One of the stranger things about getting deeper into overlanding is discovering just how elaborate dinner can become.

There are $30 backpacking burners that disappear into a coffee mug. There are Coleman stoves sitting on picnic tables just like our parents used. There are chuck boxes, tailgate kitchens, drawer systems, slide-out kitchens—and eventually complete vehicle-mounted galleys with sinks, water pumps, refrigerators and enough stainless steel to make a food truck jealous.

And somehow all of them qualify as a camp kitchen.

That’s because a camp kitchen really isn’t a particular piece of equipment. It’s a system: heat source, cookware, food storage, prep, serving, water and cleanup arranged in a way that lets you make food outdoors without turning dinner into a thirty-minute gear excavation. That same system-oriented definition shows up repeatedly in current overlanding kitchen guides. CIWILD

Aside: Before I had a camp kitchen system, I mostly had no system at all. For plenty of trips, my entire food strategy was a pantry box and an ice cooler with drinks, deli meat and mustard. It worked well. I could eat, I could keep moving, and that was simply enough. That started to change when I began building out the Gladiator specifically for mostly solo, vehicle-based adventure travel. Once the truck itself became part of the travel system, it made sense for food and cooking to become a system too. Not necessarily a complicated one. Just something more intentional, repeatable and easier to live with on the road. Now we have – options.

For this post, I’m going to divide them into five basic classes.

Class	Camp Kitchen Style	Complexity / Size	Ease of Use	Versatility	Typical Investment
1	Minimal / Trail Kitchen	★	★★★	★★	$
2	Modular Tote Kitchen	★★	★★★★	★★★★	$$
3	Chuck Box / Portable Galley	★★★	★★★★	★★★★	$$–$$$
4	Vehicle Drawer / Slide-Out Kitchen	★★★★	★★★★★	★★★★★	$$$$
5	Integrated Overland Galley	★★★★★	★★★★★	★★★★★	$$$$$

One important distinction: complexity isn’t a quality score. Five stars there doesn’t mean better. It means larger, heavier, more involved and generally more committed to the vehicle.

And that’s important in overlanding.

Class 1 — Minimal / Trail Kitchen

Think single burner, one pot or skillet, knife, spoon and maybe a mug. Trail-ready cooking for one.

This is where backpacking-style cooking crosses over into vehicle travel. It’s inexpensive, takes almost no room and works beautifully when food is primarily fuel: coffee, oatmeal, dehydrated meals, soup, ramen, eggs.

Its limitation is obvious. Once you want to cook two things simultaneously—or feed several people—the simplicity starts working against you.

Class 2 — Modular Tote Kitchen

Rugged camp cooking for 1 to 4. This is where I live. A two-burner stove, cookware, utensils and serving gear ride together in a tote or trunk and get deployed onto a picnic table, folding table or tailgate. Current overlanding guides commonly describe this basic tote-and-table arrangement as one of the simplest and most affordable ways to build a genuinely capable vehicle-based kitchen. Chuk Outdoors

The magic here is modularity. Nothing is permanently attached to the vehicle. The kitchen can move to the picnic table, under the awning, next to somebody else’s campsite or twenty feet away from the truck when that’s the better place to cook. For a weekend-oriented rig that still has to function as an actual truck, that’s a bigger advantage than people sometimes realize.

Class 3 — Chuck Box / Portable Galley

Take the tote idea and add organization. Elevated tailgate cooking for 3-12

Chuck boxes give utensils, cookware, spices and kitchen tools dedicated storage, sometimes adding shelves, work surfaces or legs. They’re an old concept that has found a very natural home in overlanding. Modern versions range from DIY plywood boxes to very slick aluminum portable kitchens. CIWILD

I like this 95L Camp Kitchen Kit from ROAM Adventure Co. You gain organization and faster access, but you also gain weight, bulk and cost.

Class 4 — Vehicle Drawer / Slide-Out Kitchen

Now the kitchen becomes part of the rig. A drawer or slide may contain the stove, work surface, cookware, pantry and sometimes the sink or water system. Deploy it and you’re cooking almost immediately. There’s a reason these setups have become so popular in dedicated overland builds: they’re remarkably organized and very fast to use. The tradeoff is permanent cargo-space commitment, additional weight and considerably more expense. Kermode Overland

Class 5 — Integrated Overland Galley

At this point we’ve basically built a tiny outdoor kitchen. Running water. Sink. Built-in stove. Dedicated prep area. Refrigerator. Pantry. Lighting. Propane or electrical systems. They’re fantastic for extended travel, families and people who genuinely enjoy cooking elaborate meals at camp.

They’re also proof that overlanders can turn making tacos into an engineering discipline.

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The GladiatorUp Camp Kitchen Scorecard

I really like keeping these four measures separate rather than creating an overall score.

Otherwise we’d accidentally imply that a $4,000 slide-out kitchen is somehow objectively superior to a $200 tote kitchen. It isn’t. It’s simply optimized for a different job.

I’d make this a recurring graphic throughout the series:

COMPLEXITY / FOOTPRINT
★ Compact → ★★★★★ Integrated

EASE OF USE
★ Lots of setup → ★★★★★ Open it and cook

VERSATILITY
★ Basic meals → ★★★★★ Full kitchen capability

PRICE
$ Under $150
$$ $150–$400
$$$ $400–$1,000
$$$$ $1,000–$2,500
$$$$$ $2,500+

Purpose-built overland kitchens quickly climb from a few hundred dollars into four figures, while perfectly workable tote-and-stove systems remain possible for a few hundred bucks. 4×4 Playground

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My Camp Kitchen: The Coleman-and-a-Box Approach

My regular camp kitchen is decidedly Class 2. And that’s intentional. The whole setup is really built around two core pieces: my Coleman Classic two-burner propane stove and my EUHOMY 12V fridge. The fridge handles cold storage and lives as part of the broader power-and-provisioning system in the Gladiator. I’ve already covered it separately in my EUHOMY fridge review, so I won’t spend much time on it here. For this article, the cooking side of the equation starts with the Coleman.

At its heart is about the most traditional piece of American camping equipment imaginable: a Coleman Classic two-burner propane stove. There isn’t much exotic about it, which is exactly why I like it. Coleman’s current Classic puts out 22,000 total BTUs through two independently adjustable burners, has built-in wind panels, and can accommodate a 12-inch and 10-inch pan simultaneously. Two burners dramatically expand what I can actually cook. One side can have coffee water, beans or a pot going while the other handles eggs, burgers, vegetables or the griddle. Suddenly you’re cooking meals instead of simply heating food.

My cookware is primarily a stainless nesting 14 pc. Stanley Cook Set. That’s another theme you’ll see throughout my kitchen: if something can occupy the same physical space as something else, I’m interested.

Then there’s probably my favorite simple addition:

The 10.5-inch Lodge cast-iron griddle

EXPLORE: 10.5 Lodge Cast-Iron Griddle

Set the flat griddle over the Coleman and the whole character of the kitchen changes. Breakfast becomes easy. Eggs. Bacon. Sausage. Pancakes. Grilled sandwiches. Burgers. Tortillas.

Cast iron isn’t lightweight, of course.

But we’re overlanding.

The Jeep is carrying it.

I’m not.

Then come the less glamorous things that actually make the kitchen work: utensils, knives, spatula, serving ware, lighter, seasonings and the little odds and ends that become surprisingly irritating when you’ve forgotten them. (like repurposed plastic grocery bags)

All of it lives together inside a 108 QT Hinged Plano Sportsman Trunk.

It is not an exotic overland kitchen box. It doesn’t have laser-cut aluminum panels. It doesn’t have molle everywhere. Nobody on Instagram is going to ask me for the build sheet. But the thing has proven surprisingly tough, it’s inexpensive, it keeps the kitchen consolidated, and when I want it out of the Gladiator I pick up the box and remove the kitchen.

Done.

That matters to me.

And One Cup to Rule Them All

There’s one other piece of equipment that deserves its own category.

My 14-ounce YETI Rambler camp mug.

Coffee in the morning. A bowl of ramen for dinner.

Water.

Tea.

Bourbon around the fire.

Hot. Cold. One cup – All things drinky and soupy.

My Setup Score

GladiatorUp Modular Kitchen

Complexity / Footprint: ★★☆☆☆
Ease of Use: ★★★★☆
Versatility: ★★★★☆
Price: $$

And I think that’s the bigger lesson for me. “Overlanding” has a habit of convincing us that every system eventually needs to become integrated, mounted, fabricated and expensive. Sometimes it does. Sometimes the right answer is still a green Coleman stove and a Plano box. My kitchen isn’t the smallest possible setup, and it certainly isn’t the fanciest. But for solo trips, weekends with Tammy, and the kind of Southeastern backcountry touring I actually do, it hits a pretty useful sweet spot: Enough kitchen to cook real food…not enough kitchen to become another project.

Hear’s to the road unpaved. – Doug

Affiliate Disclosure: Some links in this post are Amazon affiliate links. If you buy something through one of them, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to gear I use, have experience with, or think is genuinely worth considering.