If you read our Ultimate Family Camping Gear post and are wondering how you’re going to afford everything, we’re here to help. First, remember you don’t have to buy everything at once. Some camping gear is essential, while other gear can be considered extra. Next, focus on trying to find deals on camping gear so you can buy as much as possible. This doesn’t mean purchasing the cheapest gear and forgetting about quality. This means using the following tips to help you buy the best camping gear for cheap.
Camping Gear For Cheap At Walmart
Walmart has some really cheap camping gear, but for the good quality gear you’ll have to search for the deals. We feel like we’ve become experts at Walmart clearance over the past couple years. We’ve also purchased a large amount of our camping gear from Walmart clearance for pennies on the dollar. We’re talking $180 coolers for $40, or hydration backpacks with a normal price of $40 for only $10. You need to visit their main clearance section anytime you’re in the store, but you also need to search their outdoors section. There are often amazing clearance deals mixed right in with the normal priced camping gear.
You also need to download the Walmart app. Sometimes you’ll see something that doesn’t appear to be a deal until you scan it with the Walmart app. The cooler mentioned above had a clearance tag of $80, but showed $40 when we scanned it. We find a lot of our deals scanning items that don’t appear to be priced that great. Walmart really is one of the best big box stores to find camping gear for cheap.
Camping Gear For Cheap From Amazon
Amazon is another place we have purchased a ton of camping gear from. There are a couple reason why we love buying camping gear from Amazon. One is the Amazon Outlet that most people might not even know exists. You probably won’t find the crazy discounted deals like a Walmart clearance section, but you can still find camping gear for cheap. We’ve purchased a good amount of camping items for pretty good discounts from here.
The other reason we really like Amazon for camping gear is the huge variety. You can find some really good quality camping gear from brands you’ve never heard of for really good prices. You can also find some complete garbage, so read reviews and be careful. Don’t let that last sentence scare you away from these unheard of brands. We have purchased a ton of camping gear from Amazon from brands we have never heard of. Most of the time we never have issues, and if we do we just take advantage of the excellent Amazon return policy. Some of our favorite camping gear has come from these random brands, like these FengChi LED Hanging Camping Lanterns. One of the cheapest and best camping purchases we have made.
The Dollar Store
They go by many names, but the overall theme is everything is a dollar. You aren’t going to find top of the line products at any of these stores, but for a lot of camping gear that’s not needed. We’ve used the dollar store a lot for our camp kitchen. We buy tongs, aluminum foil, baggies, seasonings, and all kinds of other small kitchen items. We also buy all of our batteries at the dollar store. Since we keep at least 2-3 packs of extra batteries in each camp bin we’re saving some good money. You’ll be amazed at how much camping gear for cheap you can buy at the dollar store.
Start Visiting Garage Sales
Garage sales are a great place to find camping gear for cheap. A lot of people like the idea of camping so they’ll go out and buy all this nice gear, but then they never actually go camping. Or you have people that have good quality used gear that they just need to get rid of. Whatever the reason for them selling, garage sales are always good for finding cheap camping gear. One of our favorite activities when we’re camping is fishing. This is another thing garage sales excel at. I’m actually not sure we’ve ever visited a garage sale that didn’t have some sort of fishing tackle for sale.
Facebook Marketplace For Cheap Camping Gear
This is another place we have found many great deals on camping gear. Facebook Marketplace is often the first place we’ll search when we need some camping gear for cheap. Just like the garage sales, you’ll find people who purchased good camping gear and just never used it. We have found a lot of brand new camping gear that people just needed to get rid of. Facebook Marketplace should be one of your first stops when searching for a new piece of camping equipment for cheap.
Steep & Cheap
Steepandcheap.com is a clearance site dedicated to outdoors gear. You are guaranteed to find something you’ll like on this site, and it will most likely be extremely discounted. They have loads of camping gear for cheap, but it doesn’t stop with camping. You’ll find all kinds of clothing related to outdoors activities and many of them will be from the biggest brands in the industry. If you’ve never heard of Steep & Cheap before we’ll just go ahead and apologize in advance for the amount of time you’ll now be spending on their site.