Gifts for Campers and Backpackers Under $50

The PocketRocket 2 is a tiny stove that screws onto the top of a gas canister. It weighs 2.6 ounces and folds to a little over three inches long, and MSR rates it to boil a liter of water in about three and a half minutes. That's coffee in the morning, dinner at night and hot water for a cold hand, from something that fits in a mug.

It's the gift we'd pick for most campers, because a fast stove is the upgrade people notice every single trip. MSR's numbers give a sense of the fuel: with its own 8-ounce IsoPro canister, the stove burns for about an hour and boils about 16 liters, which is a long weekend for two. The three pot supports fold out to hold a wide range of pots and fold away when packed.

Know two things before you wrap it. The fuel canister isn't part of the stove, so either add one or make sure your camper has some. And it has no built-in igniter; it's lit with a match or a lighter, which campers often prefer since there's one less part to fail. In strong wind, any stove this small needs shelter.

A headlamp is for walking; a lantern is for living in the tent. Black Diamond's Moji+ is a small round lantern that hangs from the loop in a tent's ceiling by its double hook and lights the whole space, so nobody is blinding anyone else with a headlamp while they find a sleeping bag. It puts out up to 200 lumens of white light, has a low setting that lasts for days, and has four magnets for sticking it to a car or a cooler.

It also has a full spectrum of colors and a flickering campfire mode, which sounds like a gimmick and turns out to be the setting families with kids use most. Black Diamond rates it at 5.5 hours on high and 100 hours on low, and it's IPX4, which means it shrugs off rain from any direction. It weighs 140 grams.

The catch is power. It runs on three AAA batteries that aren't included, or on Black Diamond's rechargeable BD 1500 battery, sold separately. Add a pack of AAAs to the gift. If they'd rather recharge over USB, Black Diamond's Moji R+ has a built-in battery, at a price just under this guide's budget.

Most campers sleep on a rolled-up jacket and wake up with a stiff neck. An inflatable pillow is the simplest way to sleep noticeably better outside, and Sea to Summit's Aeros Ultralight is about as light as one gets: 55 grams, under two ounces, and it packs to roughly three inches square, about the size of an egg.

Inflated, the regular size is about 13 by 10 inches and up to 11 centimeters (4.3 inches) thick, with a curved top that cradles the head and a scalloped base that sits around the shoulders. A small valve lets you blow it up in a few breaths and let a little air out to set the firmness. Sea to Summit includes PillowLock patches that stick it to most sleeping pads, so it doesn't slide off in the night, and the face fabric is soft, brushed recycled polyester rather than slippery plastic.

The catch is the trade-off every ultralight pillow makes: it's a thin layer of fabric over air, and some people find any inflatable pillow bouncy or noisy at first. The regular size suits most adults; Sea to Summit's large size lists just over this guide's budget.

The Opinel No.08 has been made since 1890, and it remains the simplest good knife a camper can own: a stainless blade, a beech handle and nothing else to break. At camp it slices salami and cheese, cuts cord, opens food bags and whittles a marshmallow stick, and it weighs 1.6 ounces.

The detail that makes it work is the Virobloc ring, a steel collar Opinel patented in 1955. Twist it one way and the blade is locked open, so it can't fold onto your fingers while you cut; twist it the other way and it's locked shut in a pocket. The blade is 3.28 inches long and stainless, so it shrugs off damp mornings, and Opinel sources the beech from managed woodlands in the French Alps and the Jura.

Two honest catches. Wood swells when it's wet, so a soaked Opinel can be stiff to open until it dries; it isn't a knife to leave in a puddle or put in a dishwasher. And it's a knife, so it lives in the camping bin or the car, not in a carry-on bag.

A titanium mug is the piece of camping gear that people use for a decade. Snow Peak's Ti-Single 450 holds 15.2 fluid ounces and weighs 2.4 ounces, and because it's a single wall of titanium it can sit straight on a stove or the edge of a fire to heat water, soup or a second coffee. The two handles fold flat against the side for packing.

It pairs naturally with the PocketRocket on this list, and the mug doubles as a small pot for one person. Snow Peak makes its titanium products in Tsubame-Sanjo, a Japanese town known for metalwork, and it's the kind of finish and fit that shows in the hand.

The catch is the physics of a single wall. Titanium heats fast and the rim gets hot when you cook in it, and with no insulation a drink cools quickly on a cold morning. A camper who wants coffee to stay hot for an hour needs an insulated mug instead; Snow Peak's double-wall version lists just under this guide's budget.

The Ultralight Java Drip is a reusable pour-over coffee filter for a camper who won't settle for instant. It's a nylon mesh cone on three legs that clip to the rim of almost any mug, so it sits above the coffee as it drips, and it packs flat at 4.2 inches across and half an inch tall. GSI designed it to nest under a standard fuel canister, so it takes up no room of its own in a cook kit.

It's the smallest gift on this list and the obvious companion to the stove and the titanium mug: put the three in a stuff sack and you've given a whole morning routine. Being a permanent mesh filter, it needs no paper filters, which is one less thing to pack in and carry out.

The catches: a mesh filter lets through more fine sediment than paper, so coffee is a little heavier, and the grind needs to be medium or coarse. It wants a rinse and a dry after each use, by hand. GSI doesn't publish its weight, but at this size it's a fraction of an ounce.