Plowing deep into the woods with all your supplies crammed in a backpack can be fun, but when it comes to escaping civilization, it’s way easier to do it in a motor vehicle. Car camping offers the same joys of freedom and outdoor immersion as other forms of sleeping in the great outdoors — yet it lets you carry far more gear to make life easier.
Case in point: If you’re hiking through the woods, you’re basically stuck eating MREs or their civilian equivalents. If you’re camping out of your car, however, you can whip up delightful dinners on the likes of the Nomad Kitchen.
Nomad Kitchen Company’s title product, which is soon to go on sale, is a compact pull-out cooking station that’s designed to bring a bit of the overlanding life to more modest vehicles. Thanks to its compact dimensions — it’s just 20.5 inches wide, 25.5 inches deep and 14 inches tall when stowed — it can slide into the cargo bay of even cars as compact inside as the Toyota Prius, Subaru Crosstrek and Audi E-Tron. Installation requires no physical mods; for most vehicles, it’s as simple as strapping it down to the attachment points found in the backs of many cars.
When extended, the Nomad Kitchen offers four feet of cooking space, and can support up to 200 pounds. The basic package includes a stainless steel washbasin, trash bags, a drying rack storage basket, a bamboo precise-fit cutting board, a custom strap for mounting your stove’s fuel canister and hooks for hanging utensils, as well as everything need to secure the box in your ride.
While it doesn’t come with water tanks or a stove, it’s designed to be paired with a wide variety of both, accepting any gas stove up to 23.75 inches wide, 13 inches deep and 4.5-inches high and up to 14 gallons of water storage.
If this all sounds like exactly the sort of gear you need to make your 2020 camping goals come true, the Nomad Kitchen goes on sale on IndieGogo on March 17th. The basic price is $1,099, but the company is offering an deal: sign up ahead of time for their pre-sale, and you’ll be able to buy it for $699.