Why We Threw Out Our Old Gas Lantern After One Night With the Lepro LED

My wife Donna and I have been camping together for about 15 years. We got married in our late twenties, bought a tent the following spring, and figured out the rest as we went. By the time our daughter Mia was born in 2017, we had a system. We had a campsite setup we could run in about 45 minutes, a cooler packing method that kept ice for four days, and a gas lantern we trusted completely. That lantern was a Coleman two-mantle propane model we bought in 2013. It worked fine. It threw good light. And it made the whole campsite smell faintly of propane every single night. These days that old gas lantern lives in the garage, because a Lepro 1000LM LED camping lantern took its place at every campsite we set up.

I never thought much about switching. The lantern was paid for, it worked, and I figured a lantern is a lantern. Then last August, on a Thursday night before a three-day trip to Allegany State Park in New York, I broke one of the glass mantles trying to pack it into a too-small tote bag. I was holding the lantern under the dome light in the garage, squinting at the shattered mesh inside, thinking about whether I had time to run to the hardware store. Donna looked over my shoulder and said, just get a different kind.

I ordered the Lepro 1000LM LED rechargeable lantern on my phone while standing in the garage. It showed up the next morning before we left. I charged it from our kitchen outlet for about three hours while we packed the car. I tossed it in the tote bag where the Coleman used to live, and we drove to the park.

That first night, I set it on the picnic table and turned it on. The light was immediate, steady, and wider than I expected from something that small. No hiss. No flame. No smell. Mia, who was six at the time, said it looked like a moon. Donna poured wine and we sat out until well past ten, which we almost never do because usually one of us is tired from fussing with the old lantern by then. That first evening alone told me the old lantern was gone.

No hiss. No flame. No smell. Mia said it looked like a moon. We sat out until past ten, which we almost never do.

The next morning I looked at it more closely. The Lepro has four light modes: high, medium, low, and a warm-color night mode. We used medium for dinner and the warm mode inside the tent after we put Mia down. The 4400mAh battery is a real number. We used the lantern for about six hours across Friday night, ran it for a few more on Saturday, and by Sunday morning it was still showing battery. I had not charged it a second time. The old Coleman would have needed a fresh propane canister by day two.

A few other things stood out over the weekend. The lantern is small enough to hang from the tent loop, which the Coleman never was. We hung it inside the tent Saturday night while Mia looked at her field guide and we read. The light was soft and even, nothing harsh. It also survived a tip off the picnic table onto gravel on Saturday afternoon without so much as a scratch. I mention this because the glass globe on our old lantern was the thing I was always most careful about. This one does not have anything to break.

When we broke camp Sunday morning, I left the Coleman at the trailhead donation box. Someone with a truck and a use for it is welcome to it. I have no interest in going back. The Lepro went into the tote, the USB-C cable curled up next to it, and that was that. Eleven years of glass mantles, propane canisters, and fuel smell ended at a donation box in Allegany County.

We have since used the Lepro on four more trips: a long weekend in the Catskills, two nights at our local county park, and a solo trip I took with my brother-in-law in May. Same result every time. Charge it before you leave, forget about it until you need it, use it all weekend, go home and plug it in. That is the whole system.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you still have a gas lantern in your camping bin, you are probably fine. It works. I understand not wanting to swap out gear that is not technically broken. But here is the honest version: the propane lantern is the most annoying thing we hauled to every campsite for over a decade, and I did not realize how annoying it was until it was gone. The Lepro costs about the price of a couple propane canisters. It charges off the same USB-C cable as your phone. It does not smell. It does not break if you drop it. It hangs in your tent without turning it into a fire hazard. And on a scale of things that actually improve a camping weekend, switching out the lantern is near the top of the list, well above most of the gear upgrades people spend a lot more money on. If you are ready to be done with propane, this is the one I would hand you.