When you plan on spending a few days camping in the wilderness, you just can’t afford to go without a high-quality camping stove. However, choosing one can get pretty confusing, especially if you’re camping for the very first time.

In this blog, we’ll take you through all the considerations that you should keep in mind before buying a portable stove that’s perfect for your camping trip. 

1. Power or Portability?

If your camping trip involves travelling in a large group, then you need a powerful stove. A powerful backpacking stove typically features multiple burners, and they tend to be way heavier than stoves intended to serve just one or two people. If you’re more of a solo traveller, you should prioritize portability over power, as it’ll make it much easier for you to carry the lightweight camping stove around in your backpack.

2. Freestanding or Tabletop Design?

A freestanding backpacking stove is one that features legs, which makes it ideal to be set up on almost any surface. Tabletop designs are available as well, which are much more portable than freestanding stoves. However, when you carry a tabletop stove, you also need to carry a table. Even though tabletop stoves tend to be significantly lighter than freestanding units, they can’t be set up everywhere.

3. Number of Burners

Most outdoor stove types nowadays come with at least two burners. Stoves with three or more burners are available as well, but they take up a lot more space than two or one burner variants. If portability is your priority, you’d be best off buying a stove with a single burner. Sure, you can’t cook up intricate dishes using such a product, but if you know how to cook one-pot recipes, a single-burner stove will be a lifesaver in the wilderness.

4. BTU Output

British Thermal Unit, or BTU is a unit of measurement that is indicative of the energy that can heat water (1 pound) by 1 degree Fahrenheit. When looking at the specifications of a portable camping stove, you’ll typically see 10,000 BTUs per burner or more. So, what’s the ideal BTU output? Well, it all boils down to what your needs are. If you’re travelling in a large group, it’s better to go for a stove that offers 20,000 BTUs per burner. However, if the group consists of 2 – 3 people, a stove offering 10,000 BTUs should be sufficient.

5. Grill

If you want to grill meats on your camping trip, then you need a camping grill. But be warned – camping grills tend to take up a lot of space, and they’re only good for grilling. For all other cooking applications, you need a stove and carrying both a stove and a grill can become problematic in terms of space. We recommend carrying a grill only on camping trips where you’ll be travelling by car. If you’re hiking, ditch the grill and rely only on a stove.

6. Liquid Fuel or Propane?

Propane is the most popular fuel type across different types of backpacking stoves, and it is readily available as well. Even though propane is a great fuel across most weather conditions, it struggles in sub-zero temperatures. So if you’re planning to camp out in the high mountains where sub-zero temperatures are normal, you’d be better off choosing a stove that runs on liquid fuel. 

The Best Products to Use

Jetboil is one of the best portable stove brands around, and in this section, we’ll take you through some of their products that you can rely on, on any camping trip.

• Genesis Basecamp Stove: The Genesis Basecamp Stove offers a dual-burner design with each burner offering 10,000 BTUs, which is enough to boil water within three minutes. The stove comes with an attachable windscreen as well, which is sure to help users achieve a stable flame even in the windiest conditions. It also boasts of a compact folding design that makes it easy for the stove to be accommodated inside backpacks.

• Flash Cooking System: Jetboil’s Flash Cooking System takes less than a couple minutes to boil water. It features a push button ignition system, and when combined with other Jetboil camping accessories, it can be a life-saver across all those adventurous camping trips.

• Luna Satellite Burner: Jetboil’s Luna Satellite Burner is a side burner that can be attached to HalfGen and Genesis stoves from Jetboil. If you need to boil water quickly, this product is an absolute delight out in the wild. It comes with a convenient push button ignition system as well.

Now that you know what to consider before picking a product from Jetboil, we hope you can make a well-informed choice that's a fit for you.