I've done mostly car camping since the early 60's, starting in canvas tents. Our family tent was a Sears, outside-frame, umbrella style with no rain fly, which we hauled in the back of our Chevy station wagon to most of the National Parks west of the Mississippi. In Boy Scouts, in the 60's, we used the famous Explorer tent. Again, canvas. In the mid 70's I bought my first nylon tent - a Eureka Timberline, which became one of the most common backpacker tents in the 70s and 80s. I camped in the Timberline for a month in France and Poland in 1975. It served me very well, not a drop of water inside even in driving rain. I still have my Timberline. You can still buy one. Check out Campmor. The most amazing thing about the Timberline - Eureka has kept the price around $100 for the basic tent for over a decade. In fact, the price has hardly doubled in over 30 years. And they didn't do that by making it cheaper and cheaper until it was no good anymore. It's still a very good tent. Recommended as an excellant first tent for medium to serious camping use.

Now my occasional camping is mostly connected with paddling. My Folbot can carry all I need for luxurious camping.

My main car camping and paddling stove since the early 70's is a 1944 Coleman canister stove that my Dad carried onto Omaha beach as a member of the 8th Infantry Division, 28th Field Artillery. It still works. Noisy, but effective. I replaced the pump leathers and generator in the early 70's and just replaced the leathers again in 2006. A pretty good, low maintenance stove.

Generating

One of the least talked about issues in backpacking and paddling is bathroom facilities. Years ago, it was considered OK to "go off into the bushes" when nature called. Today that's unacceptable everywhere and it has become illegal in most places. Our national parks and recreation areas require ALL waste to be packed out. No more burying it off the trail in the woods.

There's an entire industry to handle the issue both for recreation and for work place sanitation. Consider that the work place for many people is outdoors, far from any established facilities. Consider that a paddler, even in an urban environment like DuPage County Illinois, may find, on an all-day river paddle, only one or two stops with public facilities. These new products are simply bags containing polymers that gel & deoderize liquids & solids put into the bag. There are small bags for liquid only and large bags for solids. Most of them are double layer bags with one-way valves and leak-proof seals. All the brands I've found claim to be EPA approved for disposal in normal trash-to-landfill systems.

There are three product categories to consider:
Liquid containment bags
Solid containment bags
Portable seats & systems

Manufacturers
the PETT by Phillips Environmental Products. They make solid containment bags - the Wag Bag - and portable seat and tent systems meant for group, campsite and worksite use. The portable commode is a fairly large, plastic seat that folds into a small suitcase.
American Innotek makes both liquid and solid containment bags for industrial/commercial use (Brief Relief and Disposa-John) and for the consumer market - the Restop product line.
TravelJohn makes both liquid and solid containment bags, privacy tents and complete, portable systems. They offer a folding commode made of tubing and canvas much like the popular lawn chairs you find at discount retailers and a standard 5-gallon-plastic-bucket type commode.
OutBack Pack makes a folding, cardboard commode. It's not waterproofed and is suitable only for indoor, emergency use. They make no containment products.
The Packit Toilet from The Ultralight Wilderness Toilet Co. is meant for the backpacker. It's sold with bio-degradable bags and a digger with the intent to bury waste. This is becoming less of an option as regulations become more restrictive and protective of the environment. Fortunately, this folding commode works well with any of the solid containment bag systems listed above. Some think it's a bit pricey at $55 (shipping included) but that's cheaper than three of the cardboard OutBack Packs which won't survive getting wet even once. I carry a Packit in my kayak at all times regardless of trip length or anticipated facilities. You never know.

I bought containment bags from whoever had the best price. I ended up with Wag Bags from REI and Travel-Johns from Outback Toilets.

Vendors
Outback Toilets carries the PETT system, TravelJohn and the OutBack Pack
Backcountry carries Wag Bags and the Restop line - look under Camp/Hike / Summer Accessories / Food and Waste Storage
Drugstore.com carries TravelJohn
There are many others - Google is your friend

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2mar08