THERE’S NO BETTER way to decompress from the madness of modern life than to go camping. For a few days, you give yourself the chance to disconnect from technology (work email, Facebook alerts, Crossey Road) and reconnect with nature. Your time in the woods is sacred, to be treated with respect—reverence, even.  But when you’re bringing (or dragging) along family members who typically spend their time at home glued to their gadgets, getting the gang to unplug at the campsite can be a battle. You could confiscate all smartphones and tablets at the trailhead. But at what cost?  We don’t condone the idea of spending every evening of your trip watching movies rather than roasting marshmallows and sharing dubious ghost stories. Still, taking your tech into the great outdoors does offer a certain thrill. For some reason, watching “The Neverending Story” huddled around a tablet in the coziness of a tent is simply more magical than watching it in your living room.  The key to enjoying your gadgets outdoors? Making sure you’ve taken along devices that are sufficiently rugged—and endowed with battery life—that you don’t spend all your time wrangling and worrying about them. Here, everything you need to put together a techy camper’s survival kit.  This overbuilt 11.6-inch Windows tablet may be pricey, but it’s one of the toughest models you can buy—and the only such model currently available that runs a new operating system. True, the average camper will never find herself in temperatures as extreme as the Latitude 12 Rugged Tablet can handle (from -20 degrees Fahrenheit to a blistering 145 degrees). But even casual glampers will appreciate this model’s especially bright display (which outputs more light than a top-of-the-line iPad) for better visibility in direct sunlight. This model also comes with two hot swappable batteries, which together offer about 12 hours of battery life. The 128GB of storage is enough to load a wide selection of scary movies before you hit the road. $1,849, dell.com  If you’re going to take your tech out into the wild, you need a way to keep it all charged—without having to stand around the power outlets outside the ranger’s office. RAVPower’s 15W Solar Charger is an especially practical option. Unfolded, it extends to 31-inches wide, which helps it generate more power than smaller (and often higher-priced) rivals. But despite its size, it still packs up into a light package (1.5 pounds) that’s slim enough to slide into a backpack. Four grommets on either end of the charger allow you to hook the panels onto your backpack with a carabiner for on-the-hike charging. There’s also a convenient pocket in the nylon case, so you can keep your smartphone safe and out of the sun while it powers up. $50, ravpower.com  You can find plenty of portable Bluetooth speakers these days—and rugged models that are water-, dust- and shockproof are not exactly scarce, either. Despite the stiff competition, the Buckshot Pro stands out. Not only does it sound great, it boasts features that are sure to come in handy around the campsite. Its internal battery, which provides up to 10 hours of music playback, can also serve as a portable power bank for charging other gadgets. And the speaker comes with a detachable LED light that transforms the gadget into a flashlight roughly the size of a Red Bull can. The dimmable light has three settings: bright, strobe (for trippy dance parties in your tent) and dim, ideal for reading in your sleeping bag. $80, outdoortech.com  Any run-of-the-mill flashlight will light your path at night, but if you want to imbue your campsite with a more refined ambience, consider this modular, battery-powered system. At the heart of the kit is a combination flashlight/lantern/portable battery (not shown), into which you can plug in the two included pendent lights. By purchasing an additional pair of pendants ($30), you can daisy chain up to four of these overhead lights together—dangling them from branches or hooks in your tent—to create an overhead lighting system that spans 40 feet. When it’s time to pack up, the cords spool up neatly inside each pendant. The base unit includes a 200-lumen lantern and 250-lumen flashlight, as well as a 4,400-mAh battery for charging your other gear. $100, bioliteenergy.com  Looking for the best way to keep your smartphone safe out in the elements? Slip it into one of the cases in the Lifeproof Fre line, which are designed to protect against water, mud, dust and falls from 6.6 feet. Compared with other rugged cases out there, the Fre is on the thinner side. It also has a snugger fit than most, so there’s no gap between the screen cover and the display of your phone (which can impair visibility). The Fre is available for all variations of the iPhone 5 and iPhone 6 (including the Plus models), as well as the Samsung Galaxy S7 and LG G5. Plus, we suggest splurging on the Fre Power, which doubles your phone’s battery life. The extra juice will prove invaluable for power-intensive activities, like photographing vistas or navigating around a back trail. From $80, lifeproof.com  The BioLite NanoGrid costs $100. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the price was $199. (April 28, 2016)
Just because you’re camping doesn’t mean you have to divorce yourself from your devices. Here are the best outdoor Bluetooth speaker, tablet, light, solar charger and smartphone case.