The 8 Best Backpacking Stoves For Morning Coffee and Hot Meals

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There’s nothing better after a long day of hiking and setting up camp than a hot cooked meal—and for that you will need a decent camp stove. These days you can find options that are lightweight, compact, multi-fuel capable, and available in a range of prices.

Choosing the right backpacking stove for you depends on your needs and planned uses. For instance, if you’re regularly camping with a group, go for a stove that can handle cooking capacity for three or more people.

Are you preparing gourmet meals in a pan? Consider a stove with great simmer control. If you’re planning to eat boil-in-a-bag meals, enjoy some hot coffee, or cook dehydrated food, in which case you’re simply boiling water quickly, there won’t be a need for a stove with more advanced flame control.

Keep in mind that backpacking stoves are permitted in carry-on or checked bags should your plans include air travel here or internationally, but you can’t fly with liquid or pressurized fuels. In this case, plan to look for a stove that uses fuels readily available around the globe like isopropyl alcohol.

Our recommendations for backpacking stoves range from $22 (fewer features) to $200 (multi-fuel), but no matter type what you choose, you'll want something light, packable, and easy to use. Here are the best backpacking stoves for your next outdoor adventure.

Best Backpacking Stoves

• Best Overall: Snow Peak BiPod

• Best Value: Coleman Peak 1

• Best Ultralight: MSR PocketRocket Deluxe

• Fastest All-In-One System: Jetboil Flash

• Best Wind Performance: MSR WindBurner

What to Look for in a Backpacking Stove

With so many options, it can be a challenge to choose a backpacking stove. To help narrow our selections, we considered a range of factors including ease of use, fuel type, flame control, weight, compactness and/or foldability.

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How We Selected These Backpacking Stoves

To make my recommendations, I relied on the prior test work of Will Egensteiner and James Lynch, as well as experiences with a wide range of stoves used on my own various camping adventures.

My picks are stoves that I’ve used over the years, but I also considered ones that are well reviewed and revered by other outdoor experts and my friends from reliable sources including Treeline Review, Switchback Travel, and Outdoor Gear Lab, among others. All of these factors provided the foundation for the recommendations given here. Here are the best backpacking stoves for your next outdoor adventure.

The elegant bipod design of this stove (it becomes a tripod when you attach a fuel canister) works supremely well. You can adjust the height of the legs to fit different sized cans, and they fold away for packing. Combined with the four burner arms (many stoves have just three), this stove is incredibly stable. You won’t have to worry about a pot tipping or shaking a pan on the burner to sauté shrooms. It has enough power to reach boiling temps rapidly, and the best flame control of any backpacking stove.

The Peak 1 is reasonably light, has a stable, three-arm cooking surface, and is priced low enough to make it appealing. The stove requires a match or lighter to ignite, but so do pricier models. The Peak gives you minimal flame control, so it's not ideal if you need to maintain a simmer. The plastic that Coleman uses around the base makes this stove easy to handle while hot.

The PocketRocket is a long-standing favorite of many backpackers and it’s easy to see why. You can’t deny the clever design of this little canister stove. It packs down small (it stows inside most pots) and the burner arms spread wide when it’s open to keep pans stable while cooking. Its low weight and compact size make it a solid option for minimalist adventures. The built-in igniter fires the stove with a satisfying click.

JetBoil is known for its easy-to-use, fast, all-in-one systems (burner, heat exchanger, and pot) like the Flash. Combining speed and simplicity in a lightweight design, the JetBoil puts out an unbelievable amount of power for ultra-fast boils. In fact, it boils water in just over 90 seconds—but this is a loud system, too, earning the “jet” in its name.

The stove system has a protective plastic over the heat exchanger and a sheath over the pot that not only protects you from the heat, but changes color when water reaches a rolling boil. You won’t have to lift the lid to check the water, saving precious heat.

The WindBurner is well made with smartly placed plastic housings that protect your hands from the hottest parts of the heat exchanger. It also has an easy-to-operate linkage between the stove and pot that requires only a small twist to attach or remove.

A neoprene cover allows you to grip the pot to turn off the stove, even during a rolling boil. The 1-liter capacity is more than enough for one person and can even serve two in a pinch. Despite the stove’s power, it's remarkably quiet. Note that without a built-in ignition system, you'll need a match or lighter to start it.

For beginner or solo backpackers, or for those looking for an inexpensive, lightweight but powerful all-in-one set, the Soto Amicus Stove Cookset Combo is ideal. Offering excellent value, the compact set comes with the Amicus Stove and two aluminum pots.

Unlike JetBoil sets, pots aren’t integrated with the burner directly which allows you to use the included pots or pots from other manufacturers if you prefer. The stove itself can be stowed inside the pots along with a small fuel canister (not included) when not in use.

The WhisperLite stove has been a backpacker’s staple for decades because it's field serviceable and stable. Though MSR’s WhisperLite Universal is expensive, about $65 more than the regular WhisperLite, it’s unique in that it can burn multiple types of liquid fuel and also canister fuel.

Despite it being heavier and more difficult to master than the screw-on isobutane stoves, it’s a more versatile stove that you can use almost anywhere in the world. In many countries it can be harder to find isobutane or even white gas.

With no folding parts, the Essential is easy to set up; simply screw it into the gas canister and fire it up. At just $30 it’s also a great value. The wire flame control valve offers a great level of flame control. The only way this stove could be easier to use is if it had a piezo igniter, but it’s a minor tradeoff for something so inexpensive, light and user-friendly.

Expert Chris Meehan Gets to the Heat of the Matter. More Info Here on Backpacking Stoves!

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