Lost Camping Utensils and How to Avoid It

Has anyone found my spoon? Camping and silverware do not go together well in my family. Yet keeping it handy while camping is a must. If there is anything I have forgotten (more than once) it has been my eating utensils - and possibly my mess kit. This is in large part due to the nature of those items being removed from my pack for better cleaning after camping.

When we started camping as a family, we took along a small container of re-usable Ikea kids flatware. It was inexpensive at $2.99 for 18-pieces, so I did not mind of we lost anything.  The kids really did not appreciate them though, and they often got thrown away by accident.

It was shortly thereafter, during the Coleman sale at the local 100th Anniversary of Boy Scouting Camporee, that I found, and purchased this Coleman Swiss Army style Silverware. I made sure to purchase (4) so that everyone in the family received one (in our Christmas stockings) and even went back to purchase two more sets to have "on hand". The price was right at less than $5 for each one. The challenge was in keeping them together after using while they were drying after being washed. When cleaning, you take them apart to dry so it is easy to misplace one half. Sadly we quickly lost track of several pieces. I also found that keeping the crud out of the cracks was challenging. I did like that they were a good weight, heavy enough and were good camping silverware, but less than 8 years later we have only 1 or maybe 2 of the sets remaining!

The next thing we tried was a good old plastic spork that I found while shopping at my local Scout Shop. The thing is, after less than 6 uses, several of the tines of the fork would break off. So here I was spending $2-3 on each spork, only to throw it away shortly after purchasing it!

Sometime last year I saw one of my scouts with a flatware set clipped with a carabiner. I thought that would be great to clip to the side of the back-pack for easy access. So I bought a set. Only the carabiner broke and I lost the spoon. So again, there went money down the drain...

So what is a parent to do? I did not want to waste more money but needed something that worked. This summer while backpacking with my daughter, I thought out of the box a bit. To keep things light, we only needed a collapsible bowl and a spoon. So what did I do? I grabbed the free spoons we were given at Menchie's.

I was getting tired of all the waste though, and did not want my scouts to laugh at me. That's when I ran across these stainless steel sporks, I thought they may be the perfect solution. They were lightweight, easily cleanable (and could be sanitized), and could be easily stashed. So I purchased a dozen and added one to my mess kit.

My only two criticisms I have, if they are even that, is that the set is a bit long. I would love it to easily fit INSIDE of my mess kit. If not, I would like a way for it to easily hang with it. So the the  improvement I would suggest is that there should be a small hole in it. I actually drilled a hole in mine so that I could hang it with my metal lunch plate during summer camp, or clip it to my backpack. I can't say yet if they will last a long time, as this is my newest acquisition. I can say though that when a hole was added, I was very happy with the resulting lightweight, stainless-steel 3-in-1 camping utensil for around $2.