Cooking meals to eat outdoors can be a delight when the weather’s dry, even in the UK. We’ve often envied TV chefs like the Hairy Bikers, as they cook up a meal on a camping stove on a beach, or Jamie Oliver touring Italy, picking up tips from local chefs, then creating the dish himself in a scenic location.

If you enjoy cooking, every holiday can offer the opportunity to discover local delicacies, then recreate them yourself in the caravan to enhance your travels. If you’re travelling through Wales, you have to try the delicious Bara Brith tea bread, while if you’re in Cornwall you’re likely to find fresh ways with seafood, delicious clotted cream teas and the Cornish Pasty. When in Scotland, don’t try cooking your own Haggis until you’ve found a local chef who will inspire you to make your own rich gravy to go with it. 

Caravan kitchens do tend to be compact, however, so it’s wonderful to see that innovative product designers have risen to the challenge and designed a colourful array of compact and collapsible cookware for camping and caravanning holidays. There are collapsible and folding mugs, bowls, storage containers, clothes baskets, portable folding washing-up sinks and even kettles available from some of the household names of the outdoor equipment world. 

We’ve collected some of the camping kitchenware ranges together on the Practical Caravan test bench so that we can compare them. We only want you to buy the best camping accessories for your caravan holidays, so we regularly test groups of products in this way.

We’ve tested the Coleman All In One Dining range of neat stacking and nesting plates, bowls, mugs and boxes, the folding double sink, the large coolbox and more. We’ve checked out the Olpro Happy Camper Range of collapsible silicone bowls, bucket, colanders and a collapsible kettle. 

The Outwell Collaps Range is synonymous with collapsible silicone bowls, buckets, kettles, washing up bowls and so on, having been one of the first to come up with such amazing products. It’s an extensive range.

Finally, we’ve tested the Kampa range of collapsible cookware, which we’re reviewing now.

Kampa cannot rival Outwell for the sheer variety of collapsible products in its portfolio. However, the brand covers the basics well, has some interesting innovations, and they’re hard to beat on price. The range kicks off with a set of three bowls, which come in 13cm, 16cm and 19cm diameters and include clip-on lids. These are an absolute bargain at £5.99 for the set. Then there are three colanders, one of which is designed to be hung over the sink. 

Other highlights include a giant, 10-litre bucket, plus one of the best folding kettles we’ve found, at the very attractive price of £15. We particularly like its long handle, which keeps your hand well away from the steaming-hot water during pouring. It also opens the lid wide enough to allow unrestricted flow.