What to Bring to Summer Music Festivals
Essential hardware for Lollapalooza and beyond
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Depending on your music festival of choice, essentials can vary from glow sticks and flower crowns to cowboy hats and cutoffs. Regardless of your taste in tunes, here are some must-haves perfect for any style.
Janessa Leone Packable Straw Hat ($207)
Normally, traveling with any hat besides a snapback is a drag—they get misshapen if you pack them in your bag or you forget them somewhere along your journey. This ingenious lid has all the structure and style you want, but it’s made from a packable straw that can spend three days in your luggage and still return to its original shape. Plus, it’s breathable and has a wide brim to take on the summer sun.
Pentax AD 8×25 WP Binoculars ($105)
Exceptional viewing in a travel-sized package. These compact binoculars are just 0.6 pounds and fold down to a little over 4×4 inches. Designed with multiple layers of antireflective coating inside the barrels to maximize image quality and brightness, they can provide a true-life picture in most conditions. They’re also rugged, waterproof, and fog resistant, thanks to reinforced polycarbonate and a nitrogen fill.
Anker Core Speed 20000 ($46)
Nobody wants to spend a concert weekend with a dead cellphone. This super-efficient external battery sports three different quick-charging technologies, meaning it can refill most phones at lightning speed. Plus, it packs enough power to charge seven phones and is a relatively feathery 13 ounces.
REI Co-op Flexlite Macro Chair ($100)
This minimalist chair is comfy and cool, thanks to breathable mesh panels. It weighs in at just over 2.5 pounds and packs into a 5×16-inch bag for easy carrying. This macro version can support up to 300 pounds.
Coleman RoadTrip LXE Propane Grill ($160)
After a long day of dancing to your favorite bands, your friends will love nothing more than kicking back and watching you whip up some juicy burgers. Enter the Coleman RoadTrip LXE, a foldable, wheeled propane grill that’s easy to transport, heats up fast, and has porcelain-coated cast-iron construction that makes cooking and cleaning a breeze.
Outdoorsy RV Rentals
If you really want to experience a music festival in style, why not gift yourself a plush portable living room and real bed? This peer-to-peer RV rental service (think Airbnb for #vanlife) makes it easy to rent a rad camper, like a sweet Sprinter van in Reno for the High Sierra Music Festival or a 4×4 Ford E-350 pop-up in Fort Collins for a road trip to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival.