I'm camping at a local dog show with my 3 year old nephew for 10 days. Electronic book up is not available so what's the cheapest option to provide some form of power to my tent. I don't run a lot of gadgets but need enough power to run my electric coolbox. The little one normally has a bedside reading lamp and I'd like to be able to charge my phone and his kindle. Anything else we can do without. Be grateful if someone can give an idiot's guide as to what I need. The cheaper the better as it will only be used once a year maximum
------------- Good cakes aren't cheap. Cheap cakes aren't good
Electric coolboxes take a lot of power, so even a large battery wouldn't last very long at all. Probably just a few hours. An LED reading lamp would run for quite a while off a battery, and so would a phone or kindle charger, but the coolbox will be a big problem. The only thing that would run one of those for any length of time would be a mains hook up (which you say isn't available) or a generator, which would be noisy.
Just re-read your post and realised you are intending to stay for 10 days. Even without the coolbox a leisure battery probably wouldn't last that long. Sorry to be so pessimistic, but I do have some experience in this field.
As Colin21 says I think running the cool box is not really practical but in the past we have bought bags of ice cubes from a supermarket and kept the box cool with them but do put them into a separate watertight bag first.
If you intend to use the car while away, you could possibly get away with charging of your phone and Kindle from a USB adaptor in your car 12v socket, many adaptors have twin USB sockets for charging both phone and Kindle at the same time but if not there is a range of solar phone chargers, £20/£30, which I guess could also be used to charge the Kindle and as for the reading lamp, an LED battery light/torch will last quite a while on ordinary AA batteries plus Amazon do a range of LED battery night lights if your nephew wanted a light on through the night.
Ps I am assuming a Kindle can be charged from a USB socket as I don't have one.
Tha is for your advice. I must admit I'm a bit disappointed now.The coolbox was the main thing I wanted to run. Kyrian drinks a lot of milk and I like to feed fresh food rather than junk or convenience food. We will be able to get to the supermarket once or twice while we are away but no more than that. Oh well we will just have to manage best we can and hope the weather isn't too hot so the milk turns. Appreciate your advice though
------------- Good cakes aren't cheap. Cheap cakes aren't good
What about the cool boxes that keep ice frozen for 5 days such as the Coleman Xtreme or Icey Tek?
Not got one myself but there have been lots of threads about them and they seem to get good reviews from fellow campers?
If you can get to a supermarket, you could buy bags of ice cubes and that will keep your milk and other fresh food chilled for several days.
If you bought 500ml cartons of uht milk he'd perhaps drink one of those at a time or it would last a day wrapped in a wet tea towel (with one end of the tea towel dunked in a bowl of water)
The Coleman Xtreme coolbox will keep your food cold for 10 days if you get a few bags of ice on your two trips to the supermarket and pour these over the contents (There is a drain at the bottom of the coolbox for you to get the water out once the ice has melted and obviously you need to ensure that you open the lid as few times as possible ).
Also, Cravendale filtered milk (Or any other milk of the same ilk) will be fine for 10 days.
Another alternative is a generator (Search for whisper generator kr silent generator) but you are looking at £200 - £300 plus fuel for this option.
You can get a big USB battery device for your phones on Amazon quite easily for £10-20. Somewhere on the campus you'll be able to recharge it, I expect, or use your car. Turn the phone off at night to save power and you should easily cope for 10 days.
You won't be able to use the electric coolbox with power. You could try filling it with ice, but unless it's a really good one (like an Icytek which costs £100) it will probably only keep cold for 1-2 days. Better to just go with lots of packs of UHT milk, and food which doesn't need to be chilled. There's lots out there.
My small children are fine with UHT milk when camping, and it's only for 10 days.
For lighting, a heat-torch (and some spare AAAs) is the best present for a small boy. If he's able to read (aged 3?!) then he'll be old enough for a head-torch.