camping gearOne of the most essential things we have in our camping gear is this grill for cooking. We try to use our campfire for multiple uses. Not only do we love how the flames flicker in the dark, but we also need it to stay warm at night and cook dinner. With this grill, we have no real need to bring along a camping stove because during the day, we use our solar ovens to cook our meals, as long as the sun is shining. We've found that keeping this campfire grate inside a stuff sack I sewed just for the purpose of keeping it in a special bag so I don't have to clean it each time we use it. I also made the sack from orange fabric so it's easy to spot in our camping gear.

This is the GSI 8'' x 16.25'' Campfire Grill, and it's big enough to have two pans cooking at once. The way we cook using our campfire is to build a fire about a half an hour before we want to start cooking. We then dig a small hole to put the coals in and lay this grill on top. As the coals burn down, we simply add more from the campfire. By cooking this way, we don't have to be right by the fire and I think it's a safer way to cook and certainly don't have to watch the food as closely for burning.

Camping gear can make or break a camping trip and over the course of our 10 years of camping, we've assembled quite a lot of nice camping gear. There's always room for more, however, which is why websites like Paradigm Camping Gear located at www.paradigmcampinggear.com are among our favorites. When we need new or better products for our camping gear, we turn to that website for what we need or want. We prefer to buy our camping gear online because it's so much easier to find online than in retail stores. It certainly is faster because there are no crowds or parking lots to negotiate.

We make pretty good use of our time so we can get out camping on weekends. It's one of the least expensive ways we have found to have good family fun. Every camping trip is different, whether we go to the same place or not. There is something about loading up the camping gear and heading for the hills to get away. We come back completely refreshed after a weekend of hiking and eating well, so the money we spend on camping trips and the gear is well worth it.