I've enjoyed eight great years of interaction with thousands of other small travel trailer owners. Thanks for all your support, and hopefully a few of us will meet again somewhere in the woods or on the road! - Denny
Having the right amount of light when you’re camping
I just completed our first camping trip after getting a new accessory I'm actually really excited about...a great worklight for camping. It came in so handy that I wanted to tell you all about it.
From time to time, having enough light at night has been a challenge. Now I’m not talking about while we’re relaxing outside, or even inside. I’m talking about when I needed extra light to get something set up, or to work on something.
Years ago, when we tent camped, I always had my trusty Coleman gas lantern. We sat it on the picnic table and used it for our main outdoor light at night. It was also handy to move around whenever I needed a camping worklight. Over the years however, we decided that some softer lighting would be better than having such a bright light in one place. As a result, we gave up the lantern and switched to using strings of Christmas lights for our evening campsite lighting. They are great, and crazy cheap...especially when we stock up right after Christmas! We love them for the soft, even lighting over our campsite.
The way we "used to" get light at night!
But, at times, we still needed a bright worklight for camping
After we gave up our Coleman lantern, we started using a battery powered lantern when we needed something brighter than the Christmas lights. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really that bright. To get better lighting, I eventually started bringing an electrical work light with plenty of extension cords. As you can imagine, that became a pain. So for the last few years, I’ve just ended up using a bright flashlight when I needed extra light. It was bright enough, but it didn’t really work that well. Either I'd have trouble getting it pointed where I needed it, or Fay would end up having to hold it for me.
So now that LED lighting has become so good, I decided to try a small LED worklight from Home Depot. It’s been okay, and certainly better than the other solutions I tried, but still pretty limiting. Then I recently came across a good deal on a much bigger LED worklight on Amazon. They had good specs, strong ratings, and were really quite affordable. Being on Amazon, I figured I would give them a try and simply return them if I wasn’t satisfied.
My new favorite camping accessory...a great worklight for camping!
This is definitely the worklight I've been looking for!
Well let me tell you, this worklight is fantastic for camping! It’s clearly the solution I’ve needed. Let me tell you what I really like about it:
- The light is really, really, really bright.
- But it also has three brightness levels for times when you don’t need it quite so bright and want to save the charge.
- The beam is very wide and can cover a large area. This was great when we were still getting our campsite set up after dark. (see photo below)
- It’s cordless and rechargeable via a USB cable. So if I need to, I can even charge it in the car while traveling.
- The charge seems to last a long time. I charged it for a few hours before I left home, used it several times over a three day period, and it still had plenty of charge remaining.
- There are indicator lights on the back that show the amount of charge remaining.
- It has a flexible table-top stand/hanger/handle with a strong built-in magnet. (see photo below)
- GET THIS...It can also be used as a USB power source. I left it setting on the picnic table and used it to charge up my cellphone.
- It's nice quality...very rugged and heavy duty.
- The price is great!
It's bright enough and has a wide enough beam to light up the whole campsite while getting things setup at night
Really flexible positioning...The worklight stand/hang bar even has a strong magnet built in
Making it easy to find things in my truck bed after dark
So here's the whole truth about this worklight for camping!
The purchase on Amazon is for two of these. When I first saw that, I kept looking and ended up buying another one first. It was a little larger, not quite as bright, didn't have the magnet in the handle, and a few other differences. I decided to try these lights and ordered them while I still had the other one. I figured that I'd keep what I liked best and return the other. (Amazon is always great about returns...and even covers the shipping cost.) Well, I guess it's obvious by now that the first one went back!
As it turns out, I love having two (and it was less then twice the cost of the first one I got). If you need light for a long time, you can have one charging while you are using the other. They will also be great as backup lighting for us at home during power failures.
As it turns out, I have a large shed in our backyard without electricity. When I’ve had to get into it at night in the past, I used a flashlight to see what I was doing. One of these worklights can light up the entire shed really well. I’ve decided to keep one out there and one in the garage when we’re not camping.
Anyway, I'm sure you can tell that I’m pretty excited about my new toy. Be sure to check it out on Amazon if it sounds interesting. As always, send me a note should you have any questions.
Denny Johnson
After having spent most of our adult life in Orlando, my wife Fay and I moved to Knoxville, TN in 2020. We are loving the change of seasons and being near the mountains. Plus, this part of the country is loaded with great places to camp.We camped years ago with a pop-up camper, but got serious about it when we purchased our Casita in 2014. There was a lot to learn as we started traveling with it, and a lot of conflicting opinions on line. That's when I decided that creating a website would be a good retirement project. I started tinyTowable.com to share things we've learned along the way that have worked well for us in hopes that the information would be of help to others.
However, since moving to Tennessee, I've gotten involved with new hobbies (you can check some out on my personal website at https://www.softrite.com) and we haven't camped very much. So, at the end of 2023, I made the tough decision to stop updating this website.