Fall, so many awesome things happen in fall. Archery season, late season fishing, bird hunting, and not to mention the endless array of fall leaves. All of these things give us butterflies in our stomach as we await our favorite thing to do in fall, CAMP.
The Northwoods of Wisconsin is one of the best places to see the fall colors cascade around you during a crisp fall day. The Northwoods also can get chilly at night which is where we come to our first must have fall gear. A Heater!!
Now there are two we highly recommend, a diesel heater you can find on Amazon, or a Mr. Heater buddy heater from our shop or a local big box store. These options will make you feel comfortable in those low temps and make that morning coffee that much better.
We purchased a Vevor diesel heater from Amazon last season, it did well the first couple of times and this year we went to use it and found the fuel pump was out. Not surprising as the whole unit cost $130 and was made cheap in China. When it did work, it was nice to have the unit outside and just the hose that came into the tent. It gave consistent heat that was warm and really heated the roof top tent nicely. Plus it ran on diesel and our solor generator, so it was super efficient.
We were out of a diesel heater the night before our first fall camp. Luckily we had a Mr. Heater Buddy heater siting in the garage. I researched how safe these things were in a roof top tent setting and found them to be pretty reliable. These heaters have a built in carbon monoxide detector, fall detector, and run off propane.
The night of the camp (38 degrees), I ran my propane line through the tent window into the heater as my propane tank sat in the bed of my truck. I set the Mr. Heater on a $20 firewood rack I found at Menards to keep it off the tent mattress. I started it up on a low setting and came back 20 minutes later. The tent was toasty when we came back! Safe enough to run and not overheat or burn the tent fabric but warm enough to heat the tent to a very comfortable 74 degrees. We ran the heater on low the remainder of the night and I actually had to wake up twice to turn it off because it was so toasty in the tent. It worked really well!
The one downside was you have an open heater in your sleeping area so you had to be careful not to touch the heater. Other than that, the solution was perfect and kept us really warm all night.
Fall is a perfect time to go camping. You can see the leaves, hunt, fish, or just hike around the beautiful countryside. Our recommended gear for a fall camp is definitely a heater, it helps with little ones who are camping with you stay warm, helps morning coffee preparation in the tent, and beats having to pull out the zero degree sleeping bag.