How To Charge Your Phone When Camping

I use a single 12volt lighter socket on several bikes including a style that clamps on your handlebars. On the bikes with the full fairings though, I use a car style, with 2 lighter sockets and 2 USB ports. I use them for my GPS, charging the ereader and or cell phone. One bike is switched with the key but the rest are wired directly to the battery. A laptop CAN suck the battery down, but a phone, tablet, ereader is not a problem.

If you’re only going on a short camping trip, a car charger might be all you need. Just plug it into your cigarette lighter socket and you’re good to go. If you’re driving to your campsite, you can use a car charger to keep your phone powered up. The main drawback is you’ll need to be right next to a river with your device to charge it or use a very long, weatherproof cable.

Use Your Car

I’ve got an emergency flashlight and radio that has a handcrank generator with cell phone connectors. There was a time when backpacking or camping was a way to get away from all of the trappings of modern life. But these days we usually head into the wilderness with a host of devices in tow, most of which require frequent charging to keep them from becoming nothing more than dead weight. If you think it is great to get cardio while you are charging the devices you need to try this pedal generator.

Stays in my tool roll at all times, cable runs from tender socket under the seat to my left saddle bag. Phone and non-waterproof parts stay nice and dry even in the worst of British weather. Uses the standard USB charging lead and kept two phones topped up during a week tour of Scotland. If you just need power you can plug directly into the battery tender to get power with ignition on or off.

Hand Crank Phone Chargers

You could do that with a charger you use all the time if you wanted to its pretty simple. You should always aim for the biggest wattage you can get your hands on; this will give you an idea of how much power it has stored and how powerful its output is. Don’t let yourself be fooled by marketing fluff, read reviews and then find out what wattage it’s packing before parting with any money. When choosing a universal charger, always remember to look at the amps. However, it is better to have a higher amp rating that can charge different brands and models of laptops as well as other USB-charged devices. Or you can just run your generator and have power throughout the rig.

Is a top-of-the-line camping power station, it packs a serious amount of juice with a battery capacity of 396Wh. This converts to a huge 33,000mAh, enough to charge a smartphone 30 times. The Goal Zero Yeti 400 can charge up to 7 devices simultaneously, and once empty can be fully recharged using an AC outlet in 5 hours. It’s also worth noting that this particular model weighs a hefty 29lbs, so power stations are best suited to car campers.

Ways You Can Charge A Phone While Camping

Personally, on our road trip around Iceland in a campervan, a power inverter was absolutely essential. While my wife and I were driving, we were able to charge multiple USB devices at once, as well as use “wall socket” type chargers for our laptops and tablet. Generally, you don’t want to carry around a massive solar panel array or lots of battery banks in excess of what you need.

The idea here would be that you can leave a device to charge while in your car without having to carry anything additional. When you’re on trail and your phone or other electronics need charging, you just connect using h a USB cable. We mounted it to the back wall of the clothes cupboard across from the pantry cupboard, where we already had mounted some shelves. Now it doesn’t matter if we have shore power or not, we still plug our devices into this charging station. The photo shows a Kindle, iPod Touch 5, iPod Touch 4, and a phone — the dumb kind — plugged into the charger hub.

Of The Best Portable Solar Chargers For Camping

And then there is the issue that power banks lose their ability to store power over time. On longer trips where you will be using your devices a lot, a power bank won’t provide enough juice. You do have the option of recharging the power bank while in town. However, a lot of people (especially thru-hikers) complain that this is a major pain in the ass.

Using a TEG is a way to convert temperature differences into electricity. For your convenience, we’ve listed several ways to obtain electricity to power your gadgets and equipment the next time you go camping. It might require a sunny day and take a long time to charge, but it works… And is about the size of a 7″ tablet with a case. If you really need more, they have larger versions of both.

Excess electronics are just something else that can break, so pare it down to just the necessities. Some camping power options can even charge your laptop out in the wilderness. You can even use the WaterLily to charge with wind, which is perfect if you’re not camping near a water source.

They provide quiet, clean energy that doesn’t produce fumes of any kind. They generally have enough capacity to keep gear powered throughout your trip depending on the length of time you’re away and your energy needs. If you do run low on juice, however, these generators can be paired with a large solar panel to collect energy while in the field as well. Again like every other solar charging device these lightweight foldable panels store the electricity in the solar chargers.

So, depending on the time of the year, the amount of sunlight available might vary considerably. Winter months typically have shorter days and longer nights which means fewer hours to charge devices. Need to stay charged for an entire weekend off the grid? Fortunately, there are now a number of great solutions available for charging our electronic equipment while on the go.

There are other methods available of course, including a device from Brunton that uses hydrogen fuel cells and a gadget on Kickstarter that generates power from a running river. But these two options aren’t especially efficient or viable for most of us. Instead, choose something that is simple and works best for your needs.

If you’re not hiking in the wilderness or camping miles away from your vehicle, you might want to use it as a power source. As long as you have enough fuel, you can run the engine for a short while to top up a phone battery or charge any additional devices. Serious about camping and want to charge the whole family’s devices and power lights or a laptop while you’re away?

Four Ways To Charge Your Electronics In The Backcountry

If my phone battery gets really low I also dim the screen brightness all the way down to the lowest level to help the battery even further. Don’t think you will remember to do either of these things? A lot of phones have a power saving mode, turn that on as soon as you get to camp instead of waiting until your battery is low and your phone prompts you to turn it on.

It seems obvious, but I have accidentally drained the batteries to many a headlamp, camera, and lantern by forgetting to turn them off. At Camping For Foodies, we believe people are consumed with 24/7 connected lives prohibiting them from taking time to truly connect with people and enjoy nature. We encourage people to camp, hike, cook, eat and make the most of life. If you need to communicate while you are camping, try to reduce your talk-time as much as possible.