Camping has come a long way within the last 30 years, from the days of standard ridge tents with lay down ground sheets to the old style cook kits.
We have reviewed and run a vote with 4 separate independent camping friends to bring you our top 5 best innovations in camping.
This is our top 5 and why we all think these are deserving of being on the top 5 list......
OUR TOP 5
Collapsable camping furniture.....
There is brilliant and versatile range of camping furniture available these days, no awkwardness of slotting Poles together anymore, just remove from the carry bag, open up and attach the Velcro straps
Portable Gas Oven.......
No longer do we have to have electric hook up to use all our appliances on the campsite, this is clearly evident with the invention of the gas cartridge oven. These ovens run on a single gas cartridge for up to 1 hour 45 minutes. Take them anywhere and operate them anywhere as they work independently on their own small gas cartridge.
Airbeam technology in inflatable tents...
These tents were brought to the camping market in 2011. And overnight revolutionised the way we pitch tents on the campsite. They allow one person to pitch with ease in a matter of minutes.
The plug in 12v AC/DC cool box......
We no longer have to put our milk or beer in a bucket of cold water, we now have the ability to plug in our mobile fridges. These come in all shapes and sizes and we can now plug in to the car or campsite EHU and enjoy our products chilled just like at home.
Inflatable Air bed
These beds allow a great nights sleep when enjoying the outdoors, we no longer have to sleep on the groundsheet with only a sleeping bag between us and the floor, we now have low and high rise airbeds giving us the normal comforts of our home bedrooms, these are very comfortable and inflate in a matter of minutes and enjoyed by many family campers.
Our Verdict
Clear winner!
We believe the number one spot for this list has to be the inflatable Airbeam tent. There’s a good reason for this, most people who are new to camping wouldn’t know the difference between pitching a pole tent to pitching an inflatable tent, however there is a huge difference in terms of effort and time (a saving on both by using Airbeam), and what’s more to minimise effort these tents can be inflated by just plugging in an electric pump removing any effort at all!
Vango pioneered Airbeam technology back in 2011 and this revolutionary invention changed the way of camping, changing the minds of many doubters of camping. An Airbeam tent pitches in half the time of a pole tent and with minimum effort! It’s simple; just peg the tent at all 4 corners, insert the pump and pump it up! We have a huge Vango Edoras 600xl Airbeam tent and it pitches in well under 10 minutes, a pole tent of this size would take above 30 minutes with a lot more effort involved by threading poles and uprighting the tent taking two people, and this is another advantage of Airbeam tents, they can be pitched by one person! Deflation of the tent and packing away is also very easy, this is particularly easy with Vango’s Airspeed valve system. We all love this technology, so much so that we have no hesitation voting it to the number one spot in our list of best camping innovations.
A really enjoyable read