Best Pen To Take On A Camping Trip?

[hari317]

Pelikan Level L65

[troglokev]

If you're Bear Grylls, you'll make your own paper from wildebeest dung, and write using a stick dipped in the blood of a freshly killed water rat.

 

If you're normal, then you'll probably find a Kaweco Al Sport works well as an outdoors pen. No fountain pen works well on the write in the rain paper, though. You'll need a ballpen or a pencil for that.

 

Or you could make your own from wildebeest dung.

[cubic archon]

Kaweco AL Sport

I was going to say the Kaweco Sport, though I'd take a plastic one, as they're a lot cheaper if somehow it were lost or broken. But I'm growing very fond of the Sport now that I got myself one with a B nib (I found the one I had with M quite scratchy and skippy). Writes smoothly, tough construction, closes up to be very compact and the cap is extremely unlikely to come off by accident. The modern ones are cartridge-fillers, but that's a _bonus_ if you're camping, spare ink is a lot easier to carry and change. (You could use it as an eyedropper too I suppose though that would make me very nervous when travelling.)

[bugmd]

I'm gonna be roughin' it in the woods over the weekend I will likely bring a sketch book.

 

Other than pencils I'll probably be taking a Duofold Jr. just in case.

 

Any suggestions?

 

 

Pilot Varsity

 

(images randomly lifted from the web, no intent to steal, educational use only)

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_DTUiJGMLxHs/TLdofOod43I/AAAAAAAAbLw/N9QbXzKAXws/pilot_sv4b-ppl.jpg

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_DTUiJGMLxHs/TLdofVLx4pI/AAAAAAAAbL0/xLZE_To49xM/s912/pilot-varsity-fountain-pen-nib.jpg

[cadfael_tex]

Step one: find a stick

Step two: take knife to end of stick and sharpen to approriate 'nib' width

Step three: find berries with juice of approriate shade for your writing purpose.

Step four: crush berries to obtain ink.*

 

*Tried BSB and it clogged the stick and stained the forrest (jk).

[drgoretex]

Depends. Real camping (backcountry, no roads, in the bush for a couple weeks) I would not have a pen. Drive-in camping with the kids, lawnchairs, beer etc, I bring my tough little Sailor Reglus.

 

Ken

[LuckyDog10]

*Tried BSB and it clogged the stick and stained the forrest (jk).

 

*snort* Nice! :ltcapd:

[Silvermink]

One that is easily replaceable.

 

For me this would be a Safari or a Pelikano.

 

Also durable. +1 on both of those.

[etoyoc]

Its already been mentioned - but I will say that I *DO* take a Kaweco sport with me when camping. The only complaint I would have... when camping on dunes.. the sand can scratch the barrel up a bit when uncapping/capping.

[Garageboy]

yeah, but if its scratching a Kaweco, nothing else is surviving

Watch, you pour out enough BSB and the next thing you know you'll have blue trees....or dead ones

[yachtsilverswan]

The one-handed capless Pilot Vanishing Point seems like a good choice. Pack extra cartridges rather than a bottle of ink.

 

And as Chemyst suggested, the choice of paper may be more important than the choice of pen. Dew and damp may blur your sketches into an unpublishable puddle of pitifulness. Packing your notebook in a ziplock bag may keep the pages dry.

 

Camping huh? You know, the St Regis lets you make s'mores around the piazza's outdoor fireplaces every winter. The s'mores butler will even load your skewer.

Edited October 15, 2010 by yachtsilverswan

[etoyoc]

yeah, but if its scratching a Kaweco, nothing else is surviving

 

Exactly!

 

As mentioned elsewhere, the paper and ink are probably more important questions.

[nxn96]

Not sure if this has already been suggested, but a bunch of wooden pencils. In a pinch, you can always rub two together to start a fire.

[The Bantam Scribbler]

My pick would be a Lamy Safari or Vista. Kaweco Sports also look really cool, but I've never used one.

[Johnny Appleseed]

For car-camping I usually end up taking whatever lower-end pens happen to be in my rotation. I leave the real expensive stuff at home, but otherwise I throw 4 reasonable pens in a 4-pen case and go with it.

 

For backpacking, I would bring a Wality Eyedropper that had a retrofitted feed, or a Sheaffer Skripsert. Last time I went backpacking I took a Sheaffer Fineline ED conversion I had put together, but that had some excess flow issues at 6000 feet. Next time I will probably take a Sheaffer Triumph that has some notable cap-cracks (once I get them fused), or a Skripsert (it can be ED converted, but have the option to fall back on cartridges.

 

I do have a series of pens that I consider "camping pens" including a Sheaffer Tip-Dip with a (fused) barrel crack, an old syringe filler I retro-fitted with a Fineline feed, several retro-fitted Walities, and some badly scratched or cosmetically damaged vintage pens. Other pens I make take for roughing it - a Hero 616 or a stainless-steel Gold Star pens I have (both Parker 51 wanna-bees, but cheaper); a Stainless steel Sheaffer 777 (with Triumph nib); A Parker 45 Flighter; Retro 51 in stainless (the most sturdy pen I have).

 

More important than anything is a good feed that can handle changes in pressure - especially if you are dealing with elevation. Someone recommended a beater Parker 51, and I think that might be the perfect option.

 

As for the Space Pen idea, it wouldn't hurt, but I have camped for years with a fountain pen and at least one journal without any problem. Mostly that has been car camping, but also a backpacking trip. Prior to getting fanatic about FPs (and prior to children), I did a lot of backpacking and usually took an ordinary travel journal and a ballpoint or rollerball - and that included some wet Pacific Northwest trips. A plastic zip-lock and some ordinary care can keep a journal dry, even in fairly heavy rain. If it is really wet enough to soak a tent et al, my journal is usually not the first thing on my mind. I can see having a space-pen and waterproof paper for a backup, and if I were camping for an extended period under difficult conditions I might go with that exclusively, but for most recreational camping a fountain pen is fine.

 

John

[cubic archon]

I do have a waterproof notebook, but I keep it in the shower with a pencil in case I come up with any radical ideas in the shower (which happens occasionally). If I were camping, and it started to pour with rain whilst I was outside, I think my thoughts would be less "hmm let me sit about in this unexpected precipitation and write about my thoughts" and more "bloody hell it's chucking it down, where's the damn tent?"

[vans4444]

As has already been stated the Kaweco sport. They are cheap and small. The plastic ones are cheap, the aluminum and carbon fibre ones are not what I would call cheap

 

The Jinhao missile pens are very small and cheap and my one writes well. The downside is that they don't take cartridges so you would have to invest in a traveling ink well

[kuno]

A charred stick. You can get an infinite supply of them from a campfire and I think it might capture the rugged scenery better. My code when going camping is that everything should be 1.waterproof or 2.in a waterproof container. When you go camping, you want your attention to be on the wildnerness, not worrying whether you scratch/drop/lose your pen. Just my 2c.

[EMM]

Step one: find a stick

Step two: take knife to end of stick and sharpen to approriate 'nib' width

Step three: find berries with juice of approriate shade for your writing purpose.

Step four: crush berries to obtain ink.*

 

*Tried BSB and it clogged the stick and stained the forrest (jk).

 

Haha LOL :roflmho:

 

Wow I didn't expect to get so many replies.

 

Anyway I'm back from the trip (went on Thursday to Friday), I ended up taking my Lucky Curve eyedropper with Sherwood Green.

 

I had a lot of fun

[Possum Hill]

Step one: find a stick

Step two: take knife to end of stick and sharpen to approriate 'nib' width

Step three: find berries with juice of approriate shade for your writing purpose.

Step four: crush berries to obtain ink.*

 

*Tried BSB and it clogged the stick and stained the forrest (jk).

 

It's a new species of blue spruce.