HEADLAMP WITH EXTRA BATTERIES
In emergencies like power outages, having a reliable way to navigate through the house and outside at night is essential.
We like the Black Diamond Spot, which runs on batteries, so doesn’t require you have regular access to electricity to be able to recharge it. It’s easy to use, reasonably priced, the batteries last, and it has multiple brightness settings.
If you’d prefer to have one headlamp dedicated for your emergency kit and keep your technical headlamp with your adventure gear, we recommend the Petzl Tikkina. It’s priced like a headlamp from a big box hardware store, but it has the battery life, durability, comfort, and fit of an outdoor headlamp. To learn more about our favorite headlamps, check out our guide on Best Headlamps.
FIRE-STARTING TOOLS (WATERPROOF MATCHES, LIGHTERS)
In an emergency situation, starting a fire helps provide warmth and light. Waterproof matches, lighters, and anything else needed to start a fire are a great idea for emergency situations. You likely have some of these set aside in your camping gear kit.
LED LANTERN
If building a fire is impractical or not possible, you should have some other reliable light source. The UST 60 Day LED Lantern Duro, for example, is bright, long lasting, durable, and reliable. In a pinch, glow sticks can also work but only last about 24 hours, whereas some camping lanterns can last up to months on one set of batteries. It works on batteries, so unlike rechargeable LED Lanterns, it doesn’t require you to have working electricity to recharge.
For more, check out our Best Camping Lanterns and Camping Lights guide.
EXTRA BATTERIES
For items like headlamps that don’t run on USB, it’s worth having some extra batteries around. For emergency situations, we prefer lithium batteries, which have a longer shelf life (up to 10 years), also last longer per battery, and perform better in the cold than alkaline batteries.
USB POWER SUPPLY
We like the 10000 mAh Anker PowerCore, which we’ve used on numerous thru-hikes, including the Pacific Crest Trail. On backpacking trips where we go up to a week without access to electricity, we’ve found it has enough ports to simultaneously charge phones, cameras, and GPS watches at the same time and is lightweight.
Portable Power Station or Solar Generator
If you’d prefer a USB power supply that is renewable or can store solar power, we like the Jackery power station and compatible solar panel system in our How to Full-Time RV Camp guide.
Additionally, we discuss smaller-scale solar battery storage systems in our Best Portable Solar Panels guide.
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