My guest blogger takes a look at cutting edge camping gear. These gizmos might make a great Christmas present for the camping addict in your life.

Camping gadgets have come on in leaps and bounds in recent years. From helping you wash up your camping dishes to powering your GPS, cutting edge camping gear can make your trip a whole lot easier, without taking up too much extra room in your backpack. Whether you’re a serious camping addict, or just looking to get away with the family for a weekend, you’ll find great camping gadgets to make your time away in the great outdoors even more pleasurable. If you’re looking to upgrade your next camping experience, our pick of the gizmos will leave you wondering how you ever got by without them.

Powertraveller Power Monkey Extreme Solar Powered Charger

This award-winning dual-unit solar charger is a gadget that powers all of your other gadgets! Shockproof and waterproof, it uses a single solar panel to charge a battery unit, which in turn can be used to charge mobiles, smartphones, games consoles, cameras, GPS systems and more. The Power Monkey comes pre-charged and ready to use, provides four to six charges for the iPhone, 12 charges for mobiles, and retains 75 per cent of charge after one year. If the sun isn’t shining, it accepts mains and USB charging too, and it’s available from Millets for £120.

CGear Multimat

The CGear Multimat may be less techy, but it’s no less useful. A godsend for those of us who’ve suffered from pesky pine needles and irritating sand getting into our tents – which is all of us I’d say! This high-tech tarp features a dual-layer design that creates a one-way-street for sand, dirt and dust. It means that particles fall through the mat from above, but can’t come back up through the mat. You can also use it as a windbreaker or shade from the sun, and it magically reseals itself if a spark from your camping stove burns a hole through it. It’s available in a range of sizes, from around £40 upwards.

Biolite CampStove

If conserving energy is important to you, this is the camping stove for you. The Biolite burns wood, but the clever part is that coverts the heat energy from the fire into electricity via a thermoelectric generator. In turn, the electricity powers a fan that pushes oxygen into the stove, creating hotter, cleaner more efficient combustion. As a result, this stove produced 95 per cent less smoke and uses 50 per cent less wood than conventional stoves. It’s available for £129 from the Biolite site.

Joby Gorillatorch

While LED flashlights are nothing new to the world of camping, the Gorillatorch is different. Thanks to its nifty design, featuring a unique flexible tripod leg base, it’s a good deal more useful than most. The tripod legs are knobbly, allowing the torch to be bent around tree branches, rocks, tent poles, and even around your head. Magnetic feet also allow it to attach to metal surfaces, and this dimmable torch provides up between 20 and 80 hours of light with three AA batteries. It’s available from Joby and other online retailers from £26.

• If you are still searching for more great quality camping equipment, check out sites like Gear Hungry for a huge variety of gadgets and gear to browse.