The Outdoor Adventure Giving you tips, tricks & recommendations to help make adventuring in the Outdoors fun, safe & exciting for you and your kids.
It’s early morning, you may or may not have slept well and it’s cold… ever so cold. Scratch that. It’s late morning, you slept really well and you’re late to get back in the canoe to continue the trip. wait, wait… Even better, you’re planning to stop for lunch and it’s pouring rain; Your matches are wet and the anticipation of hot soup is killing you. Yah, that’s more like it. You’re hungry, you don’t want to light a fire or fetch water for your stove, but you want something hot, NOW! What do you do?
If you’re interested in a bit of creature comfort, you should probably think about packing a thermos on your next outdoor adventure. Those wonders of vacuum sealing and insulation that have been around for a LONG time and were in Grandad’s lunch kit are often ignored when making up your gear list, but there’s a reason Grandad packed it.
This could be your ticket to an easy morning at camp and relaxation when the rest of the crew are fiddling with stoves and have gone off to fetch a pail of water.
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| Sunrise on the Choro Trail. I took a Stanley vacuum food container on the trip to make morning meals easier. |
As part of a car camping or canoe trip, day hike, car trip or even just to store a hot lunch, the old classic thermos can do a lot to make your day that much more comfortable. You can do all your water boiling at one time and still enjoy more than 1 hot meal per day.
A few months back I was sent a 20 oz Vacuum Food Jar by Stanley I’ve been experimenting with it since then and thinking of different ways to put something like this to use. It’s certainly not Ultralight gear material at 18 oz weight, but as a luxury addition to your canoe or car camping kit it’s a great little piece of gear that holds a wealth of convenience.
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| My Stanley vacuum food jar ready for the hot water. |
Here’s a few tips or uses for your thermos. While making dinner, boil a couple extra cups and pour them into your thermos for the next morning. You won’t have to worry about getting water or fiddling with your stove or camp fire in the morning. You can even pack up camp the night before and be ready to go early for that extra 15 minutes of fishing! If the night gets really cold, you’re set for a cup of hot chocolate to warm you up for those extra couple hours until morning!
For all those DIY cookers and bulk buyers, you can save on waste and disposable junk by using your thermos to rehydrate your meals. Even better, you save on fuel as you just have to boil your water, pour your meal into the thermos, seal it and let it finish cooking there!
Here are some of the features of my Stanley Vacuum Food Jar:
- Keeps hot/cold 12 hours.
- Wide-mouth opening.
- Protective double-wall construction.
- Stainless steel.
- Rustproof finish.
- BPA free
- Lifetime warranty.
