Wood-burning backpacking stove

For backpackers and campers who need a compact and lightweight wood burning stove that’s easy to carry, no need to look further than the Solo Stove Lite Portable Camping Hiking Survival Backpacking Stove.

This wood burning camp stove boasts rugged stainless steel construction and a very light overall weight of 9 ounces, making it the perfect lightweight yet ultra-durable wood burning camping stove that is easy to carry on your bug-out bag wherever you are in the woods.  

With this stove, you won’t have to spend money on or carry fuel canisters.

It’s designed for efficient burn, even with a small amount of organic fuel. The unique design features a double wall that aids in locking in heat inside, creating a clean gasification and a secondary combustion. At the same time, it minimizes the amount of smoke released— a win-win for you and the environment. There are also vent holes on top and bottom for primary and secondary combustions, a small opening for adding fuels, and a nichrome grate. 

The best part of this stove is its very interesting airflow system. The way it works is that the air enters through the holes on the bottom— some of it goes beneath the nichrome grate to provide oxygen to the fire from below, while some exits through the holes around the top of the stove, giving the fire heated oxygen from above for a secondary combustion.  

We’ve used this wood camping stove on about five backpacking trips now, and it has never failed to boil water very quickly, in roughly 7-8 minutes, which is pretty impressive. It has also been useful for cooking foods like eggs, ramen, and burgers. 

On one backpacking trip, we went to a desert. It was challenging to find any fuel on that trip, that’s for sure. But even the little amount of fuel we’ve managed to gather was sufficient to create a fire, which pleasantly surprised us. We’d say it’s ideal for 1-2 people, so if you’re with a large group, better look for something else.

Another clever detail of this product is the placement of the nichrome grate, providing you not just a platform on which you can build your fire but also for ashes to fall through. Coupled with the stove’s solid bottom, you won’t have to worry about the ashes dropping to the ground and making a mess— this is great if you don’t want to leave traces or broadcast your location. 

In addition to that… 

We like that the stove doesn’t get hot to the touch. While we don’t recommend that you hold it after use if possible, there will be times where you’ll be in a sudden rush to leave, like when it’s about to rain, and you’ll have to lift it off the ground. In times like that, there’s no need to worry about your hands getting burned even if you touch the stove. The base doesn’t get scorching hot either, so it’s safe to place on chairs or tent floors.

After the boiling process, the stove still gives off plenty of heat too, which is great for warming up your hands during very cold weather.

It’s very simple to use, as well: 

Simply find your tinder, kindling, and fuel of your choice, pile them on top of the wire grate, light your fire, then place the top ring and your pot on top of the stove, and you’re good to go! 

But the thing is…

You will need to feed the stove with twigs constantly. However, if you’re the type that enjoys the whole process of picking up little twigs along the way and feeding the fire while sitting there and gazing at the scenery or having lovely conversations with your companions, then you’d love using this. We certainly had fun with this stove, but we wouldn’t recommend this if you have to be constantly on the move and have to always leave quickly. 

We also have to warn you that you will deal with a lot of soot, which will coat your pot or pan, after using this stove. It’s pretty messy, but quite easy to clean and it comes with the territory, so it’s not a big deal for us.

Our Editor’s Choice comes with a nylon stuff sack for easy storage.

Are you just starting out on backpacking and don’t want to spend a lot of money on equipment yet? Or maybe you’re simply on the lookout for a budget-friendly wood burning camping stove? 

Whatever your reason is for wanting a low-cost wood burning camp stove, the Lixada Camping Portable Folding Stainless Steel Wood Burning Stove is proof that getting a good wood burning stove on a tight budget isn’t impossible. 

First off… 

This wood burning camp stove comes in several variants, but we chose the large-sized one for this review to test out its capacity. And we’re telling you, if you love backpacking or camping with a large group, you’ll love this. Yes, we were expecting it to be on the big side, but we were still surprised at how large it actually is in real life!

With dimensions of 3.66 x 2.98 x 0.71 inches, it can accommodate even your large cookwares. The crossbars on top of the stove ensure that the stove can also hold your smallest metal cups, and is stable enough for large pots.

Despite its size, you won’t believe how portable it is. 

This stove is designed to be collapsible. It comes in a black storage bag with a velcro closure, that’s spacious enough for your matches and lighters, which is nice, and is good at preventing the interior of your bag from being dirtied up.

All the components come disassembled and protected by an anti-scratch plastic film coating, so you can be sure that your new stove won’t have any damage upon arrival. The pieces are flat and slim, barely taking up space in your bug-out bag that you won’t even notice that they’re there.  

The assembling process is quite easy too. Sure, it wasn’t a walk in the park for us at first; it took us about ten minutes to figure out how to assemble it. But once we got the hang of it, we only needed 20-30 seconds to connect the pieces to each other.   

And once it’s assembled, this stove is rock-solid and very sturdy. It’s made from durable stainless steel material that’s rust-proof and corrosion-resistant— perfect for the outdoors! It has a double-wall construction that enables it to keep fire from going out even on windy days. The material is definitely resistant to high heat as well; we didn’t notice any warping even after many uses, which is great. 

This backpacking stove features air holes on the sides and the bottom that work together to create an extraordinarily hot fire— and for a short time at that! On one of our weekend backpacking trips, we were able to boil half a liter of water in just under five minutes using this stove, which is just impressive! That is thanks to the bottom holes that transport air to the fire’s bottom and up the stove’s wall, and the side holes that drive the secondary combustion.

When it comes to versatility, this thing is a winner, as well. You can use a wide variety of fuels for it such as twigs, wood sticks, dry grass, and even paper, and it will burn hot all the same. The cooking ring is designed in a way that the heat is guaranteed to be directed toward the pot’s center for an efficient and fast burning. 

It has to be fed every minute or so after it’s been lit, which is very easy to do as this stove has a large feed hole, so you can do it without removing your pot or pan. It’s easy to adjust the flames too. Also, because of that, you can feed it larger fuels, like a large wood, unlike other portable stoves.

We like how fast the pieces cool down, so there’s no need to wait long in order to store it after use. This is great if you’re in a rush.       

And the best part?

This stove is very affordable too, so you’re getting plenty of bang for your buck! No wonder it got our vote for the Best Value award.

Now, considering its price, expect that there would be some minor imperfections…

Weighing 1.19 pounds, this stove is not super heavy or anything, but it does have a surprising weight to it. Because of this, we won’t recommend this to backpackers who only buy ultralight backpacking gear. We do wish it’s a bit lighter, but we understand that it would probably become less sturdy with less weight.

Its components have quite sharp edges, so take extra care when assembling and disassembling it to avoid cutting yourself. We strongly suggest wearing some working gloves when dealing with it or using a file to make the corners dull.

And since it needs to be assembled, it would’ve been better if there’s an instruction manual included, especially for backpacking beginners.

If you like the Solo Stove Lite Portable Backpacking Stove but want a bigger version for a group of three to four people, then you’d love its big brother, the Solo Stove Titan Portable Stove For Backpacking.  

This award-winning backpacking stove has always been a must-have for backpackers and survivalists for its reliability. It’s built to be so durable that it’s sure to last for years, having been constructed from premium-quality 304 stainless steel.

On our 1-week backpacking trip to Yosemite, we didn’t miss the opportunity to put it to the test. It took us all of 40 seconds to set it up, and we instantly fell in love with the high-quality feel of it. It feels very rugged while still remaining fairly lightweight at 16.5 ounces. 

It has a double-wall design, and its unique airflow system involves vent holes on the bottom area of the stove, which take in air, and also on the top area that supply pre-heated oxygen to the firebox for a secondary combustion. This results in an overall efficient and very clean burn, while using less fuel. 

Because of its large size compared to the Lite version, it’s perfect for a group of three to four people. We’ve used a variety of biomass fuel with this stove such as twigs (broken into 3-4 inches in length) and pine cones, and it was able to completely boil a 1-liter pot of water in around 7-10 minutes, depending on how patient you are in feeding it more fuel. You don’t have to worry about finding the perfect woods as less-than-perfect ones do the job perfectly well.

Although we won’t say that it’s the best to use for cooking very large amounts of food, it’s still great for things like roasting marshmallows and hotdogs, making a pot of stew, and even cooking steaks, with the included nichrome wire grate making it easy. We were so impressed with how hot it burns, there’s something satisfying seeing the flames stream out of the holes on the top. 

Another thing we found impressive is not only the short amount of time it took for us to create fire but also how it stayed lit, even on windy and cold days— we’re talking less than 30 degrees here. The stove is also very useful for warming yourself up on chilly nights. 

While we still wouldn’t recommend putting it on a surface area that’s sensitive to heat, we like that the bottom of the stove never puts out much heat and we never had a problem about it scorching the ground, not even leaves, and doing any damage. It cools down so fast that you can already touch it several minutes after making coffee or tea with it.

Moreover… 

This stove is very compact, about the same size as a butane tank, which enables you to fit it in pretty much any backpack or even nest it in taller pots, like the Solo Stove Pot 1800. Because it requires no canister fuel, you can stuff more backpacking gear on your bug-out bag with it. It’s packable, easy to carry, and can be easily stowed away.

It comes with a nylon stuff sack that protects your gear from soot. The stuff sack is quite large, so we didn’t have a hard time getting the stove back inside after cool-down and cleaning.

Now, here’s the kicker…    

This stove consumes fuel so fast, so make sure that you have an ample supply of additional fuel with you nearby. It needs constant monitoring and re-feeding, as it’s unpredictable when it will run out of fuel. We personally found the process fun, but that could be a con to you if you’re not into that. 

We wish the bottom chamber can be separated from the top part so that it’s easier to completely remove all the ashes instead of having to shake the whole thing hard just to get rid of the leftover ashes that might have gotten through the wire grate.  

This backpacking stove is also on the pricey side, but considering its top build and material quality, how fast it creates fire, its portability and compact size, and the fact that we don’t have to buy any fuel, we’d say that our Top Pick is absolutely worthy to invest in.

Combining great form and functionality, the überleben Stoker Flatpack Stove is something that every backpacker and survivalist should have in their arsenal. 

Right off the bat, we were impressed by how well-made this equipment is. 

It’s manufactured from rugged 304 stainless steel material that’s very strong and anti-corrosive. This backpacking stove consists of five panels, each with 6 x 6 inches dimensions and under 0.25 thickness, very flat and thin, making it easy to store with absolutely no bulk. It’s so small and compact that it can fit even into the pocket of your jacket or cargo pants!

Completely handcrafted, each piece is stamped well and rigidly, leaving no sharp edges that need deburring, unlike other wood burning stoves. There’s also no warping or bending whatsoever even after being put through high temperatures, and the components fit together very tightly. The construction of this stove is just outstanding overall.   

The air holes on this stove are cleverly placed to encourage maximum efficiency and fast burn. The bottom holes are designed to create an updraft and direct the keep upward, resulting in the quick creation of very hot fire. The feed hole is large, as well, so it wasn’t difficult at all to feed the stove with more fuels.

Because of that… 

Boiling water and cooking meals are a breeze. One canteen cup of water can be boiled for two to three minutes, while cooking a meal didn’t take us over ten minutes. And this stove can handle almost anything, even a very heavy cast iron skillet! Making breakfast during backpacking trips was an easy-peasy task because of this.

This stove burns everything: Twigs, wood, pine cones, pine needles, leaves, dry grass, moss, charcoal— you name it. This makes it a must-have on emergency preparedness kits. It’s not difficult to set up either, at least after the initial assembly. We like that the pieces have enough flexibility for ease of assembly, yet not so loose that they break apart easily.

Other features we like are the two cross pieces that keep whatever you put on top of the stove, even big pots and skillets, stable, and the bottom panel that keeps the fire from scorching the ground. This versatile stove also cools fast, so by the time you’re done having a really fun meal with your family or backpacking buddies, you can just pack the stove and go.

And packing it is so easy with the included heavy-duty waxed canvas sleeve with a velcro closure! Bonus points that the sleeve is large enough for tinders too.

However, there are a few downsides… 

It was quite difficult to take off the protective cover and to put the pieces together the first time we used this stove, so an instruction manual would’ve been helpful. The learning process was so worth it, though— once assembled, it’s as sturdy as a backpacking stove can be, and it actually took us a longer time to disassemble it because the pieces fit so tightly together!

As with most backpacking stoves, this one also consumes fuel quite a lot. It doesn’t run out of fuel as fast as the others, but it’s probably not a good idea to leave the fire unattended for, say 15 minutes, if you want it to keep going for a long time.

This stove is not that lightweight, so if you’re an ultralight gear-only type of backpacker, this might not be for you.

As far as titanium stoves go, you can’t go wrong with the TOAKS Titanium Backpacking Wood Burning Stove.  

This stove is equipped with a strong titanium construction; it’s extremely resistant to corrosion, rust, and heat. We love how thick and tough it is, while still remaining insanely lightweight, weighing a mere 7.9 ounces or 225 grams, making it ideal for ultralight backpacking enthusiasts. Seriously, it totally lessened our load a lot when backpacking!

It’s solidly built and has a stackable design that consists of three pieces. The arrangement of the components is simply perfect and promotes good gasification and clean burn with clear smoke. There are plenty of air holes on both top and bottom portions for air circulation and a side port for feeding fuel into the stove.  

One thing you should keep in mind is that this stove is not designed for cooking lots of meals; however, for making a pot of coffee, tea, soup, or oatmeal, this works great. We did cook some eggs and pasta using this stove, but mostly, we used this for heating up foods that come in cans and packets. Boiling water isn’t as quick as with other stoves, but still a fast process, with 750 ml of water completely heated up in 12 minutes or under.  

Now, you do need to be attentive to the fire to keep it going as it burns fuel very quickly and needs constant feeding. By now, you already know that we do enjoy that process; we love just sitting back and relaxing while watching the fire and gazing at the scenery on our backpacking adventures, so it’s really not a big deal to us. There’s very minimal soot build-up after using this stove, which we appreciate. It’s very easy to clean, as well, and gets cool quickly. 

Each unit comes with a stuff sack, and once the stove is stored inside it, you can put small things on it like fuel or spices. It can be nested inside any 750 ml pot (we used the Toaks one), which is what we did on our recent backpacking trip. 

But there are some things to keep in mind if you want to buy this stove… 

Because it’s on the tall side, you need to really fill up the stove’s fire chamber with fuel so that the heat can reach the bottom of your pot or pan. The bottom gets really hot, so definitely don’t put the stove down on anything that you don’t want to get burned, like your camping blanket. 

There’s a limitation on the sizes of pots you can use with this stove. We’d say anything smaller than 750 ml won’t be stable on top of the stove, while using very large ones can be too top-heavy. For this reason, we highly suggest getting crossbars to provide support for cookwares with smaller circumferences. The stove can be a bit tippy on uneven surfaces, so make sure to set it up on flat surface areas only.

Also… 

Cooking meals for an extended period causes the stove to accumulate ashes, so you’ll have to occasionally take out the pot or pan to shake the stove until the ashes drop through the holes on the bottom. This way, the fire can breathe properly, the airflow won’t be restricted, and the fire will keep burning hot.  

Still, all else considered, we think that this stove is very much reasonably priced.

There are some days where you just want to get away from civilization and live simply in the woods or mountains. The only problem is that you don’t want to be completely technology-free. Well, the BioLite Campstove 2 Wood Burning Electricity Generating & USB Charging Camp Stove got you covered.

This innovative stove successfully combines technology with traditionality— not only can you use this for boiling water and cooking but also to charge your phone and other electronic devices! 

How does that work? We’ll get into that in a moment. 

First, let’s talk about the design and construction. 

This equipment consists of two parts, the orange powerpack made from plastic and the stainless steel burn chamber. The stove is made stable by the aluminum legs that are wide enough to provide support for even very heavy cookwares such as cast iron skillets. 

There’s also the honeycomb heat mesh that acts as a protective barrier and helps the stove to cool down fast, and the scalloped pot stand that can handle almost any cookware, including the BioLite Portable Grill, BioLite Kettle Pot and BioLite Coffee Press. 

Now… 

It may look super complicated to operate at first, but don’t be intimidated, it’s actually quite easy to assemble. All you have to do is insert the powerpack’s heat probe into the burn chamber, then extend the legs down to lock the two parts in place. Make sure that the ground is clear before you set it down. After that, you’re ready to make a fire.           

Like all the stoves in this list, you can use pretty much any biomass fuel with this stove, but hard dry wood like mahogany, maple, and oak are the most effective in giving you a longer burning fire. 

To start a fire, fill up the burn chamber with fuel— don’t overstuff it, though!—, then take a small piece of the firestarter that’s included with the unit, light it up, and put it inside with the fuel. The fire will start burning merrily in no time! 

Anyway…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

So the way it works is that the heat probe that’s connected to the powerpack takes the excess heat from the fire. The thermoelectric generator then converts that heat into electricity. The converted electricity works to power a fan and generates 3 watts worth of electricity that is provided to the USB charging port, where you will be plugging in your phones, cameras, and other devices for charging. 

The integrated internal rechargeable 2600 mAh battery then stores any excess energy, so that you can use it as some kind of powerbank even when the powerpack is separated from the burn chamber and there’s no heat source. 

As for the stove itself, the electricity that’s generated when you burn fuel fires an internal fan, which then blows air into the burn chamber and improves the combustion process, resulting in a clean and efficient burn, with 95% less smoke.

Pretty cool, right? 

Compared to its predecessor, the CampStove 1, which we also owned in the past, this is definitely a much improved version, with 50% more power and heat output, updated thermoelectrics, and there’s also an added Smart LED dashboard. 

By the way, the LED dashboard gives you real-time updates regarding your stove. It features an orange light that indicates fire strength, a blue light shows the four fan speeds which you can use to control the size and strength of the fire and the air flow, and a green light that gives you indication of how much power is available to use for charging your electronic devices. 

This stove also has four fan settings that allow you to control the temperature and flame intensity for different purposes. We found this feature really useful when cooking various types of food. Steaks, chicken, hotdogs— we were able to cook all of these foods very well, and all we had to do was keep feeding the stove more fuel every five minutes or so. Boiling two cups of water took only three minutes, which is awesome. It’s so nice that we get to charge our phones while cooking, as well.

Another useful feature of this stove is the USB FlexLight, which is great for visibility when camping at night. 

There are some drawbacks, though… 

Well, first of all, it’s expensive. It’s a very high-quality stove, with all the bells and whistles, so we do think that it’s a great investment. But if you just need a minimalist wood burning stove that costs less, there are plenty of those in our list that you can choose from.

Another thing is that we’re used to using stoves with feed holes on the sides, so it took us a little bit of time to get used to having to feed fuel from the top only. It’s not really an issue for us, it’s just something to get used to.  

Also, this stove is not exactly the most lightweight stove ever. That’s something to be expected, though, considering that it comes with a powerpack too. The fact that we don’t have to carry fuel canisters, chargers, and powerbanks definitelymake up for it.

Fans of folding-style stoves will love the WADEO Backpacking Wood Stove Stainless Steel Foldable Camping Stove. 

The foldable design of this backpacking stove makes it very easy to stow away on your backpack. And the pieces are so easy to put together, too! 

This stove is very well-constructed with 304 stainless steel that doesn’t rust. The material is so robust and durable that the stove still works perfectly well even after being accidentally dropped thrice. 

Providing ventilation are the vent holes on top and air intake holes on the bottom. It features quite a large feed hole and a wide-opening mouth design, so we had an easy time putting fuel into the fire chamber every time, which leads to a highly efficient and fast burn. The cross pieces enable the stove to carry small cups and metal bottles.

This backpacking stove can withstand a lot of heat and accepts a wide variety of organic fuel like twigs, woods, branches, and leaves. Regarding storage, the stove’s components are flat and slim, so they barely take up space on your bug-out bag. The whole cooking ring can also be stored inside the stove body to maximize space.  

On top of that… 

It comes with tools that you need to start a small fire: a pocket telescoping fire bellow, a pocket rope chainsaw, and a fire starter. We love using this stove to stop for a cup of coffee or tea, but it’s also excellent for cooking; in fact, we cooked one of the best steak-and-potatoes breakfasts we’ve ever tasted using this stove! The fires it created stayed lit for quite a while, as well.

Just something to consider, though… 

While this backpacking stove packs down small, it’s not super lightweight, with its overall weight of 12 ounces. It’s not super heavy either, but you want to keep its weight in mind if you’re planning to go backpacking with ultralight gear.

The edges can be a bit sharp, so don’t rush when assembling it to avoid any cut. It’s nothing that a pair of thick work gloves or some filing down won’t fix, though.

Also, bear in mind that very heavy or large cast iron pans might be too heavy for it. 

If none of these cons are a deal-breaker for you, we say get this stove if you’re in need of a foldable and super affordable stove for your next backpacking adventure.