8 Best Multitools for Camping

A ferrocerium rod tucked into the handle, a hammer at the butt, a whistle and a diamond sharpener in the frame: the Signal is the only tool here designed around a night at a campsite rather than a shelf of chores. We think that makes it the right buy for the camper who wants fire-starting backup built into the tool already on their belt, and the wrong one for anyone who mostly turns screws.

The hammer earns its place first. Driving tent stakes with the flat of a blade is how tips get chipped, and the Signal gives you a proper striking surface at the end of the frame. The whistle is the quiet win on any trip where a group can get separated. The pliers are where our enthusiasm cools: the hinge is stiff enough that opening and closing them takes a deliberate push, and it is worth working them a few dozen times before you lean on them.

At 4.5 inches closed it is the lighter of our two Leatherman picks, and the topo-print scales are a nice change from plain stainless steel. If fire-starting is a ritual you care about, the extra cost over the Wave+ buys a rod and a hammer in the same tool, and that is the trade the Signal asks you to make.

Every tool on the Suspension NXT locks open, and every one of those locks has to be pressed before the tool folds away again. That is the right call for safety and a small nuisance in camp: the release levers sit close to the frame and want a deliberate thumb, which is exactly what you do not have with cold hands in the dark.

Against the price, that is a trade we make willingly. This is a full-size butterfly tool — 15 tools, needle-nose pliers, a saw, three flathead and two cross drivers, an awl, openers — at well under what either Leatherman here costs. That is the pitch: the same camp jobs, minus the refinement.

At 8.48 ounces it is noticeable on a hip belt after a long day, so it suits a pack pocket or a truck box better than a shirt pocket. What it does have is a tool for nearly every camp repair you will actually face, and a locking frame that keeps them where you put them. If your multitool lives in a pack and comes out a few times a weekend rather than every day, we think this is the value pick of the group.

At 454 grams — a pound — the Mossy Oak is the heaviest tool in this group, and that number sets everything else about it. On a belt it swings; in a hiking pack it is a luxury. In a car-camping bin or a basecamp box it is the tool you grab, because everything is in one place.

The kit is the reason. Twenty-one tools including a saw, a serrated blade, a file and a ruler, a magnetic hex sleeve for the included screwdriver bits, and a nylon sheath with elastic pockets on the front that keep those bits with the tool instead of at the bottom of a bag. Losing the small bits is the usual way these kits stop being useful, and the pouch is a real part of the value here.

Opening it takes some persuasion. The lock buttons want a firm press and the tools come stiff, so plan on working them open and shut for a while before the tool feels quick in your hand. Ours settled in over a weekend of camp use, but the first few sessions are not the ones where it shines.

Where that leaves it: for car camping, a glovebox, or a first tool for someone building a camp kit, the sheath, the bits and the 21 tools make a persuasive package for modest money. Just do not ask it to ride on your hip for a ten-mile day — the pound is the whole story.

Twenty-seven tools is a big claim, and it is worth knowing how the number is reached: the soft wire cutter, the hard wire cutter and the wire stripper are three separate entries on one pair of plier jaws. Count the jaws once and the WETOLS is a well-equipped 4.37-inch tool with a full plier set, a metal and wood file, drivers and openers — which is still a lot of tool for the size.

The camping extras are what separate it from a hardware-store tool: a fire starter, a whistle, a window breaker and a hammer built into the frame. A whistle and a fire starter in the tool you are already carrying is the kind of redundancy that costs nothing until the trip where it matters, and the window breaker is there for the emergency you hope never arrives.

Build-wise it is a 9.38-ounce tool with sandblasted handles, a self-locking frame and a hard-wearing sheath. That weight is the honest limit: it is a belt or pack tool, not something that disappears in a pocket the way a key-ring knife does.

We have not put a full season on this one, so our judgement rests on the design rather than on long wear. If you want a fire starter, a whistle and a full plier set in one tool without paying Leatherman money, this is the pick here — treat the tool count as marketing and the extras as the reason to buy.

Twenty-one grams and 2.3 inches closed: on a key ring the Classic SD disappears, which is the entire argument for it. It is the tool still in your pocket at the end of a wet hike, when the full-size multitool is in the pack back at camp.

What it does at a campsite is smaller and more frequent than what the pliers tools do. The scissors cut fishing line, tape and blister dressing; the tweezers pull splinters; the blade opens food packets and cuts cord; the file tip handles the screw on a stove or a headlamp battery door. None of that is glamorous, and all of it comes up on most trips.

It is not a camp multitool in the sense the rest of this list is: no pliers, no saw, and a blade shorter than your thumb, so anything involving a stake, a pot lid or a branch is out of its range. It is the second tool, the one that is with you when the big one is not, and at this size most campers should have one on the ring.

The ETEH costs the least of these picks, and it does not read as a cheap tool: 13 functions, needle-nose pliers, a wire cutter, openers, and a holder with a set of screwdriver bits, all in a body that folds to about four inches.

The bit holder is the feature that lifts it above a plain pocket knife, because it gives you the sizes a stove, a tent pole or a cooler latch actually takes. The pliers handle the small jobs — bending a hook, holding a nut — as long as you are not asking for real leverage.

The catch is the grip. The plier handles are flat steel with nothing to soften them, and a hard squeeze drives the edges into your palm. For a glovebox, a tackle box, a spare in the car or a gift, that is fine, and the ETEH does small jobs with a straight face. For the tool you carry on every hike, spend more.

A hammer on a multitool looks like a gimmick until the first evening you are driving tent stakes with a rock. The DR.LILIANG puts a small hammer at the end of the frame with a nail claw opposite it and builds 13 tools around that, and it is the pick for a car camper who wants a stake hammer and a screwdriver in the same pocket-sized object.

The rest of the set covers camp basics: blade, Phillips and flat drivers, wire cutters, bottle opener, nail file and a hex wrench, carried in a nylon belt pouch. At 5.9 inches closed and 10.88 ounces it is a belt tool rather than a pocket one, and the screwdriver bits are the weak spot — they seat in a holder that lets them work loose. Check they are seated before you lean on a screw.