First up is a Coleman lantern from Amazon and is available for [...]]]> Now that you’ve got an idea of what type of lantern to be looking for, let’s take a look at some of the specific options available. First up are 5 battery powered lanterns that would be a solid choice for just about any camper.

First up is a Coleman lantern from Amazon and is available for $25 US. This is a very traditional, classic looking lantern. It runs on 8 D-cell batteries and will keep going for 20 to 25 hours, depending on the light setting you have it on. It weighs about 3 pounds without the batteries, so it would probably be upwards of 5 pounds when it’s ready to go.

This sort of lantern would be ideal for car or RV camping. It’s a little too big and heavy to use in backpacking, and it also uses florescent bulbs, which I don’t usually recommend for backpacking either.

***

The next lantern is also available at Amazon and is made by Brunton. It is an LED lamp, instead of florescent, and is a good bit smaller and lighter than the previous lantern.

The advantage of LED lanterns is that they are more durable and will also run longer than florescent lanterns. This Brunton lantern will run for up to 45 hours on three C-cell batteries. It also weighs in at only 15 ounces without the batteries, and so would probably be about 2 pounds when filled. Definitely an option if you’re going, say, backpacking in Peru (it’s also only 7 inches tall!).

***

This next lantern is also a great option for backpacking. It’s another Coleman and is available at Amazon for about $10 US.

It runs on three AA batteries and weighs only 8 ounces by itself. It will very likely equal the Brunton and run for upwards of 40 hours on one set of batteries.

***

The next two lanterns are somewhat different in that they are not strictly battery powered. This first lantern is actually solar powered.

Made by SolaDyne, and available at Amazon for $30 US, it makes a great backup plan for when your main lantern goes out unexpectedly. The weakness of solar powered lanterns is the possibility of being out of luck if the sun doesn’t shine much during the day. This Soladyne lantern comes with a crank that you can use to charge up the lantern manually, but I wouldn’t choose to do that if I didn’t have to.

***

This last lantern is solely a crank model. Made by Wind N Go, it’s available at Amazon for $20 US.

As with the Soladyne, I wouldn’t want to use this as my main light source, but it’s great to have as a backup for camping, or even to keep at home for emergencies. If the lights go out and your batteries decide to quit unexpectedly, it would definitely be a great thing to have around.