When you choose a motorhome, we’re guessing that the overall size and driveability of the ‘van, the layout and the bed sizes are the most important things you’ll check. After that you’ll see if the kitchen and washroom are big enough for comfort on tour. But how many of us worry much about the number and size of kitchen cupboards on board? 

Nevertheless, once you start touring you soon realise that storage space is limited, as is the user payload limit. So the more lightweight items you can buy to use on motorhome holidays the better. We’ve recently collected a number of collapsible and compact items of kitchenware on the Practical Motorhome test bench, to find out which are the best lightweight camping accessories to take on tour. 

We’ve tested the Easycamp Fold Flat Dinner Set, which costs £15 per person for a blue plastic folding mug, bowl and plate that looks a bit like a set of origami items.

Then we tested the Lifeventure range of collapsible bowls, such as the Lifeventure Sillicone Ellipse Bowl at £6.99 and the Collapsible Bucket at £20.

We’ve also tested the most comprehensive range of collapsible silicone kitchenware of all – the Outwell Collaps Range. Outwell’s small bowl costs £4.49 and a large storage box costs £40. The range includes too many items to list, such as folding mugs, three sizes of serving bowls, washing-up bowls, colanders, baskets, storage boxes, two kettles in different sizes and even oven-proof pots. Outwell was one of the first firms to come up with cookware that telescopes up and down with such ease and it’s a very hard act for any other camping accessories company to follow. 

In this review we test the first product from North Wales-based camping gear company Gelert.

Gelert is trailing in the compact-kitchenware stakes, but its debut product — the Fold-Away Kettle — is an impressively versatile piece of kit. One feature that we immediately liked is the addition of a whistle. This has been missing from other folding designs, despite being an essential for most conventional stove kettles.

As with a rival folding kettle made by Kampa, large handles keep your fingers well away from the boiling water when pouring, but these fold in, too, which reduces its size for easier storage.

Although capacity is just one litre and the kettle comes in just one colour, another redeeming feature is that the silicone top can be removed. This allows the aluminium base to double as a small saucepan that can sit directly on the hob.

At the time of our test the Gelert Fold-Away Kettle was on sale for £12, but since then it has popped up online at a sale price at £7 and at the full recommended price of £20 for the same item, so it evidently pays to shop around.