Best Flashlights for Camping

The camping lighting plan

The single-light approach fails in a predictable way. A headlamp alone means everyone blinds each other at the table. A lantern alone means you cannot walk anywhere or do anything that needs directed light. The two together weigh less than most people expect and cover everything.

Working out how much runtime you need

Budget four hours of light per evening, which is generous for most trips. Three nights is twelve hours; a week is twenty-eight. Now compare that against published low-mode figures: Streamlight's 37 hours at 50 lumens covers a week comfortably on one set of AAs, and Black Diamond's 225 hours at 6 lumens on the Spot 400-R covers essentially any trip you would take a headlamp on.

Compare against maximum-output figures instead and the picture changes completely — most lights here manage two to four hours there. That is the arithmetic behind the advice to plan on low and treat turbo as an occasional dip.

The battery you can buy in a village shop

Anywhere with a shop has AA cells. Very few places have your proprietary lithium pack. For any trip longer than a weekend, or anywhere remote, a light that runs on ordinary cells is worth more than several hundred lumens — which is why the ThruNite Archer 2A V3 and the Streamlight Siege AA appear here despite modest published outputs.

Petzl's hybrid arrangement is the best of both: the CORE rechargeable pack for the convenience, three AAA cells when there is no power. That is the feature to look for if you want one lamp that handles both car camping and a long walk-in.

How we ranked these

Published output over live price, then weighted for low-mode runtime, weight, and whether ordinary cells can re-power the light. Water ratings matter here too, since camping gear gets rained on and occasionally dropped in things.

Cold nights and lithium

Lithium cells deliver noticeably less current when cold, so a lamp that manages four hours in a warm tent may manage substantially less at freezing. The standard mitigation is to keep the light or its spare cell in an inside pocket or the bottom of a sleeping bag overnight. Alkaline cells suffer in cold too, though the failure is usually gradual rather than sudden.

One thing worth more than a brighter light

A red mode. It stops you blinding whoever is sitting opposite you, and it preserves the dark adaptation that makes a campsite feel navigable without any light at all. Streamlight publishes 192 hours on the Siege AA's red mode — practically unlimited for a trip — and most headlamps here include one.