You’re NOT Bringing That! – Outrageous Camping Gear

10 weird but curiously wonderful crazy camping gadgets. And only one of them is made up

With the craze for ‘glamping’ – yes it’s a portmanteau for ‘glamorous camping’ – well established, and the glossy magazine lifestyle supplement trend for cool camping in full swing, don’t you think it’s high time you scoured the great outdoor shops in search of some of these marvelous inventions? Surely every home-from-home should have them…

UFO Detector

Long nights in unforgiving desert terrain spent hunting for aliens in the night sky involves plenty of base layers, camping equipment, and a gadget or two. So what you need to consider investing in is the elegant transparent plastic UFO Detector kit (9V lithium batteries not included). It beeps in the presence of an alien intruder, so you can even take some time off watching the skies and have a think about your life and some of the choices you’ve made. As UFO experts MUFON suggest, be sure to also bring along a container for alien samples. And some string, apparently.

JakPak

Not to be confused with the incredibly useful Yaktrax non-slip ice grips worn by people on slippery surfaces everywhere, or the homemade jetpacks worn by science-fiction crazies in the trailer parks of America.  Seriously, why not try the JakPak jacket + Tent + Sleeping back all-in-one camping equipment solution?

TreePee

Nothing whatsoever to do with performing ablutions in woodland areas, this portable, elevatable dwelling combines all the fun of a treehouse with the practicality of a tent. Available in green or pink.

EuroHike Tent Peg Extractor

Undeniably useful for those freezing mornings when the inhospitable ground refuses to yield your tent pegs, the Tent Peg Extractor looks curiously like a… regular tent peg. With a handle on the end.

Bubble Tent

This bespoke tent design is unique in that it is shaped, as the name suggests, like a bubble. Plus, it’s completely see-through. Created in France by genius designer Pierre Stephane Dumas, the bubble tent costs around £7,500, and is French.

Rubber Chicken Tent Stakes

In the under-exploited outdoor equipment realm, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without a set of Rubber Chicken Tent Stakes. They’re a fun way to differentiate your tent from others in a field – ie the other tents are filled with people who don’t buy things like Rubber Chicken Tent Stakes.

Folding Kitchen Sink

Yes, you can bring the kitchen sink. Yes, you can fold it away into a hand-sized pouch. Yes, it will happily contain 10 litres of water. No, you really don’t need to bother.

U-Mi-No

This Japanese-made camping robot may be primitive and expensive, but it has genuinely useful functionality and is a real glimpse of the future. Aimed primarily at teenagers, it comes in two gender versions – Mrs U-Mi-No has an inbuilt hairdryer and assistive limb for holding cosmetics, while Mr U-Mi-No sports infra-red, movement-activated predator-detection lights. Both genders charge iPods and are WiFi-enabled.

The Handpresso Coffee Maker

We all love a hot Espresso in the morning, and the Handpresso is ingenious.

But if you need creature comforts on this scale, we fear camping just isn’t for you. Advice? Stay. At. Home. For the rest of us, a trip down to Ellis Brigham for some camping equipment is in order!

This was a guest post written for The Blighty Traveller

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Photo Credits: Images Scientific Instruments, The Design Blog, Treepee, Peak Outdoors, My Pointless