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The Best Portable Power Stations for Camping, in Watt-Hours

Watt-hours is capacity and watts is speed, and mixing them up is how people buy the wrong one. Here is the arithmetic, done, for three 250 to 290 Wh stations.

By Sawyer V.Published September 3, 2026Last updated September 3, 2026How we research
A portable power station and solar panel at a campsite

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Quick picks

#ProductBest forPrice
1
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Best overall

Jackery Explorer 300 Plus

288 Wh with a 300 W AC outlet, LiFePO4 cells rated for 3,000 cycles, and a two-hour recharge.

Families who want an AC outlet at a campsite
2
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Fastest to recharge

EcoFlow River 2

256 Wh and 300 W of output, recharging from empty to full in about 60 minutes.

Short stops, charging from a car between campgrounds
3
No photo

Best for phones, cameras and laptops

Anker SOLIX C300 DC

288 Wh at 6.17 lb, with four USB-C ports including 140 W two-way charging.

Anyone charging devices rather than running appliances

Watt-hours, watts, and what you actually need

The short answer

Watt-hours (Wh) is how much energy is stored; watts (W) is how fast it can come out. For camping, 250 to 300 Wh covers phones, lights and a camera for a weekend. A phone battery is roughly 15 to 20 Wh, so a 288 Wh station holds somewhere around a dozen phone charges after conversion losses. What it will not do is run anything that heats: kettles, coffee makers and heaters all draw well over 300 W.

StationCapacityOutputWeightRechargeChemistry
Jackery Explorer 300 Plus288 Wh300 W AC, 600 W peak8.27 lb2 h ACLiFePO4, 3,000 cycles
EcoFlow River 2256 Wh300 W, 600 W surge7.7 lb60 minLiFePO4, 3,000 cycles
Anker SOLIX C300 DC288 Wh300 W, USB-C to 140 W6.17 lbnot published hereLiFePO4
All figures as published by the manufacturers.

Work out your own number

Add up what you will charge in a weekend, in watt-hours:

A family weekend of phones, lights and one tablet lands comfortably inside 288 Wh. That is why this size class is the right one for camping, and why the 1,000 Wh stations sold alongside them are aimed at RVs and job sites rather than tents.

What a 300 W limit rules out

Anything that heats. An electric kettle is 1,200 to 1,500 W, a coffee maker similar, a hair dryer more, a portable heater more still. None of them will run from these stations, and a whole weekend of stored energy would boil roughly one kettle even if the output allowed it. Heat comes from a gas stove, not a battery.

Solar, honestly

Solar panels are sold alongside these stations and are genuinely useful on long trips, with two caveats. A 100 W panel produces 100 W only in ideal conditions pointed straight at midday sun; realistically expect meaningfully less, so a full recharge takes most of a clear day. And a panel is another large object in a car that is already full.

For a weekend, charge at home and top up from the car. Buy solar when you camp for a week or more away from power.

What we did not measure

We have not tested these stations, so the capacities, outputs and recharge times above are the manufacturers' published figures. The arithmetic converting watt-hours into phone charges is ours, it is approximate, and it deliberately allows for conversion losses — you never get the full nameplate capacity out of any battery.

For what to power with it, see best camping lanterns and best headlamps for camping.

The picks in full

1. Best overall

Jackery Explorer 300 Plus

Jackery

288 Wh with a 300 W AC outlet, LiFePO4 cells rated for 3,000 cycles, and a two-hour recharge.

Jackery publishes 288 Wh of capacity, 300 W of AC output with a 600 W peak, LiFePO4 chemistry rated to 3,000 cycles at 80% or better capacity, a USB-C output up to 100 W, an 8.27 lb weight and a two-hour AC recharge.

The 3,000-cycle figure is the number worth noticing. LiFePO4 cells last several times longer than the older lithium-ion chemistry, which is the difference between a station that lasts a decade of weekends and one that fades in three years.

The drawback

8.27 lb, the heaviest here, and a 300 W AC limit rules out anything with a heating element.

No product photo: we don't take our own

Published specs

Capacity
288 Wh
Output
300 W AC (600 W peak)
Battery
LiFePO4, 3,000 cycles to 80%
Weight
8.27 lb
AC recharge
2 h

Specs: Jackery product page

2. Fastest to recharge

EcoFlow River 2

EcoFlow

256 Wh and 300 W of output, recharging from empty to full in about 60 minutes.

EcoFlow publishes 256 Wh, 300 W output with a 600 W surge, LiFePO4 cells rated to 3,000 cycles, a 7.7 lb weight, six output ports and a full recharge in 60 minutes.

An hour to full changes how you use one of these. Top it up over lunch on a driving day and the capacity difference against the Jackery stops mattering.

The drawback

256 Wh is the smallest capacity here, so the fast charging is partly a function of having less to fill.

No product photo: we don't take our own

Published specs

Capacity
256 Wh
Output
300 W (600 W surge)
Battery
LiFePO4, 3,000 cycles to 80%
Weight
7.7 lb
AC recharge
60 minutes to full

Specs: EcoFlow River 2 published specs

3. Best for phones, cameras and laptops

Anker SOLIX C300 DC

Anker

288 Wh at 6.17 lb, with four USB-C ports including 140 W two-way charging.

Anker publishes 288 Wh, 300 W output, LiFePO4 chemistry, a 6.17 lb weight, and a port set of four USB-C, two USB-A and a car socket, with USB-C up to 140 W.

For a camping trip where the load is phones, a camera, a tablet and a laptop, USB-C direct is more efficient than going through an AC inverter, and this is the lightest station here by 1.5 lb.

The drawback

The DC model has no AC wall outlet at all. Check which version you are buying if you need to plug in a normal power cord.

No product photo: we don't take our own

Published specs

Capacity
288 Wh
Output
300 W, USB-C up to 140 W
Battery
LiFePO4
Weight
6.17 lb
Ports
4x USB-C, 2x USB-A, car socket

Specs: Anker SOLIX product page

Questions people actually ask

QWhat size power station do I need for camping?

For a weekend of phones, lights and a camera, 250 to 300 Wh is ample. A phone charge is roughly 15 to 20 Wh, so a 288 Wh station covers a family comfortably. Larger stations exist for RVs and appliances, not for tents.

QCan a portable power station run a coffee maker?

Not at this size. Anything with a heating element draws 1,000 W or more, well beyond the 300 W output of these stations, and would drain a weekend's stored energy in minutes even if the output allowed it. Use a gas stove for anything that heats.

QHow many phone charges do you get from a 300 Wh power station?

Roughly a dozen, allowing for conversion losses. A typical phone battery holds about 15 to 20 Wh, so 288 Wh of storage covers around 12 to 15 full charges in practice rather than the theoretical maximum.

QIs LiFePO4 better for a camping power station?

For longevity, yes. Both the Jackery Explorer 300 Plus and EcoFlow River 2 publish LiFePO4 cells rated for 3,000 cycles to 80% capacity or better, which is several times the cycle life of older lithium-ion chemistry.

How we picked

Everyone else in this category will tell you they tested twenty of these. We have not tested any of them, and we would rather say so than pretend. There is no gear closet here and no test lab.

What we did instead: pulled the published specifications from each manufacturer's own spec sheet or manual, named the standard behind every rating so you can check what it actually promises, did the arithmetic that turns a spec into a decision, and pulled today's real retail price rather than quoting one from memory. Every pick states a drawback, because a list where nothing is wrong with anything is an advert.

The limits of that method, stated plainly: published specs do not capture zipper quality, seam durability, or how a tent behaves at 2am in a storm. Where that matters, we say so on the pick. The full method is here.

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