Whether you’re headed to the desert or off on a remote expedition, keeping your portable electronics charged can be a problem. With so many chargers to choose from, finding the best, lightweight charger is hard. There are a lot of options for solar panels and portable battery banks you can take with you on all your adventures.

You’ll need to know how you’re going to keep your GPS, smartphone, and headlamp charged before you head out on the trails. Knowing where to find power along the way will keep your trip enjoyable and help ensure you stay safe.

Does your route have stops that you are sure have power available? Perhaps you’re scheduling a zero day in a nearby trail town but you forget to turn off a few features on your phone and it’s a 0% before you realize it.

Step 1: Plan Ahead

Know where (or if) power sources are available on your hike before you start it. Ration out your battery on an as-needed basis. If you travel light, that can be especially important as you will have limited options while on the trail.

Step 2: On The Trail Options

1. Battery Bank Chargers: Probably the simplest and most reliable option to charge your devices is to have a battery bank or two with standard port options available. These can come in various sizes for weight, capacity and footprint but we encourage you to have one capable of charging your primary devices (GPS, phone, 1 light) all at least 1 time on a single bank.

2. Solar Chargers: Solar charging for devices has improved quite a bit over the last few years. It’s still not all the way there but it’s a viable option with today’s technology. This is where $ can be an issue as a quality solar charger can be expensive, but it can also be well worth it. Of course, the solar charger has 1 major dependency…the sunlight available to you. Sometimes trees, clouds and just mother nature in general can get in the way of the effectiveness of these style of chargers. One must take that into consideration.

3. Manual/Hand-Crank Chargers: These are for backups for your backups. There are options out there with a flashlight/radio/battery combo and as single options as well. These can be useful for last ditch emergency needs but are quite a lot of work for regular and normal use. If you’re going back-country hiking, it’d be a good idea to throw one of these bad boys in your bag but otherwise I wouldn’t recommend.

4. Fire/Heat Chargers: A relatively new trend but growing in options is a campfire grill that also uses the heat to produce electricity. Some of these devices can output a decent 3W which is enough to charge up a smartphone if you’re patient. Turning biomass into heat and thus into electricity is a pretty cool idea in theory but not always practical. Would be a fun item in limited situations.

5. Trail Towns: Always max out your power banks before you head back onto the trail. This will ensure you’re best options to stay “connected” as you take selfies, panoramic and fun hiking videos to post and document on your social media accounts [so we can all ignore them while we work our 9-5. No…we’re not bitter.]

Step 3: Prep Your Devices For Optimal Use

To prevent your device from running out of power at the worst possible time, here are some charging tips to keep you connected no matter where you roam.

1. Use “Airplane Mode” when out of cell coverage, or just simply turn off your devices when you’re not using them.

2. Unless absolutely necessary, keep external screens off on cameras and video recorders. Just use a viewfinder or eyeball it. (Practice makes perfect at eyeballing it.)

3. In low-light settings, be sure to turn your screen brightness down. No need to replicate the sun while scrolling Instagram in the evening.

4. Remove batteries in flashlights and store separately inside your pack so that they’re not accidentally turned on and wasted.

5. Turn off any unneeded services and keep your apps closed on smart devices so as not to have anything draining them while they’re on unnecessarily.

Step 4: Ration Your Power

It’s rare that you would need your GPS, phone, laptop, headlamp and other devices on all at the same time. Use of only a few of these at a time is practical and no, you don’t need to edit that selfie you took earlier that very second. Sorry, it can wait. Just store it and move on.

Bonus: Don’t Be THAT Guy (or Girl)

Sorry, just because you like your music doesn’t mean that the rest of us do. IF you take a portable speaker with you on the trails, just don’t blast it around. We just don’t like Nickleback as much as you do…