When you are camping, nothing will lift your spirits like a hot drink and chow. Even when everything else goes wrong, a nice warm meal will cheer you up like nothing else. That’s why you absolutely need to pack a good camping stove with you.

If you’re wondering what would be the best stove for hiking, you should start by figuring out how many people you are cooking for and how fast the food should be ready. There is not a perfect hiking stove out there, but by comparing different models, you can find the one that suits your needs.

Those who favor a more traditional way of doing things should check out our alcohol-based camp stoves. The Swedish-made Trangia is the stuff of nostalgic camping trips. They have an excellent selection if you're cooking for more than one, and you feel that there are more things to preparing food than just efficiency. With an add-on, it’s also possible to convert them to use a propane burner, if that’s to your liking.

A gas-powered hiking stove will warm your food and water quickly and fuel efficiently. A gas stove is not considered an open flame, so you can use it even when forest fire regulations are in effect. Many gas camping stoves use a push-button ignition system so that you can heat your food and beverages without matches.

A Jetboil camping stove is a fine choice for the solo camper as they are very light and pack into a small space. They are the perfect hiking stove for boiling water for your food and hot beverage quickly and effortlessly while still conserving gas. However, if you want to be the camp chef preparing food for a group, look no further than the Primus stoves. They are gas-powered and cook even larger batches quickly thanks to the efficient heating systems while still being light and easy to operate.

If you feel that heating food and water should take time and effort, then the in-house designed Särmä Wood Stove is the one for you. Also known as the hobo stove, it has many perks, such as not taking up much space and you being able to pick fuel up from the ground in the form of twigs and branches. It takes some getting used to, but an experienced user can put out some serious heat from this thing.