image of sunrise over a kayaking campsite in Baja California

Best Budget Camping Gear (by an outdoor guide!)

September 6, 2026

Looking for the best camping gear on the market without breaking the bank? From where you should splurge to camping gear steals, check out the best camping gear you can find for cheap!

Why this blog? Oh hi there! My name is Maddy and I’ve worked as an outdoor guide and travel/adventure writer since 2018. In my guiding, I’ve had the opportunity to personal test a lot of gear while sleeping outside almost every night for three consecutive summers. (I still guide overnight trips, and spend about a week of every month outside, year-round!)

Oh hey there! This blog uses affiliate links. That means if you make a purchase based on my recommendation, I make a small kickback at no additional cost to you.

Image of a budget camping tent lit with string lights at night

Best Budget Camping Gear

You can go a long way on budget gear! In working as an outdoor guide, some of my own gear picks to this day are still a budget-friendly version, and I can tell you with full confidence that there is no reason to drop thousands of dollars on outdoor gear right off the bat. Here’s a quick guide to the basic cheap outdoor gear you might need, plus tips on how to save money elsewhere:

Kelty Discovery Basecamp 4 Tent: Best Budget Tent
Coleman Flatlands 50F Sleeping Bag: Best Budget Sleeping Bag
Klymit Static V BASE: Best Budget Sleeping Pad
GSI Glacier: Best Budget Camp Stove

For your first camping trips, everything else you can probably find at home! Read on for a full breakdown plus tips for outfitting your camping trip with what you have at home.

1) Kelty Discovery Basecamp 4 Tent: Best Budget Tent

The Kelty Discovery Basecamp 4 Tent at just $120 is the best budget-friendly tent you can find on the market. I’m also a big fan of the Kelty Late Start line. Kelty is a really solid choice in that all their tents are easy to set up, waterproof, and stand the test of time. I have a set of Kelty tents that I’ve kept for years as loaner tents for my overnight trips, and a lot of outfitters I’ve worked with use Kelty tents as their tents for guests on trips, which is a pretty strong endorsement in my opinion — outfitter tents often go out more than half of the days of the summer!

image of a blonde woman in a Kelty Discovery camping tent in the woods without a rainfly on

Coleman’s 4-Person Cabin Camping Tent with Instant Setup at $220 is also a popular choice, and Sierra Designs also makes great tents on the budget side.

Pro Tip: Buy used first!

One way to find the best budget-friendly outdoor gear is to go used first. Facebook Marketplace can be an excellent resource for finding budget gear, but there are online resources available as well. Check out The Gear Project, which is basically Depop for outdoor gear where you can buy and sell used gear peer-to-peer. You can also check out Patagonia Worn Wear for gently used Patagonia on discount.

READ: How to Choose A Camping Tent

2) Coleman Flatlands 50F Sleeping Bag: Best Budget Sleeping Bag

Okay so before we dive into budget sleeping bag options: all of the good budget options are going to be summer-only, non-packable bags. This means that these bags are going to be great for summer car camping, but not ideal for any season backpacking or shoulder season camping (you’ll be cold! Grab a blanket too).

Image of a subaru budget car camping set up with a cheap coleman sleeping bag laying across the left hand side of the car

The Coleman Flatlands 50F Sleeping Bag at $60 is a really popular budget sleeping bag option — when I worked as an overnight sea kayaking guide in the San Juan Islands I lived in a tent when I wasn’t guiding too, and this was the bag that I slept in at my own camp. It was comfortable and spacious. Kelty makes a comfortable slightly warmer bag for $90.

I haven’t personally tested this bag, but the Peregrine Saker 35 Sleeping Bag looks like a really promising budget-friendly entry-level sleeping bag for backpacking at $80. I’ve had overall good experiences with Peregrine.

Pro tip: less is more

While I can definietly point you in the direction of cheap camping gear, the best advice I can probably give you is to use what you already have rather than buy new things. For example, instead of a tent, check out a no-build guide to sleeping in your car. To comfortably camp from your car, you really only need a sleeping pad and some creative energy.

READ: Best Sleeping Bags

3) Klymit Static V BASE: Best Budget Sleeping Pad

The Klymit Static V BASE is the gold standard for budget sleeping pads among newer guides and I highly recommend it! It’s just $50 and it gets the job done. Personally I like to pair my inflatable with a closed cell foam pad for additional comfort, but if you play your cards right this whole setup can run you less than $100.

image of a budget sleeping pad on the ground next to a backapcking bag in the forest at the edge of a ridge with fog in the valley below

image of a bean burrito, knife and avocado on a sleeping pad

Another popular cheap sleeping pad option are self-inflating pads which tend to run around $60-90 — to be honest though the closed cell foam + inflatable is going to be a lot more comfortable and about the same price. If you do want a self-inflating pad, check out the Coleman Silver Springs or REI Trailmade version.

If you’re going to splurge anywhere, splurge on a sleeping pad. A good sleeping pad is the difference between a good nights sleep and a very unhappy camper.

READ: Best Sleeping Pads

4) GSI Glacier: Best Budget Camp Stove

Okay so in my opinion camp stoves is actually one area where you can really save money if you plan simple meals. The GSI Glacier is just $35 and is a workhorse of a stove. You can make this work for backpacking and and car camping a like, and for car camping you can even just grab pots and pans from home to cook with and save even more money.

image of a whisperlite stove at a rivers edge

There are a lot of more expensive camp stoves that can totally be worth it if camp cooking is your passion or you’re doing a lot of it — for example, I own a Jetboil Flash, Jetboil Genesis for longer car camping or paddling trips which I’ll use in tanden with the flash, a Pocket Rocket, an MSR Switch (I got this for free) and a WhisperLite. This is way more stoves than any one person needs however between guiding 12-person sea kayaking trips and longer backpacking trips or extended car camping,

READ: How to Choose a Camp Stove

5) Budget Camp Cookwear Ideas

If you’re looking to save money while camping, definietly do not go buy a nice shiny new mess kit when there are so many ways to find something budget-friendly. First, if you’re car camping consider just bringing silverware from home. However if weight matters and you’re trying to save money on backpacking meals, look into a Stasher Bowl Bag which can set you up to make and rehydrate your own backpacking meals, saving a lot of money.

READ: Camping Meal Ideas

How to find cheap camping gear: tips from an outdoor guide

Okay so to break it down for you most clearly: use what you already have first, buy used second, buy budget last.

There is for sure a little bit of “you get what you pay for” when it comes to outdoor gear but the gap between the Kelty budget tents and the nice shiny Big Agnes tents for several hundred dollars more is not a gap that will ruin your camping trip. In my opinion as someone who works with a lot of people on the beginner-intermediate end of their outdoor adventures, starting with budget and used gear is one of the smartest things you can do.

image looking out from a tent at the edge of a lake before sunrise

Image of campers gathered around an evening campfire with tents glowing in the background

You can get a lot of milage out of the tent you took from your grandpa’s storage unit, or the sleeping bag you found at your local used gear shop. Personally, I recommend waiting to upgrade until you not only have the disposable income to do so comfortably, but have enough experience under your belt that you understand what kind of upgrade you actually want or need. For example, if you love beach backpacking trips, you probably don’t want an expensive trekking pole tent that’s nearly impossible to set up in the sand. If your favorite thing about camping is cooking, you might want to invest in a stove with a simmer function for more versatility.

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Other camping gear you might need:

You can find a lot of camping gear to spend money on, but in my opinion the only true essentials for any trip are shelter, sleep system, and cook system. You can even get by without a headlamp, especially if you’re in the north in the summer. Obviously as you take on different styles of trips more gear becomes essential but if you’re truly just getting started, tent, sleep system and stove are the biggest areas to cut costs.

Here are a few guides to other gear you might need for your camping trip: