Solar Chargers for Camping, RVs, and Hiking
When you go hiking or camping any distance from civilization, you are usually cut off from electrical power. Electrical gadgets have thus not been of much use on such backpacking trips in the past, unless you were willing to carry a lot of extra weight in the form of batteries (and use your electrical equipment sparingly).
The use of solar powered chargers has changed that. Today we have many light-weight portable solar panels, that allow you to recharge small electric devices which can be of great help on hiking or backpacking trips. These come in the form of simple solar panels or solar chargers.
Solar Panel or Solar Charger?
The difference between a solar panel and a solar charger is that the solar panel supplies a small amount of electricity when exposed to sunlight, and can be directly connected to your equipment. A solar charger includes batteries, which can be recharged by it's solar panel.A solar charger collects solar energy into its internal rechargeable batteries. It is therefore possible to charge your
battery during the day in the sun, and then recharge your cell phone, GPS (Global Positioning System) locator
A solar panel will only supply electricity when exposed to the sun, and does not store the energy collected. But this
has its own uses. If you are doing something like kayaking, it is fairly simple to recharge your cell phone, GPS
If you are only looking to keep a small item (such as a cell phone or GPS) charged you really don't need a very large solar panel or charger. All you need is a unit that provides between 3 to 10 Watts of energy. A unit of about 3 Watts will usually do the trick.
While these gadgets might not be vital to the purist outdoor adventurer, most would probably agree that there's nothing wrong with being able to place a call in case of emergency (or to simply to assure relatives that one is safe, every so often, when out in the wild). Knowing one's exact location through the use of a GPS doesn't hurt either. Especially if you make an emergency call and need to be able to tell a would-be rescuer where to find you or someone else.
Or maybe you simply want to be know where to have mom or dad pick you up after the third straight week of rain in the wilderness.
A few of the devices you might be interested in are as follows: