The Best Swag for Camping

The title “best swag for camping” may seem a bit funny. What would a swag be for other than camping?

But, I have noticed that a reasonable amount of traffic is coming to this site with the specific search term “best swag for camping”.

Nobody has searched “the best swag to take on a date” or “best swag for walking into the bank with”, nor have they searched “the best swag for a balloon artist living out of a 1993 Mitsubishi L300”.

Good thing too, because I’d be a bit out of my depth for those inquiries.

But when it comes to swags for camping, I’m your guy. I’ve been doing this my whole life.

The Best Swag for Camping – by Price Range

There’s more to a great swag, than what might seem obvious at first.

I’ll list my recommendations for individual swag models upfront. Then in the section where I explain each component that goes into making a great swag, I’ll talk about how this relates to each model that I have recommended.

The Best Swag for Camping – Over $600

I can emphatically state that the AOS Tracker Swag is the best swag available anywhere, at any price.

It is certainly an investment at almost $900, so it’s not going to be for everyone.

I’ve still got my original AOS Tracker swag that I’ve had for over 26 years.

It’s still in better condition than many cheap XTM/Dune/Kings swags that I’ve got that have barely been used.

I have an off-road tour business and have over 15 swags. The only swag I’ve got that outperforms my almost 30 year old Tracker, is my 3 year old AOS Tracker swag.

Parts of the design and several features have changed over the years, but what hasn’t changed is the workmanship, use of the best materials, and the stellar finished product.

The Best Swag for Camping – $250 to $600

The Burke & Wills Redgum Swag is an excellent mid-range swag for $460.

It is a centre-pole swag, but it is tapered much like many non centre-pole swag designs. This gives it better waterproofing and more heat retention than a typical dome swag.

I have only had a little bit of experience with the Redgum model specifically, but I do have another Burke & Wills swag that has been in my collection for at least 10 years. The quality of the workmanship as well as the canvas and mattress are far superior to what you’ll find from a budget swag.

The Best Swag for Camping – Under $250

If you’re just getting into four wheel driving and/or camping and you’re not sure if you’re ready to commit to something more expensive, there’s no problem with that.

But, my advice would then be to go real cheap, around the $100-150 mark.

Cheap swags will be more than enough to get you started, so you can see how you like it. They won’t last a long time and they’re not all that comfortable – particularly for more than one night at a time. But, most novice campers aren’t going out for more than a night or two at a time.

If you do decide you love camping and the freedom that comes with just rolling out a swag, then it’s less sunk cost when it comes to deciding whether or not to upgrade.

For actual brand and model recommendations, all the swags in this price range from the larger retailers are very comparable. The XTM is perhaps a touch better than Dune, and Dune is maybe minutely better than Adventure Kings.

BCF own the XTM brand. Anaconda own Dune and 4WD Supacentre (which seem to be getting rebranded to Kings stores) own Adventure Kings (which also seems to be getting shortened to Kings). They all engage in similarly shitty sales tactics of over-inflating the “retail” prices and then running sales in the case of Supacentre, or members pricing for BCF and Anaconda. So just make sure you don’t pay full price, because it will be on sale at one of them.

Also, don’t believe the claims of the “canvas” quality/weight from any of these 3 manufacturers. More on that below.

What Makes a Great Swag

Centre-Pole vs No Centre-Pole | Pros & Cons of Both Styles

The majority of the cheap swags that have flooded the market over the last 15 or so years, are all centre-pole design. This is the free-standing design that has a pole running down the length of the swag.

If you don’t have a centre-pole, the swag needs to be pegged down.

Most premium swags are a no centre-pole design.

Benefits of Centre-Pole Design – for the End User (you)

• They’re slightly faster to set-up. Only by however long it takes you to hammer in two pegs.
• Because you don’t need pegs, if the ground is really hard it saves you a bit of hassle. But, if the ground is really hard, this is probably also when you want a good swag with a good mattress.

Benefits of Centre-Pole Design – for the Manufacturer

• They’re cheaper to make:
  • The structure and shape of the swag comes from the centre-pole and where it meets the two end poles. This means the canvas can lazily drape from this structure and isn’t an integral part of the final erected shape. Swags without a centre-pole, get most the shape and structure from the canvas, stitching and zippers and how they conform when pulled from each end with a guy rope and pegs.
    • With the canvas not being pulled tightly, the stitch work and zipper placement don’t need to be very accurate. This means you don’t need any real craftsmanship and can save on labour.
    • Without as much tension on the materials, they don’t need to be as strong. Not only can the zips and stitching be weaker, but it also allows them to use thinner canvas where the stitching would otherwise rip through the material if it was under tension.
  • Most cheap swags have this same dome design. They can save money on R&D by copying everyone else.
  • The poles can be made cheaper/weaker. Because the end-poles don’t have to maintain rigidity against taut guy ropes which are applying a downwards force – plus there’s mechanical bracing on two planes – they can be made with cheaper materials/methods.

Durability and Materials

Real Canvas vs Poly-Cotton

Strictly speaking, canvas does not refer to the fibre it’s made from, but the way it’s woven. It doesn’t have to be cotton – and is traditionally sometimes linen – but it is generally thought of as being cotton.

So, the manufacturers of cheap swags aren’t breaking any rules by calling their poly-cotton blend canvas, but they’re still being misleading. They’re fully aware that the name “canvas” has strong connotations that imply it is very durable and made from cotton or similar. They lean on these associations in the hopes that you’ll assume all canvas is similar. It’s the same reason that anything made from Nylon at the 4WD Supacentre will be referred to as “Oxford Fabric”. It’s complete marketing BS.

I understand how they get away with calling it canvas, but what I don’t understand is how they get away with their claims surrounding fabric weights. GSM means gram, per square metre. It’s a specific unit.

Yet, when I compare the 400GSM canvas on an AOS swag to the “400GSM canvas” on a Kings swag, it’s chalk and cheese.

The canvas that AOS and other premium brands use, is so thick and rigid that it can stand upright, supporting its own weight.

The condom wrapper that the Supacentre use to make their swags is about as rigid as a eunuch after half a litre of whiskey.

The synthetic materials also gets a lot more damaged from UV exposure. Not just fading, but actual breaking down and starting to tear really easily.

Waterproofing

Waterproof Materials

Waterproofing is obviously impacted greatly by the canvas used.

Thicker canvas produces better results.

Polyester is often thought of as more waterproof than cotton. You can probably imagine cotton fabric completely soaked and holding on to the moisture and imagine water beading on top of a synthetic tent material as if it were a freshly waxed car bonnet.

But it’s usually not directly through the fabric that water ingress occurs.

Water comes in through the holes caused by the stitching. Where the needle of the sewing machine has punctured the canvas.

When you hear someone talking about “seasoning” canvas, by soaking it and then letting it dry in the sunlight, you may think that it’s tightening the weave of the fabric as the material constricts in the sun. But what’s actually happening is that the canvas is tightening around the stitching, closing up the small holes.

Everyone knows that you can throw synthetic clothes in the dryer, with no problem at all. But you have to be careful with cotton, because it can shrink.

This shrinking is desirable, when it occurs around the stitching. This is what closes the hole.

If the material doesn’t shrink, which polyester does not, then seasoning doesn’t work. If you have a waterproof cover for a tent, you’ll see this is true. Turn it inside out and you’ll see that there’s a waterproof tape stuck to the back of everywhere that there is a join in the material.

If you take a look at an AOS or Burke & Wills swag, you might notice that the bottom is made from the same canvas as the rest of the swag. This is because they know their canvas is waterproof. If you take a look at the bottom of an XTM, Dune or Adventure Kings swag, you might notice that the bottom is PVC. That’s because they know their material is not waterproof.

It does beg the question: will a PVC bottom on a swag, be more waterproof than a canvas bottom?

I always thought the PVC bottom would be a better option. That’s was surprised when I bought my latest AOS Tracker swag and realised it had a plain canvas bottom, but my oldest one had a PVC bottom.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait too long to see that assumption challenged.

My Dad and I were on the Canning Stock Route and were camped at Well 13, which is set between two sand dune ridges. We weren’t too worried about being at a low point, because it was out of the rainy season, plus the Garmin satellite forecast said there was only a 3% chance of rain until 6pm and 0% chance thereafter.

At about 6:03pm, we received 60mm of rain in under an hour. It was crazy.

I’ve seen camp fires go out in heavy rain before, but always from the top-down. This fire went out from the bottom-up and washed away right in front of us.

There was almost no high ground, including where my swag was already set up. If it hadn’t been pegged down, it may have floated away.

I moved it to the only bit of high ground I could find which was barely bigger than the ground itself and when I got in, it was completely dry except for a few small droplets that had made it through the stitching. This is wild considering it had been pegged down and sitting in about 2 inches of water. The next morning, it was still as dry.

My Dad on the other hand…

He’d set his swag up in an almost identical spot, which ended up with the same depth of water. Absolutely everything got drenched and he had a very miserable sleep that night. He was using a Dune with a PVC bottom.

Waterproof Design

The design is the often less considered aspect of whether a swag is waterproof. Although, it’s almost as important as the materials.

The cheaper centre-pole dome swags – as already mentioned – get the structure from the poles and not from the canvas being pulled between two guy-ropes.

Because of this, the canvas is never taut. Even if you do peg in the ropes on one of these swags, I’ve always found that it never pulls it evenly, as they’re just not designed for everything to get even tension as they don’t require it. This means that the sides of the swags remain loose and create areas where water will pool and inevitably penetrate the material.

A design feature you’ll see in all swags that don’t use a centre-pole, is that they taper down towards the feet. This is important because it eliminates flat areas where water can gather. The Burke & Wills Redgum swag also has a taper, even though it’s a centre pole design.

On top of design, higher quality swags will also be made to much more consistent tolerances. When the swag is very well made, all different sections of canvas pull evenly under tension, even when it’s different pieces stitched together. This is crusial to avoid locations where water can gather.

Reinforced Stitching and Zippers

Not only does the style of stitching and the quality/size of the thread used make a big difference, but this is also impacted by the quality of canvas used. If you have thick and strong canvas, you can use heavier stitching or more complex sewing patterns/overlocking that would otherwise create too many holes in a weak fabric that would tear under load.

Nowhere is the quality difference between good and cheap swags more evident than the zippers. The zips on my AOS swags are honestly about 6 times as chunky as the ones on any of my cheap mass-made swags. Chunky is the only word, for these hefty bits of textile engineering.

If they’d use these zips in the filming of There’s Something About Mary, the guy would have lost all his tackle and the film would have ended right there.

But there is a downside to a heavy duty zip.

For whatever reason, it seems like the bigger and stronger a zip is, the more finicky it is if there’s uneven tension on it. It’s not just swags, I’ve seen the same thing on awnings that have heavy duty outer covers.

This is again where build quality comes in. If a skilled worker with the right equipment and the right amount of time does the trimming and stitching work, then the whole thing gets taut evenly once pegged down. For a swag without a centre-pole, the zipper is the point that holds the tension when it’s closed. As mentioned above, this is a large reason why cheap swags use a centre-pole design. Either the cheap/crappy zips would break under load, or if they used high quality ones, they would be too difficult to use because they would be pulled on unevenly.

Clips & Thick Straps vs Double D-Rings

Credit where credit’s due, this was a great move by the cheap swag manufacturers.

When they realised their cheap clips on the straps were breaking all the time, instead of replacing them with more expensive clips that would last, they changed them for cheap double d-rings, like you’d see on a motorcycle helmet.

It’s a simple solution that works.

The cheap straps often double over when pulled through and become quite annoying to undo, but it’s a reasonable compromise that works and wont fade or become brittle in the sun.

However, I still appreciate the high quality clips that are on my AOS Tracker. These are large metal quick-release clips that are on straps the size of seatbelts are much more user friendly – and durable – than what comes on the cheap ones. I have had a Kings and an XTM swag where the straps have completely perished in the sun and fallen apart.

Comfort and Insulation

Mattress

The mattress on my AOS, Burke & Wills, and all my cheap Chinese swags are all the same thickness.

Which sounds good, until you roll them up and realise that a Dune/XTM/Kings swag rolls up to less than half the diameter of my AOS.

It’s just cheap and crappy open-cell foam that crushes under any force. Including the weight of a person.

I can sleep in one of these swags for a night without much issue, so long as I’ve cleared the ground before I set it up, but after more than one night I start to wonder why I’m noticing the existence of my hip bone at all hours and that my shoulder is clicking.

Cold Climates

This is one part material, one part design:

While cotton is known for not holding onto heat, there’s no getting around the fact that a thicker cotton canvas will insulate better than a thin poly-cotton canvas.

Centre-pole dome swags have more volume inside them, because they are flat and not tapered. A non-centre-pole tapered swag has less volume of air inside to absorb body heat. Also, air is a better insulator when it’s in thin layers, not when there’s enough of it for convection to occur. I can sleep in my AOS when it’s freezing, with a good sleeping bag. But in one of the cheaper dome swags, it requires a duck-down sleeping bag that quickly eliminates the savings gained from the cheaper swag, because you need a very expensive sleeping bag.

I prefer to camp where it’s warm, so I can’t say this occurs all too often.