietly unbearable. With a solar panel generator it does not leave any kind of smell behind nor does it create any kind of noise at all.
When it comes to solar-powered generators more and more people are moving over to them, and would rather purchase them over a fuel-driven generator. The emissions that it produces is none, and when it comes to maintaining the generator it is alot easier. I have written an article on the best solar powered generators over here.
But just like anything else, it’s not exactly perfect but due to its weight they can be a little heavy so when it comes to portability they are good if you are camping with a car but otherwise if your hiking then they are not that suitable. But saying that there are other types of solar-powered generators that are quite portable.
The one thing that you will need to understand about solar-powered generators is that they will only work if you get enough sunshine to the solar panels in order for the generator to charge up. So if there is not any sunshine at all, you won’t get any charge at all. And the fact that you will need enough sunshine in order to get a good amount of charge or a full charge, and when it comes to charging they can be a little slow.
Lightweight foldable solar chargers
When you’re going camping it would be ideal to carry on you a more convenient kind of solar chargers. A lightweight foldable solar charger would be ideal to use because you will have alot more camping equipment on you as it is, and the last thing you want to do is to add more weight to your gear.
Again like every other solar charging device these lightweight foldable panels store the electricity in the solar chargers. They are alot smaller and consist of 3 to 4 smaller solar panels that are easily foldable so that you can carry the charger. These types of chargers are alot better for camping or hiking and the cost for them can vary.
So what do you look for when it comes to these chargers, well first and for most, you will want to see what devices they can charge, then how much wattage they produce so it will depend on what devices you will have with you that need to be charged up. The most common devices would be your phone, a GPS if you have one and your laptop if you decide to take it with you.
Secondly, if you are using the solar charger for your camping trip then you will certainly need to look for one that can handle the amount of turbulence that you could put the charger through. The weather will play a vital role in your choice for the foldable solar charger, as you will be going through rain, wind and it could get really hot.
The charger would need to be more water-resistant, dustproof, and handle any form of a collision such as dropping it anywhere. Water-resistant will definalty need to be important because if you do happen to drop it into a river by accident it can handle it and still work fine.
Another feature that you will need to look at is the amount of power the solar charger pumps out. This is going to be important because it will depend on the amount of wattage your device will need. I have written an article on the best lightweight foldable solar charger over here. Every solar charger will offer different amounts of wattage, you will need to see how much power your device is going to need in order to look into the right solar charger. Usually, for smaller devices your going to need a wattage from about 120, with this amount you will be able to charge a phone or an mp3.
The most important part of looking at a solar panel charger is the fact that it is able to connect to your device with the current conventional connections, such a USB, USB-c, a convertor for using a 3 pin plug. If you don’t have the right connections then it would be pointless to use the solar charger you will need to search around for one that is able to connect your devices.
Portable Power banks
When your camping you can get away with using power stations, or even power generators, and a good use would be a solar panel generator, but you can also use simple portable power banks that can hold more power for longer periods of time. I have written an article about the different portable power banks for your camping trip over here.
You will need to look at the level of capacity for a power bank, on how many charges you can get out of the power bank, and how long until you have to recharge the power bank itself. In order to understand how much power you will need to refer to what is called MAH (milliamps). This shows the amount of power the battery can provide.
So the higher the milliamps the more power it holds, for example, if you have a power bank that has 2,000 mha you can get at least 1 full charge out of this power bank. You can use a higher mah, there are some that can go as high as 12,000 mah or even larger than that 20,000 mah. These will give you alot more power for the device, usually 12,000 mah is enough to charge your laptops, and phone devices and tablets.
The other key facts would be to know that you can connect your devices using the correct connections such as USB, USB-c, micro USB connections. I have written an article on the best portable power banks for your camping trip over here. Most of these power banks will vary on the length of time until you have to recharge the device itself. So some can hold a few weeks of power while others can hold the power for up to 3 months before you have to recharge the device.
The only downfall with these power banks when it comes to recharging the charger you will need a wall plug outlet before you can recharge them. I would recommend to first and foremost, charge up the devices before you decide to leave for your camping trip. But also make sure that you use a power bank that can hold a charge for a longer period of time which will mean you may need to pay a little bit more for it but it will be a good investment.