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So for a single guy trying to save space (fridge/esky & dog) and comfort would you go for Swag or Tent?
And which swag is best?
I currently have a hiking tent which is awesome! and I use either a double oztrail self inf mattress (when had a GF) or my hiking self inf single (thin). The double mattress fits behind the front seats going across so it doesnt move when I squash it down.

Any advice on brands or gas over butane?
I only have a Trangia for my cooking currently, which is amazing! I was thinking of getting a SMALL gas bottle and a 2 burner stove.

I could cont as I am for a while but Id like to do a trip to Fraser Island once I have a lift.

Jerrad wrote:So for a single guy trying to save space (fridge/esky & dog) and comfort would you go for Swag or Tent?
And which swag is best?
I currently have a hiking tent which is awesome! and I use either a double oztrail self inf mattress (when had a GF) or my hiking self inf single (thin). The double mattress fits behind the front seats going across so it doesnt move when I squash it down.

Any advice on brands or gas over butane?
I only have a Trangia for my cooking currently, which is amazing! I was thinking of getting a SMALL gas bottle and a 2 burner stove.

I could cont as I am for a while but Id like to do a trip to Fraser Island once I have a lift.

Swag all the way mate. It will outlast a tent and you just role it up and pack it away. Otherwise you still need a matress, sleeping bag and the rest with a tent. It does take up more room but can go on the roof and do role up quite small when you don't leave your pillow and sheets in it.

I have a aussie brand one, can't remember the name but its great. Only 2years old now but covered in rull dust and gets used frequently.

I went from a gas stone to a trangia to save some weight and space after seeing how Dulagarl setup his cooking arrangements. Gas you can get bigger bottles but you never know how empty they are, same with butane but you can carry a few spares. With a traingia you know exactly how much fuel you have spare and you can buy metho from pretty much anywhere.

I would have thought a swag would be huge in the car compared to a hiking tent and self inflating mattress? Heavier too. My g/f and i use a big double swag which sits on the back seat snuggly from door to door, love it and wouldn't use anything else. The thing i like most is that they are pitch black untill you open it. Not sure what brand it is, just picked it up from Rays.

Tent vs swag depends how long it will be until you need room for two.
And trangia all the way! We use them on school camps and since then I have bought one.
They are awesome, you can even get a gas burner attachment if you want.
But metho is still a good flame. Don't use shelite!!! I was sold it, then asked a camp instructor what is best and was told it would make a bomb! ( coz of the way the burner works ).

Cheers Cam

old biker sleeping bag with a ground sheet wrapped around it. normally just take the ground sheet and hang it from the bike with part of under the sleeping bag 2 pegs hold it down as with stove i have a fuel stove small has a one litre aluminium bottle burns any liquid fuel petrol metho change the jet and will burn diesel has a pump to prime and a starter pad.

when in the car i take a swag and have a cheap $20 single burner butene stove it takes the cans of gas at $2.00 a can normally good for 3 meals per can bacon and eggs for brecky sausages for lunch and steak for dinner on a cast iron pan or dutch oven with home made casserole instead of steak

I've got a thick canvas single swag which has a 2 inch foam mattress in it, also has 2 bendy poles for the head and middle of the swag to create a space inside, and a guide rope at either end. It's a "Mad dog morgan" quite a few years old now. Honestly I much prefer camping in even a single person dome tent; the tent is smaller, lighter, actually easier to set up than my swag (bendy poles aren't that bendy, snapped them multiple times) and you can get changed more easily in a tent than a swag. I find the swag hard to roll up and it is quite huge when rolled up.

There are lots of different styles of swag out there, from a sheet folded in half with a zipper around it to almost a full blown tent, the one I've got all said and done is quite a pain to live with. I still kinda like camping in it though

if you want a good swag, buy A.O.S
aussie made, tuff stuff!!
the tracker is their most versatile option, and once you know how to get the most out of it, its brilliant,
or for still good, almost as versatile, but slightly easier to use its the Down Under Brumby,
(good name too)

but seriously, i've spent the last 8 years selling stuff in a camping store, so if ya wanna know anything camping, PM me,

as for tents, they will be smaller, and with a good self inflating mattres, and good sleeping bag, you will have a more compact set overall, all of which are easy enough to set up if you get the good quality gear, and you have far more space to get changed, and hide from the elements, i could even set up my 4'x2' table in my 3 man tent to play cards while in a storm.........
but the darkness of a swag is pretty handy, stops the light coming in too early in the morning as long as its a good one that wont let you down in the rain, get a Double ended dome swag, not a 3 pole set dome swag, or single hoop...double hoops the better option.
stoves, the coleman dual fuel is the better option,
runs on unleaded, and you know how much you have left,
you can prefill the small tank for a night or two, or take a 5L jerry can for a couple weeks worth or even more,
gas a is a good option, with the right versatile set up,
trangia is compact and efficient, but very slow, not a versatile, perfect for hiking, not as ideal for 4wdriving,


as good as cast iron gear is, (some of the best meals you'll have with the best experiences)
you cant always light fires, (too often the case)
and if you pull over oin the side for a quick lunch, you cant just rip up a quick fire like you can light a gas stove,
those lil butane stoves arent really that good.....
i've got a stove thats smaller when packed up,
has 2 burners, both are 25% hotter,
and runs off small cannisters, or normal LPG tanks

i think i'm running out of characters so i'll cut it short there!
lol sorry guys...


Longy

longy99gt wrote:if you want a good swag, buy A.O.S
aussie made, tuff stuff!!
the tracker is their most versatile option, and once you know how to get the most out of it, its brilliant,
or for still good, almost as versatile, but slightly easier to use its the Down Under Brumby,
(good name too)

That was the name of mine. A.O.S
They thing, was an 18th Birthday present and will probably last me the next 30 years. By then it will be in need of a new mattress

I like my butane stoves. $13 a stove, $1.30 a can that lasts for more than 2 hours. Maybe not the most compact or light, but at least I can cook on it using my 300x200mm BBQ hot plate. They get hot quickly, and are surprisingly tunable when it comes to heat. Only issue (as with most gas powered cooking) is they are very susceptible to wind. But that is why they include a nifty wind break, which also triples as a sink and case!

As for tent or swag, I have both and dislike both. The swag gets way too hot in summer (anything over 25 degree night and I have trouble sleeping in it). The tent is a PITA to setup and takes more than 1 minute. That is way I built the bed into the back of the Outback. Its like a swag, only fits two easy enough and has a 100mm mattress. Along with power windows and with a little messing around flyscreen too.

I have both - Butane and gas stoves, The gas stove is good for windy environment because it has hood on the sides and the back when you set it up. Butane stove is no good in windy area, last time i went camping i took butane on the beach and it was nearly impossible to boil water up hence took longer than stove would, reason i took it was space saving. My stove is about 500mm wide 300mm long with 2 burners.

Tent - I always have someone to share with me never had swag.
Cheers
AP

Ive recently bought a 3 second tent in the pursuit of short set up times , you throw it in the air and it pops up and you just nail it down = takes me a little more than 3 seconds but its pretty quick to set up although is quite big in its bag packed up

This winter I had an inflatable double mattress with a cigarette lighter plug to inflate - I find these mattresses a little time consuming but kept my old back off the cold river banks providing it keeps pressure I just took my bedding from home
planning on a self inflating mattress for christmas



Had a swag in the nineties but wasnt much of a fan , find them hot and constrictive

I have a square cast iron pan which I cook everything in over hot coals but when the fire ban is on I run the cheap briefcase gas burner - great value I think

stainless billy and Im set

have a look at Saul swags. I love mine

When travelling light i use my Saul swag when it is cold and when it is warm you cant beat a hennessey hammock!

When the mrs tags along, a nice big canvas touring tent does the job.

I've done a few camp styles in my time : Various Tents, Back of Ute / Van, Hammock, Grass ...

The best & comfy was the hammock, if you can stay in it that is. I've got some pic's some where ... Back of Brumby is relatively easy to set up with the tray open it's just long enough ...

You can't beat a log fire ( for spuds, etc ) but if you can manage it, a gas bbq offers the best in cooking - Also used the 'emergency' survival kit style heater, takes ages for it cook anything ...

Of course towing a small van is also the ultimate in touring luxuries, but that's another story ...

P.S. - You might want to correct the heading :

Tent or Swap ?

Unless you ment something else ?

I have a fair bit of camping gear due to my love of a good deal and getting Bunnings Fever every time I enter an outdoor place.

"I must stay off gumtree, I must stay off gumtree!"

This said I have two main groups of camping gear I use depending on where I am going.

I have a $100 (second hand) canvas Kimberly-Style tent I use in conjunction with a swag and camp-bed for when I am fancy-camping on my block. I bought both the swag and the bed from Tusker Canvas in Midland WA - Very cheap swag and bed and they've held up extremely well. The 75mm mattress is excellent too for when I don't have the folding bed.

I have two sleeping bags, one is +1c to +10c and the other bag is much fluffier at -10c to -1c for when I go into the southwest.

The other sleeping set is much lighter and consists of a Platatac bivvy bag, one of the sleeping bags and a small mattress. All that packs up into a space less than a packed ultralight tent. I use this while hiking.

For cooking I have used Trangias, Jet-Stoves, $13 Butane-Briefcase Stoves and the Titanium Ultra-Compact gas stoves.

The Trangias are good so long as you like the way they cook. They're durable and simple and hard to break but every time I try cook something complex on them (Like bacon, ) It fails horribly.

The Jet-Stoves are great and fast but hyper expensive and you can only cook bagged things and pre-cooked stuff.

The Brief-case stoves are simplest I feel for car-camping and my local Bunnings sells the canisters to fit for ~$1 per can. Sometimes less when on special. You can also get lanterns that take the canisters so you can use the same fuel for light and heat.

I like the Ultra-Compact folding gas stoves for hiking because they're very controllable with the heat they give out and very small.

Other than all that a tripod with a billy and a skillet can cook you anything and are super simple.

Venom wrote:i use a big double swag which sits on the back seat snuggly from door to door, love it and wouldn't use anything else.

So what changed? :P

FROG wrote:Ive recently bought a 3 second tent in the pursuit of short set up times

All the QLD boys (and girls) had them when we went up the high country. I think they may have paid the price in the sleeping temp department though!

An old thread dig from earlier this year, but to answer the OP:

It seems that you've already got some good gear there for touring in your car - why add more gear than you really need? I've now got two camping kits really - hiking/canoeing etc and 4wd touring. The touring setup I've been working on for some time to have everything secured for the offroading as well as being organised throughout my trips now.

To keep it simple, light and maybe short in length of your trips (weekend etc) all you need is your hiking setup and the trangia. Venom loves his. I've got a two burner gas stove with griller (because I can! And the best parma's are in the bush IMO). The back up stove is my hiking coleman dual fuel stove that runs on ULP.

I used to use the units that Phiz talks about, but when touring in winter we were CHEWING through the canisters and I have an issue with the single use of said canisters. Also they don't work so well in the cold when they're in use as they act like your air con does.

Really at the end of the day, take advice, check out other's setups and work out from there what it is you want your kit to be able to do for you and what products will do it the best while fitting in the car etc.

On the note of Swags - I'm not sold on them. And at what point does a swag stop being a swag and become a tent with all the poles and ropes they come with these days?

I hope Venom drops in here and shares his swap from swag to tent

Cheers

Bennie

G'day
My 2 cents on this is that when I was travelling in utes for many years I loved the quick setup & pack up of swags. But as soon as we got our 4wd wagon(the make of which I have realised can't be discussed here)we got a canvas single pole touring tent & my wife loved having somewhere to get dressed in privacy. Swags waste a lot of space.
The stove we hav is a 3 burner LPG that we have had for 14 years. I too don't like throwing butane cans away all the time. We have travelled for 7 weeks straight cooking & using gas light on 1 3.5kg gas bottle. Only problem is that the law does say you can't carry LPG cylinders inside your car.

Cheers Jake