I have been in a funk ever since the weather turned colder. All the activities I love, camping, biking and canoeing, are all on hold until the air warms up and the lake unfreezes. Mike and I had a cold trip to Lake Mead after Thanksgiving, but other than that, our gear has been sitting in the garage.
Part of the reason that I’m sad is that camping just makes me happy somehow. I saw this old picture from our camping trip to Mantua, Utah a couple of years ago and it reminded me. Campfires make me happy.
If you are looking for a camp kitchen that is just a simple box (like a boy scout patrol box), Blue Sky Kitchens makes a few that are pretty innovative.
My favorite is the Work Top Box. Here is a video of how it sets up and packs up into one compact area.
They also make a HUGE workspace called the Grubby Two. It’s an amazing 6’2″ long. I love that you can close up the box for keeping out the little critters. Of course, it would be kindling if it encountered a bear.
Their simplest model is the Grubby One. I like this one as well because you can configure it in so many ways.
They also sell plans for all of these boxes, so if you want to build one yourself, you can.
I find this guy to be quite entertaining. They made a calendar for this year and he created a video showing where all the photos from the calendar came from. It’s a great little video to watch when you are stuck in the office or at home and wish you were in the mountains instead.
Of course, I’m a little scared of the “Evening Grease Bomb” from camping tip number 8. I liked the rest of the tips, however.
His calm voice reminds me of RedGreen, but mostly these videos really make me want to go camping.
I bought my camp kitchen from a store, but I adore this homemade camp kitchen from this blogger, pwef. He talks about the design of it on these two posts:
Instead of the heavy, wooden legs, he used pipes that slide into the fittings. You can also see that he attached a towel rack that also holds his paper towels. He even added a bottle opener.
The camp kitchen opens in such a way that it needs to be on its legs to open up. He ended up adding little legs to the bottom so that he can just set it on a table to open and leave the legs in the car. You can see the little legs in this photo (they are the black nubbins on the bottom of the box). He said that if he made another one, he would design it to open flush.
He built it to work with his Coleman fold up stove, but the stove doesn’t have wind shields, so he ended up adding a windshield himself in addition to another shelf on the left side for extra workspace.
I felt a sense of camaraderie with him because he has the exact same pan set that we use. I could imagine making meals with that very chuck box while camping instead of my camp kitchen and it looked like fun.
I really liked that he painted the box to match his Springbar tent. They look really good together at camp, don’t you think?
I love the idea of being able to choose exactly the features I want for my camp kitchen instead of being at the mercy of the camping manufacturers. If I ever break my Mega Camp Kitchen like I did my Coleman, I think I will choose to design my own camp kitchen.
Our Springbar tent is better than our old Hobitat in every way except one: storage. The Hobitat had tons of pockets all over the inside of the tent, so it was a change for us to camp in the Springbar. The tent came with one storage closet, which is a zip-in panel with a bunch of little pockets, and one hamper, which is like a laundry bag.
One is supposed to zip in on one side of the tent and the other on the other side. After having so many pockets in our Hobitat, however, I just couldn’t go to having so few places to put stuff. To solve that problem, I bought one additional closet and one additional hamper. Hanging them, however, was the problem. There are only two inside zippers in the tent, so I had to find a way to hang the additional items.
Here’s how I solved the problem:
I sewed a zipper onto the bottom of each storage closet so that the hamper could attach to the bottom of it. Here is it with the hamper partially zipped.
Now, both Mike and I each have a closet and hamper of our own. That is barely enough pockets for the each of us. Here is how it looks all together.
That additional loop on the bottom of the closet is also something I added. It’s for our toiletries bag. There is a loop on the closet, but when we hung the toiletries bag from it, it covered our pockets. This way, we can hang the bag, but it will hide behind the clothes hamper.
We also had a problem with no loops for our lanterns to hang from, so we added string to the top with a few loops in it. This is such a simple thing to do, but it took us a while before we realized how to add those loops. Springbar had added a spot to tie the string, but we didn’t make the connection until Dan mentioned it to us.
Having that string taut across the ceiling of the tent is good for us because we can hang our wet towels over it to dry. I wouldn’t trust the loops to hold a heavy thing, like those fans that are supposed to cool off your tent, but they are perfectly fine for a small flashlight or our LED lanterns.
When you order your Springbar tent, don’t be disappointed in the amount of storage you have. Order an extra closet and hamper and add zippers to the bottom of each closet. You’ll have plenty of pockets to hold all your stuff.
We had just set up camp when a new camper arrived at an adjacent site. She was a petite woman, and she was alone. The tent she had dragged out of her van was obviously one of those canvas behemoths, and my wife and I nudged each other knowingly.
Sixty or eighty pounds of canvas. This woman (and for that matter, any unassisted man) was going to have difficulty erecting this monster. I stood proud and tall in my masculinity, and offered to assist our new neighbor. My wife (equally prideful, if a bit less tall and not-at-all masculine) offered to assist.
Our neighbor stopped — briefly — to say “Hi neighbors, no thanks.”
He’s right, my tent weighs ALOT and it’s difficult to carry, but I don’t need to carry it far when I’m car camping. I can get it out of the car and to the site, but, honestly, I struggle with it. The tent really shines when it’s time to put it up, however.
Before I had time to finish a fresh Pete’s Wicked, our neighbor was finished.
Our neighbor had stretched out the bottom of the tent, and driven a dozen or so tent stakes into the ground around the tent perimeter (ten minutes, or half of my beer).
I was a little puzzled by the apparent “misunderstanding” of what I thought should be the order of events, and remained confident we would have to assist.
She then assembled four springy-thingies-like-auto-antennas onto a thicker tubular bar while threading the springy-thingies into loops on what will become the roof of the tent. A serious-sounding “snap” turns the lumpy canvas into a trampoline-taut roof, still lying on the ground (five minutes, or several more good pulls on my beer).
Now mystified, I waited to see more.
Our new camping neighbor assembled tubular pieces into four tent poles. One of them was used to partially erect the tent — raising half of the roof. A second pole raised the rest of the tent with impressive, near-straight walls. The remaining two poles were used, along with the first guy-lines I had seen, to raise the fly over the entrance. (Another five minutes, bringing me up to the last swallow of my beer).
He’s right, I can erect my Springbar tent ALONE in the time it used to take to just get those stupid aluminum poles extended and threaded through the tiny nylon sleeves of my Hobitat. The most time I spend on tent erection is pounding in the ground stakes.
Mike and I camped with our Hobitat 6 tent from REI for five years. We paid over three hundred bucks for the tent and I can safely say that I HATED every minute in it. There were only two nights when I wasn’t miserably cold in that tent, even though we only camped in the summer. The mountains of Utah are just too cold at night for that flimsy thing. To REI’s credit, they seem to have redesigned the Hobitat 6 since we bought it, but I can’t help but feel ripped off.
This year, we bought a Springbar Traveler 5, which has the same height and floorspace as the Hobitat 6, but it’s FAR warmer. I can open the windows for ventilation on hot days, but in Utah, we have to worry about extreme cold weather more often than too much heat.
Last Thursday, I set up the Springbar in our backyard. That day, it was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. After putting up the tent (it was a one-person job, as opposed to the difficult MESS it was to put up the Hobitat), I put an electric heater in the tent. Within five minutes, the tent was a toasty 74 degrees. I realized that I could camp all winter as long as we have electric hookups at the campsite. All that pining for a trailer so I could camp throughout the winter was a waste of time. I have a tent that allows me to do just that.
As I said, putting up the tent was a piece of cake. The biggest difference is that I have to stake out the tent BEFORE I try to put it up. With the Hobitat, we were supposed to raise the tent first and then stake it down. That’s not possible with the Springbar. In fact, if you can’t stake down the tent properly, you won’t be able to raise it at all. If you’re used to just throwing up your tent and hoping the sleeping bags inside keep it from blowing away, that’s just not an option with the Springbar. Here is a video of how to do it:
I don’t know if you can tell, but that lady is really tall, so she had a bit of an advantage. When it comes time to put up the second half of the tent, it’s a little difficult for me because I’m only 5’2″. I am still able to do it on my own, but it’s a lot more clumsy than shown in that video.
In fact, I wasn’t able to zip on the awning because I’m so short. Mike had to do it the first time we put up the tent and we’ve kept the awning on the tent ever since (rolling it up with the tent instead of removing it). If you watch this video, even that super tall girl has to stretch to reach the zipper. That was the ONLY thing that I couldn’t do myself when putting up this tent.
One thing we loved about the Hobitat was that its bag was big enough to hold it, even after we had used it. I was worried that the Springbar would never fit back into its bag, but if we fold it like this video, it fits just fine, even with the added bulk of the awning still attached.
I haven’t encountered any extreme winds or rain in my Springbar yet, but it’s comforting to know that the tent will stay standing. Here is a video of one of their tents in tornado force winds of 95 MPH.
If you have packed away your camping gear for the winter, think about investing in a canvas tent. You might be able to camp all year with one. Here are some links about the products I talked about:
Hobitat 6 at REI: I wouldn’t recommend this tent, even though it has been redesigned. It’s just too thin for the Utah mountains.
Springbar Tent Models at Kirkhams: I was able to just walk into their store and buy the tent, but they sell their tents online as well.
Kodiak Canvas Flex-Bow 6-Person Canvas Ten at Amazon: If you prefer the lenient return policies of Amazon, you can try out this tent from them. Kodiak Canvas is also a Utah company, but I haven’t tried one of their tents.
Check out this video for the swissRoomBox. It turns your car into a mini-RV!
The water pump, refrigerator and other electrical items run off your car battery. I love how the boxes move out of the car for a camp kitchen like a teardrop trailer, but then also move toward the back to make the base for your bed within the car. This video showed a rather large car, but it will work with a compact car as well. Here is a small car with the swissRoomBox in kitchen mode:
Here is it in sleeping mode. It looks a little claustrophobic for my tastes, but it’s still doable.
Here is a video showing a family camping with the swissRoomBox:
Here is the extreme skiing version of the video complete with a DJ Rave and snow-kissed fondue:
If you understand French, this video might be helpful as well:
It nice to see it work with a tiny car as well as a large minivan. The swissRoomBox is a made-to-order item and is quite expensive, but it makes car camping look so fun and easy!
For years, I happily used the Coleman Pack-Away Kitchen. Last summer, I broke the aluminum supports along the side and I suddenly found myself in the position of having no camp kitchen. It only took half a campout until I knew I needed to replace the Coleman.
Having a camp kitchen might seem redundant when almost every campsite has a picnic table, and quite frankly it is, but there are so many times when we have needed the camp kitchen that the thought of camping without one is unpleasant now. Often, the picnic table is broken, a frozen slab of crumbling concrete or flat out missing, and when we boondock camp, the thought of the luxury of a picnic table is laughable. Our camp kitchen has saved us every time.
I looked at lots of camp kitchens at every camping store in the city and even online. I very nearly bought the Coleman again just because it packed up so neatly and small. Even now, I still miss that camp kitchen because it was so easy to carry. If you have limited space in your car for packing up camping gear, it’s truly the best choice.
I put the paper towels on the poles instead of on the holder to keep them from flying in the wind. I use a couple of plastic bins in the sink (one for soapy and another for rinsing water) and so I don’t use the drain on the sink. We used the soapy water to put out the fire at night. As you can see, the dish pantry is attached on the right. The food pantry was locked up in the car when I took this photo to prevent critters from eating our food, but it hangs on the left. The hooks on the sides are great for plastic grocery bags. Hang them there and use them for garbage. They’re small enough that you can dispose of them every night to keep the animals away.
Setting up this camp kitchen takes hardly any time now, but it was a little difficult to figure out the first time. This is a setup video of a very similar camp kitchen available at Cabelas. I actually looked at this kitchen, but it cost forty bucks more than the one I found at Sportsman’s Warehouse. Mine is almost exactly the same as this one, except my middle table is a light, foldable top and my zippered food/dish pantry bags are blue instead of green.
Whether you go with the tiny Coleman kitchen or a huge mega kitchen like I found, having one makes camping cooking much easier.
I’m a tent camper, but I’ve been obsessed with camping with a trailer lately. I’ve looked at owning a trailer seriously and I can’t justify the expense and difficulty of owning a trailer. No matter how I look at it, tent camping comes out ahead.
Tent Camping is Cheaper
When you take into account the cost of the trailer, the vehicle to tow it, the gasoline to get it there and the increased fees at the campsites, tent camping is MUCH cheaper. I asked Reed what MPG he gets on his truck when he’s towing his trailer and he said 12 miles to the gallon. Compared to the 40 mpg I get with my Prius (fully loaded to the ceiling with camping gear), I can go three times further away for the same money.
Then, there are the charges for the trailer when I’m NOT camping. Unless I could store it on my own property, I’d have to find an RV storage facility. When I checked some storage places near my home, the prices ranged from $50 a month to $150. To store my camping gear, I stuff it in the garage. Even if I needed a storage unit for my camping gear, I could get one for FAR less than that.
Finally, I don’t need to pay license, registration and taxes on my tent, whereas a trailer has those fees in addition to insurance riders. I really can’t see any financial advantage to having a trailer over a tent.
Tent Camping is Interchangeable
When I get sick of my tent, it costs me very little money to trade it out for a different one. If it starts leaking or mold has started growing on it, I can just toss it and buy a new one. If I don’t like my camping stove (or it starts leaking), I can exchange it without having to worry about ripping it out of a permanent fixture. I just leave the old gear at home and take the new gear next time we leave.
With a trailer, changing elements is a difficult task, requiring handiwork and knowledge of electrical, sewer or propane lines. Changing the entire trailer is not only costly, but a giant pain in the butt when it comes time to get rid of the old one. If you thought storing one trailer was expensive, try storing two. Storing two tents, on the other hand, is entirely doable.
Tents Never Flip My Car in the Wind
There is a lot of talk on the trailer forums about how to avoid sway. On windy days, even the best sway control and driving abilities will tip your trailer right over, damaging it, your car and maybe even injuring you. This video shows an RV that was blown over by the wind. The driver wasn’t injured and looks like he was driving slowly and safely, but the wind pushed him over anyway.
Now, a fifth-wheel might have survived that wind gust a little better, but if it didn’t, then the truck AND the trailer would have been on their sides, skidding down the road. My tent in the trunk of my Prius, as heavy as it is, will never catch enough wind to wreck my car.
Black Water Is Black Water
Having a toilet and shower in a trailer might seem like a way to enjoy the comforts of your home, but in the end, you have to deal with the gray and black water tanks. It’s not like at home where the stinky stuff disappears down the drain never to be seen again. With a trailer, you have to empty out every “deposit” you make.
If you have to deal with the unpleasantness of emptying a black water tank, then you can just as easily empty a port-a-potty. The most expensive portable toilet I found on Amazon was just under $150 (Thetford 25112 Porta Potti 365 Level Gauge and Lid Latch with Piston Pump Flush). Emptying a black water tank is no different than emptying a portable toilet. They’re both gross.
Propane Heat is Dangerous
The biggest reason I wanted a trailer is because I thought it would be warmer than my tent. The REASON why it’s warmer, however, is due to propane heat. Propane heaters are the same devices that kill at least one or two hunting parties every year in the mountains of Utah. If I have to worry about carbon monoxide and low oxygen monitors, I’m not going to use the device, so I’ll be freezing in a trailer just as much as I freeze in a tent.
If I have electricity, I can use an electric heater in my Springbar tent and be toasty warm all night long. It’s the electricity hookup at the campsite that makes the difference, not the trailer.
Trailers Don’t Have Generators
I was shocked to learn that trailers don’t come equipped with their own generators. If you want to boondock or camp at a site without electricity, you have to buy a separate generator to power your trailer. I could do that while tent camping just as easily as a trailer can. The trailer doesn’t provide the electricity to charge my cell phone or run an electric heater, the campsite or generator does.
Setting Up A Tent Doesn’t Take As Long As You Think
Another attraction for trailers to me was the thought that I could just pull up and start camping, but disconnecting the trailer from the truck, attaching it to the hookups, opening the slide-outs, leveling it and setting up the awnings can take as long as setting up a tent and camp kitchen. Mike and I have camp setup down to a science and it only takes us about an hour to set up or pack up. I’ve watched many a truck inch forward and back trying to line up correctly with the trailer hitch for longer than that at the campground.
These videos showing the setup procedure for a trailer convinced me that camping in a trailer is ANYTHING but just pulling up and camping.
Compare that video to this video of the setup procedure for my Springbar tent. It’s not filmed in real time, and honestly, pounding in those stakes is what takes MOST of the time, but Mike and I can get our tent up in about fifteen minutes.
Sure, the first time you set up a new piece of equipment, it will take a long time, but every time after that, you gain a little speed. Once Mike and I timed ourselves, we realized that setting up a tent doesn’t take as long as I thought. Ironically, I’ve watched people setting up a trailer take FAR longer than I would have expected.
Setting Up Camp Is Kinda Fun
I know this might sound crazy, but I enjoy getting to a new campsite and deciding where everything is going to go. It’s like I get to decorate my campsite differently every time we go camping. This time, I might put the camp kitchen near the picnic table so I have double the counter space. Next time, we might abandon the picnic table altogether.
I decide where the awning is going to be and how I position my shady area for my chairs. I’m not at the mercy of the floor plan of my trailer. I don’t have to always have my awning on the passenger side of the camper, irregardless of the sunshine. I get to choose where everything goes and it can be different every time.
Does It Count As Camping When You’re in a Trailer?
When I sleep in a tent, I hear every little crunching footstep of the animals outside. When I am cooking at a propane stove on a picnic table, I feel the wind on my face and the chill of the early morning. When I sit by the campfire, I see bats swishing above me, eating all those pesky mosquitoes.
I realize that I could do all those things with a trailer, but would I? If I have a trailer, am I going to sleep in a tent outside just so I can hear all the animals as I fall asleep? If it’s chilly outside, am I going to bring my propane stove out to the picnic table, or am I going to just cook on the stove inside the trailer? Would I even start a campfire when the propane heater in the trailer could keep me so warm?
At some point, it’s no longer camping. It’s just living in a tiny, tiny house. The simplicity of that has an appeal, but it’s completely different than what I get from camping in a tent.
Despite all these reasons that I think tent camping is better than trailer camping, I have to admit that I’m still attracted to owning a trailer. Even building my own teardrop trailer in my garage still sounds appealing, even though I have absolutely no use for it. I can look at it logically, but there is something about the idea of a trailer that attracts me. For now, Mike and I are staying tent campers, but I can’t say that I will always feel the same in the future.
Update 03-31-12: After months of fighting a teardrop trailer obsession and several cold and unsuccessful camping attempts, we have finally bought a trailer. I revisit how teardrop trailer camping compares to tent camping again here:
I will provide updates on how camping with the teardrop is different than a tent over the next few months.
Update 01-03-13: After adding a ten year old boy to our family, we couldn’t fit in the teardrop anymore, so we got a cheap tent trailer and our adventures continue. We haul it with our Prius and still get 29 mpg, so we have been very happy with our camper. We literally have the best of both worlds because we have the exact same car as we used to tent camp with, but we have access to the campsites with electricity, so winter camping is WAY warmer than it was in a tent. If RV parks would just let tent campers have electricity at their sites, we probably would still be camping in a tent today, but as it is, the tent trailer has been great.
Mike and I camped with our Hobitat 6 tent from REI for five years. We paid over three hundred bucks for the tent and I can safely say that I HATED every minute in it. There were only two nights when I wasn’t miserably cold in that tent, even though we only camped in the summer. The mountains of Utah are just too cold at night for that flimsy thing. To REI’s credit, they seem to have redesigned the 
This year, we bought a 
When you take into account the cost of the trailer, the vehicle to tow it, the gasoline to get it there and the increased fees at the campsites, tent camping is MUCH cheaper. I asked Reed what MPG he gets on his truck when he’s towing his trailer and he said 12 miles to the gallon. Compared to the 40 mpg I get with my Prius (fully loaded to the ceiling with camping gear), I can go three times further away for the same money. 
I know this might sound crazy, but I enjoy getting to a new campsite and deciding where everything is going to go. It’s like I get to decorate my campsite differently every time we go camping. This time, I might put the camp kitchen near the picnic table so I have double the counter space. Next time, we might abandon the picnic table altogether.