Camping Knives - The Pocket Knife

Every camper needs a knife just in case they need to cut through frozen rope, repair camping gear like stoves, tents, etc or for emergencies in general. Camping knives are essential but you probably won't be using them all the time, sometimes not at all. But you should always have a camping knife in your backpack or you pocket just in case.

A camping knife can have more than one purpose, you can use it as a cooking utensil, and cutting out sticks for you tent pole or other things. You never really know what you might need it for.

For years I very happily used the Swiss Army Camper Knife. The reason I chose this particular model as my camping knife is primarily because of the mini wood saw. I find that using normal blades will not cut through wood.

I remember the day when I first started hiking. We were just beginning to understand how useful trekking poles are and none in my group had any. So we decided to cut out some walking sticks of our own. I soon realized that my camping knife couldn’t do the job, at least not very quickly, not without a saw.

Luckily someone in the group had a Swiss Army Farmer Knife with a little saw on it. After that trip I bought myself Swiss Army knife with a mini saw. A few weeks later, I saw the Victorinox Swiss Army One-Hand Trekker Lockblade Pocket Knife, which better than the Farmer Knife for the same price. It has got similar features but the One-Hand Trekker has a lockable blade and screwdriver.

Victorinox Swiss Army knives are the most popular camping knives in the world. Wenger also makes some great Swiss Army knives but they're not as well-known as Victorinox. There are other camping knives that are pretty good as well.

The tough pliers on the Leatherman Surge Tool for example are much more practical than the ones you usually find in Swiss Army knives. The ones on Swiss Army-like knives tend to be rather slim.

There are a lot of choices for camping knives. Gerber, Kershaw, Schrade, Seber, SOG, Swiss-Tech, Coleman and coast all make reliable camping knives.

Before you decide on any one of these camping knives, you should know what you need to make repairs to your most critical gear like camping stoves, packframes, sunglass frames, fishing reels and others.

If you use a sparking tool to make fires or you clean fish regularly then a second camping knife is a good idea.

Camping knives with locking blades are great because they keep your fingers safe. The locking mechanism usually hikes up the cost of the camping knife. For safety reason something like the Victorinox Swiss Army One-Hand Trekker Lockblade Pocket Knife is highly recommended.

The reason why tools by Victorinox, Wenger and Leatherman are great for camping is because of the increasingly complex camping gear that might need fixing. The less complex your camping gear, the less need for complex tools. For simple camping knives (without multiple tools) SOG, Kershaw and Petzl are some of the more popular ones.