Top Camping Accessories from 2 Years of Skoolie Travel

When planning for an extended adventure in a skoolie, vanlife, or in an RV, it is easy to get bogged down in shopping for accessories. Let our experience help you pick out what you need for your next road trip or year of full-time travel.

Black Diamond Headlamp

The usefulness of a good headlamp is hard to express in words. We use our headlamps everywhere! From working under the hood to digging in the deep storage under the bed, our headlamps are always within arms’ reach. This particular model is super bright, easy on batteries, and is really comfortable to wear for hours of hiking, riding, or paddling in the dark. The Spot model is IPX8 waterproof rated and has the standard bright, light, strobe, and red modes. 

Lodge Cast-Iron Skillet

This is hands down the single most important piece of cookware in our skoolie. We cook breakfast lunch and dinner on our cast-iron skillet and the benefits far outweigh the downfalls. We use an old Wagner skillet, but we have been pleased with the quality coming out of the Lodge factory in recent years. 

Garmin inReach Explorer

This device made it on the list mostly because of the other people that follow our travels. Our parents feel much better knowing that they can ping our location any day or night and that we can call for GPS if we need help in the backcountry. The inReach devices always work and are extremely well made. We wish we had purchased a device sooner!

NatGeo Maps

We use National Geographic maps to plan and explore nearly everywhere we go. We spent 5 months in Baja, used the Nat Geo maps almost exclusively, and never regretted it. The maps are affordable and well-made.

Coleman Propane Lantern

There is nothing more soothing or relaxing than kicking back around a campfire and seeing the soft glow of camp light around the areas that you use the most. The Claymore brand lights are extremely efficient, tough as nails, and can be dimmed from “face of the sun” to “mellow” with the click of a button. 

Jackery Portable Power Station

We have not personally used this piece of equipment, but have seen them in action and know a few travelers that use them with good success. If we didn’t have a full solar system on our rig, we would be using a Jackery battery pack. It’s simple, easy to use, and an affordable way to keep all of your devices charged.

Luminoodle Camp Lights

Seeing where you are going around camp is tough. Always looking out for tent guy lines and fire ant hills is a lot of work and Luminoodle camp lights can help. Illuminate your campsite with reliable and efficient lights!

Glow in the dark guy lines

There is nothing worse than tripping over a tent guy line on your way to the bathroom at night. Glow in the dark guy lines are key if you plan to not wake up everyone in the tent when you trip and get tangled up.

Helinox Chair One XL

If you read any of our posts, you will learn that we love our Helinox chairs. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they worth it? Absolutely. Just buy them, good chairs make all the difference!