We tested 10 rival camping lanterns on the Practical Caravan test bench to find out which is the best camping gear to buy for your caravan holidays. Last but not least in our testing came the Vango Light Barrel, which has a very different look to all the rest of the camping lanterns reviewed here. 

This is a most peculiar design from Vango, which uses 18 LEDs to blast light out from all sides of the barrel. Unfortunately, this leads to a rather poor illumination pattern if the unit is hung up, using the small strap and loops provided.

Power for the Vango Light Barrel comes from an internal battery that has to be charged from a 12-volt supply. Unless you’re feeling energetic, that is, in which case you can pop out the dynamo handle up top, and spin away to generate more power. If you’re a fan of wind-up torches, you’ll be used to spending a few minutes winding vigorously in order to gain more light from the LEDs. If you wind it for a minute you’ll get an extra three-and-a-half minutes on full power (18 LEDs), or seven minutes on low (9 LEDs). 

The Vango Light Barrel camping lantern weighs 598g, and gives out 40 lumens. It comes with a DC charger that plugs into a cigarette lighter and the batteries are 3.7V 1700 mAh Li-lion rechargeables. Charging time is about 4.5 hours.

Once the Vango Light Barrel is fully charged, you’ll get up to four hours on full power, or eight hours’ running time, provided that half-power mode is used. On this lamp, though, half-power simply means that only half the unit lights up, leaving large areas of your van or awning in darkness. 

For that reason, and because it’s the most expensive camping lantern we tested, we’ve awarded this Vango Light Barrel just two stars. 

The other two-star rating went to the Gelert 7W Rechargeable Remote Controlled Lantern, which cost £19.99 at the time of our camping lantern test. 

Moving up to the camping lanterns that won a three-star rating in our tests, we liked using the remote control to activate the Vango 24 LED Lantern, £29.95, and we were tempted by the bargain price of the Gelert 7W Lantern, £13.50, the versatility of the Powerplus 3 in 1 torch lantern, £21.99, and the Halfords Advanced LED Spotlight Lantern (product number 588899), which is both a torch and a lantern in one, priced at £19.99. 

We gave a fabulous four-star verdict to the only gas canister-powered camping lantern we tested. We were really impressed by the amount of light that came from the SunnCamp Lantern, from £10.99, but we know that not everyone is happy to use gas lamps for camping and caravan holidays these days. If you do, just make sure it’s kept away from children and animals that might knock it over and use all gas lamps in a well ventilated area.

In the super league of lamps we have three top favourites, all of which received five stars. These are the Kampa Zebedee, from just £4.99, the Outwell Morion, from £11.50 and our mighty Practical Caravan group test winner, the Outwell Carnelian 400 Lantern, from £24.99.