8 Best Camping Grills of 2026

Infrared changes how a tabletop grill behaves. The Grill2Go’s single burner heats a perforated grate until it glows, and the heat lands on the food fast and hard — we had a proper dark crust on a steak before a conventional grate this size would have finished warming through. If red meat is why you haul a grill out of the truck, this is the one we hand you.

The body is cast aluminum, firebox and lid both, with stainless latches and a handle on each side, so it takes being thrown in with the cooler without the rust that eats steel tabletops. It sits stable on wide feet and the lid seats squarely. Char-Broil covers the burner and lid for five years, the longest gas coverage in this group.

The trade is control at the bottom end: it runs hot and stays hot, so chicken and fish want the lid open or a spot at the edge of the grate. The narrow slots in the cooking grate are the other annoyance, because grease and ash collect in them. Two hundred square inches holds about eight burgers, which makes this a two-to-four-person grill rather than a party grill.

Folding legs, a lid that latches shut, a thermometer set into that lid and a stainless tray that slides out: the GT1001 is built around the trip rather than around the patio. It weighs 17.8 pounds, light enough to take in one hand at the handle with the lid locked and the grate still inside.

For the money this is the gas grill we keep coming back to. The 285 square inches split into a 214-square-inch grate and a 71-square-inch warming rack, and the stainless frame and grates feel sturdier than the price implies. This is the pick when you want a full-width cooking surface and a lid that closes properly without paying premium money for a brand name.

What you give up is a second heat zone. One burner means one temperature, so you cook in waves: burgers down, then up onto the warming rack while the next round goes on. The knob is coarse at the low end too, running from hot to hotter with no gentle simmer in between. The sliding grease tray makes the dirty end of the evening quick, which counts for a lot when the nearest sink is a tap on a campsite wall.

At 46.7 pounds this is a grill that lives in the truck bed and rolls out of it. Quick-fold legs snap it into a stand-up frame at cooking height, so you cook upright instead of crouched over a picnic table, and it folds flat enough to slide in under the cooler and the camp chairs.

What the weight buys is three burners across 285 square inches and 20,000 BTU. It heats quickly and runs hot — two burners on high is more heat than most camp dinners need — and with three knobs you can keep one side going through a long cook and shut the others down. The lid thermometer reads the chamber, and the grease tray is a proper tray rather than a cup.

A family on a week-long basecamp will cook more comfortably on this than on anything else here, and it is the one we set up once and leave standing. The parts we would keep an eye on are the side-table hinges and the carry handle, which is where a folding grill of this shape wears first.

Folded, this thing is roughly the size of a laptop and about as easy to fit into a loaded car. Legs, body and grate come apart and stack flat, the carry bag takes the whole lot, and setting it up is a couple of minutes rather than a couple of tools. For a charcoal grill at the bottom of the price range, that is the entire pitch, and it holds.

It cooks better than its size suggests. The body is vented so the coals draw evenly, and with a modest fire you get a real bed of heat across the grate for four people’s worth of sausages and corn. There is no ignition, so bring a lighter, and no thermometer, so you judge by hand over the coals — which is how most people cook on charcoal anyway.

Treat it as a season-at-a-time grill. The metal is thin, and a pile of raging coals will warp the grate and the base; bank the fire and keep it moderate and it stays square. What we like is that the cheap option is also the one that disappears into the trunk, so it comes on trips a heavier grill would sit out.

The kettle shape is doing quiet work. A round bowl with a lid that seats over it, an ash catcher underneath, and a lid lock that doubles as a holder so the hot lid has somewhere to go that is not the ground or the picnic table. At 8.4 pounds it is the lightest grill in this roundup, and the porcelain enamel wipes down instead of scrubbing up.

It is charcoal only, and it makes you earn dinner. Fourteen inches holds roughly six burgers, banking the coals to one side is the only route to two heat zones, and there is no thermometer to tell you what the fire is doing. What you get back is heat that behaves like charcoal heat, which is the reason people refuse to switch to gas in the first place.

This is the one we point charcoal people to, and the ten-year limited warranty is the reason. Compare it with the folding GasOne: that one packs smaller and costs less, and the difference you are buying is a kettle that will still be round and square after several seasons rather than a thin grate that has warped.

Three hundred and sixty square inches on a 14.4-pound body is the reason to look at this one. That is the largest single-burner cooking surface in this group, wide enough for six burgers with room to move them, and it still folds down and carries under one arm with a lid thermometer and a warming rack along for the ride.

The catch is that one 11,000 BTU burner spread across a grate that wide is not a level cooking surface. Expect to rotate food rather than trust a spot, and give it time to come up before the first round goes on. If you want an even bed of heat for a big batch of chicken, the two-burner grills here handle that better. The push-button ignition is the other thing to watch — when the button gets tired, a long match through the side slot lights it fine.

Where it earns its place is a group that mostly cooks one kind of thing: a pack of burgers, a row of corn, a pile of skewers. The five-year warranty is longer than most of the gas grills here, and the foldable legs mean it can live in a cupboard between trips rather than under a cover on a patio.

Half of this grill is a griddle, and that changes breakfast. A 211-square-inch porcelain-enameled flat top sits beside a 153-square-inch grill grate, so eggs, pancakes and bacon can work on one side while burgers sit on the other. That is the cooking surface we reach for when a campsite morning has to feed four people at the same time.

The third burner is the sleeper feature: a 12,000 BTU side burner with a lid that folds down into a ten-pound shelf. Coffee, beans, a pot of pasta — all of it happens off to the side while the main surface keeps working, which means one appliance covers a whole camp kitchen.

The wide surface runs unevenly, hottest over the two main burners and cooler at the far corners, so plan on moving food around rather than finding one perfect spot. The grease cup is small for what a griddle produces, and we empty it mid-cook on a bacon morning rather than at the end.

Set against the Cuisinart, you are trading two-zone gas control for a flat top and a side burner, on a grill that stays in the truck bed and gets carried to a table with both hands. If camp cooking means eggs and smash burgers, that trade is a good one; if it means steaks managed across two zones, it is not.