To me there are 3 main types of lighting needs you need to consider:

General Camp Lighting

That’s the ambient lighting around the camp site. In Australia camp lighting has a big problem- it attracts the insects like you wouldn’t believe! You may want to think about that before you set up your camp! Keep the lighting a reasonable distance from tents and the cooking area. Although some swear by the old-fashioned gas mantle lights I find them annoyingly fiddly to set up and damage prone. I prefer the new low power LED lights which run on batteries or power and are cool to run, have low power requirements and don’t attract the insects as much

Tent Camp Lighting

Inside a tent I found that you only needed a small tent light- which run on batteries and clip onto the roof using its own magnetic strip. Not enough to read by good enough to find your shoes.

Personal Lighting

This is where LED camping lights come into their own.  I prefer a headline style torch – which keeps the hands free and works well for both reading in bed and cooking. I also found for a computer you can get LED lights which power of the computer’s USB port – though of course  this will drain your battery a bit.

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