What food to take wild camping in the UK

Written by James Frost, founder of Flaming Phoenix and the maker of Phoenix Bars. Updated November 2026.

Quick answer: Take around 2,500 to 3,500 calories a day for a UK wild camp: a dinner that only needs boiling water, a quick porridge breakfast, and snacks you can eat on the move, such as nuts, cheese, flapjacks and chocolate. Choose food with about 4 calories per gram or more and a 3,000-calorie day weighs roughly 750g; at 2 calories per gram the same day weighs 1.5kg.

Wild camping means carrying everything you need on your back, and food is usually the heaviest part of your kit after your shelter and sleep system. Getting it right means balancing three things: enough calories to sustain you, low enough weight to carry comfortably, and food you will actually want to eat after a long day on the hill.

Below I cover how much to take, how common foods compare on weight, the supermarket packet foods that work, a one-night plan and a checklist. The same thinking applies whether you are out for a single night or walking a five-day route.

How many calories do you need when wild camping?

The standard adult guideline of 2,000–2,500 calories per day assumes a relatively sedentary lifestyle. When you are walking for six to ten hours with a loaded pack over rough terrain, your actual calorie expenditure is significantly higher, typically between 3,000 and 4,500 calories per day, depending on your body weight, the weight of your pack, the terrain, and conditions.

You do not necessarily need to replace every calorie you burn. Most people carry enough stored energy to tolerate a moderate deficit over a few days without problems. But if you consistently eat too little, you will notice it: reduced energy, poor decision-making, feeling cold more easily, and a growing sense that everything is harder than it should be.

A practical target for most wild camping trips in the UK is somewhere between 2,500 and 3,500 calories per day. If you are doing high-mileage days in mountain terrain with a heavy pack, aim toward the higher end. For a gentle overnight camp with a short approach, less is fine.

You do not need to hit an exact number. Take enough food that you can eat consistently throughout the day and still have a proper meal in the evening.

Calorie density: the number that matters most in your food bag

When you are carrying everything on your back, what counts is how many calories a food provides per gram of weight.

This is calorie density, and it is the most useful number for planning wild camping food. The higher the calorie density, the more calories you get for every gram you carry.

Here is a rough guide to how common wild camping foods compare (our ranking of the lightest high calorie food for backpacking has the full table):

These are typical UK label values rounded, so check the packs you buy. Nobody eats a day of olive oil, but a few tablespoons stirred into couscous or noodles is the cheapest way to add calories without adding much weight.

If you pack foods at the lower end of the calorie density scale (tinned goods, fresh fruit, bread), your food bag becomes heavy quickly and you run out of calories before you run out of days. If you prioritise foods at the higher end (nuts, nut butters, cheese, chocolate, high calorie bars and freeze-dried meals), you can carry enough fuel for a multi-day trip without your pack becoming unmanageable.

For a detailed explanation of calorie density and how it applies to different situations, see our guide to calorie-dense foods.

What types of food to take wild camping

Most wild camping food falls into one of four categories, and the best food bags include a mix of all four.

Main meals are the meals you sit down for, typically breakfast and dinner. These provide the largest single portion of your daily calories and are usually the most satisfying part of the day. Freeze-dried and dehydrated meals are the most popular choice for wild camping because they are lightweight, compact, and only require boiling water. Brands such as Firepot, Expedition Foods, Real Turmat, and Summit to Eat all make meals specifically designed for this purpose. Alternatively, you can build meals from supermarket ingredients: couscous with a sachet of sauce, instant noodles with a tin of tuna, porridge with peanut butter and dried fruit. These are cheaper but require more preparation and washing up.

Snacks and trail food are the foods you eat between meals: on the move, at rest stops, or in the tent before bed. Calorie density pays off most here, because snacks need to be compact enough to fit in a jacket pocket and light enough that you barely notice them. Good options include nuts, trail mix, flapjacks, cheese, chocolate, dried fruit, nut butter sachets and calorie-dense bars; our guide to the best camping snacks goes through them trip by trip. Snacks often account for 30–40% of total daily calories on a wild camping trip, so plan them as carefully as your main meals.

Drinks are easy to overlook. Hot drinks provide warmth and comfort as well as calories. Instant coffee, tea, hot chocolate sachets, and powdered soup all weigh almost nothing and take up negligible space. On cold, wet days in the UK mountains, a hot drink at a rest stop helps both morale and decision-making.

Emergency and backup food is food you carry but hope not to need: something calorie-dense and compact that sits at the bottom of your pack in case you are out longer than planned, the weather closes in, or you simply underestimate how much you need. A good emergency food option should be shelf-stable, require no preparation, and deliver several hundred calories in a small package.

Which supermarket packet foods are best for camping?

You don't need specialist meals for a night or two. The best supermarket packet foods are the dry ones that only need boiling water, because you carry the calories and pick up the water at camp. Pre-cooked pouches are handy but heavy for what they give you, so save them for short trips or the first evening.

A good cheap camp dinner: 125g of couscous with an 85g tuna pouch and two tablespoons of olive oil stirred through comes to roughly 850 calories, in one pan with almost no washing up. Swap the couscous for a 90g block of instant noodles and it is still about 800.

A practical wild camping food plan

For a two-day, one-night wild camp (the most common format in the UK), a food plan might look something like this:

Day 1: travelling in and setting up camp. Eat a proper meal before you leave. Carry trail snacks for the walk in: nuts, flapjacks, cheese, chocolate, or an energy bar. Eat steadily throughout the approach rather than saving everything for camp. Once pitched, cook your evening meal: a freeze-dried meal or a simple stove-cooked option. Have a hot drink and a final snack before sleep.

Day 2: breaking camp and travelling out. Breakfast can be porridge (instant oats with dried fruit, nuts, and a spoonful of peanut butter is hard to beat for calorie density and speed), or a simpler option like a breakfast bar with a hot drink if you want to pack up quickly. Carry enough snacks for the walk out, plus a small reserve in case the day is longer or harder than expected.

For longer trips of three, four or five days, the principles are the same but the calorie density of your food becomes increasingly important. Every gram you save on food weight compounds over multiple days. On a five-day trip at 3,000 calories a day, food at 2.0 calories per gram weighs 7.5kg; at 4.5 calories per gram it weighs about 3.3kg. That is over 4kg off your back on long mountain days.

Food that works when you don't feel like eating

One of the less-discussed realities of wild camping is that appetite often drops when you need calories most. After a long day in bad weather, when you are cold, tired, and mildly dehydrated, the idea of eating can feel unappealing, even though your body urgently needs fuel.

This is where food characteristics matter as much as food content. Soft, neutral-flavoured, calorie-dense foods that require no preparation tend to be the easiest to eat when appetite is low. Something you can break into pieces and eat gradually, instead of a full meal you have to finish in one sitting, can be the difference between getting calories in and going to sleep underfed.

If this is something you experience regularly, our guide on what to eat when you have no appetite covers the underlying reasons and practical strategies in more detail.

Weight, bulk and packaging

A few practical considerations that affect what you choose to carry:

Packaging waste. Wild camping follows Leave No Trace principles: everything you carry in, you carry out. Choose foods with minimal packaging, or repackage into reusable zip-lock bags before you leave. Remove cardboard outers and decant anything you can. This saves weight, reduces bulk, and means less rubbish to carry.

Water requirements. Freeze-dried meals need water to rehydrate. If you are camping near a water source (a stream, loch or river), this is not a problem, but if your camp is dry, you need to carry the water too. Factor this into your planning, particularly in summer when smaller streams can run dry.

Temperature. Some foods behave differently in cold conditions. Cheese becomes harder to eat. Chocolate can freeze solid. Nut butter becomes stiff. Snacks kept in an inside pocket stay easier to eat than ones left in the lid of your pack, so move the next few hours of food somewhere warm on cold days.

Shelf life. Multi-day trips and trips where food is pre-positioned in drop bags require food that does not spoil. Freeze-dried meals, nuts, dried fruit, energy bars, and similar shelf-stable foods are all suitable. Fresh food (sandwiches, cooked meats, dairy) should generally be consumed on day one.

Where Phoenix Bars fit

I make Phoenix Bars, so I'm biased, but this is the gap they fill: getting more calories in when you are carrying everything. Each one has up to 557 calories in a compact, 120g bar made mainly from gluten-free oats, needs no stove, and won't freeze solid on a cold night. You can eat one whole when cooking isn't practical, break it up through the day, or mix it with water at camp to make porridge. With a shelf life of up to two years, one can live at the bottom of your pack as the emergency food described above. For more ideas see how to use Phoenix Bars, or the full range of Phoenix Bars.

A wild camping food checklist

Before you set off, check you have covered the following:

• Enough total calories for every day plus a reserve.
• A mix of main meals, snacks and hot drinks.
• At least one no-cook, calorie-dense food for emergencies or when cooking is impractical.
• Food repackaged to remove unnecessary weight and bulk.
• Enough water, or access to water, for rehydrating freeze-dried meals.
• A stove, fuel, lighter and eating utensils if you are cooking.
• A zip-lock bag for carrying out all food waste and packaging.
• A pitch you are allowed to use: see where wild camping is legal in the UK.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best food for wild camping in the UK? The best wild camping food balances calorie density, weight, ease of preparation, and taste. Freeze-dried meals work well for main meals. Nuts, cheese, flapjacks, chocolate, and compact energy bars are effective for snacks. The right combination depends on the length and difficulty of your trip.

How much food should I take wild camping? As a practical guideline, aim for roughly 2,500–3,500 calories per day, depending on how far you are walking and how heavy your pack is. For a single overnight trip, this might mean one main evening meal, breakfast, and a generous supply of snacks. For longer trips, plan each day individually and add a reserve.

Can I wild camp without a stove? Yes. Many wild campers choose to go stoveless to save weight and simplify their kit. This means relying entirely on no-cook foods: sandwiches, wraps, cheese, nuts, dried fruit, energy bars, and other ready-to-eat options. It is entirely viable for shorter trips and in warmer conditions, though most people find that hot food and drink significantly improve morale, particularly in poor weather. Our list of no-cook backpacking meals has stoveless dinners and breakfasts that still add up to a full day.

What food keeps without a fridge when camping? Hard cheese such as cheddar or parmesan, cured salami, tortilla wraps, tuna or salmon pouches, nut butter, dried fruit, nuts, oat bars and anything dried that needs water added. In cool UK weather hard cheese and salami are fine for two or three days. Eat anything fresh, such as sandwiches, cooked meat or soft cheese, on the first day.

What should I eat for breakfast when wild camping? Porridge is the standard because it is light to carry and quick: 80g of instant oats with 20g of milk powder, 25g of raisins and 30g of peanut butter comes to roughly 650 calories and needs only a mug of hot water. If you want to pack up fast, a couple of bars and a hot drink in the tent works too.

What is the lightest food to take wild camping? The lightest foods in terms of calories per gram are fats and oils (around 9 calories per gram), followed by nuts and nut butters (5.5 to 6.5), chocolate (5.0 to 5.5), and dense oat bars and flapjacks (about 4.3 to 4.6). Freeze-dried meals are also lightweight because the water has been removed, so you add water from your surroundings instead of carrying it.

How do I keep food safe from animals when wild camping in the UK? The UK does not have bears, but foxes, mice, and birds can be attracted to food left unattended. Keep food in sealed containers or bags, inside your rucksack or hung from a tree branch if you are leaving camp. Never leave food wrappers or scraps. Follow Leave No Trace principles and carry everything out with you.

This guide is part of our series on nutrition for outdoor activities. For related reading, see our guides to hiking and trekking nutrition, ultra-endurance and expedition nutrition, and calorie-dense foods.

"I used Phoenix Bars as part of my expedition to Kang Yatse 2, a 6,000m peak in India. They kept me going during the tough slogs at high altitude and will be buying more for my wild camping trips."

"I'm terrible at making sure I'm properly fuelled on long-distance hikes, so finding these, especially as they're vegan, was a revelation. Tasted great, stayed in one piece in the bottom of my backpack until I needed a bite on the move."

Related guides

Paddleboarding nutrition · Bushcraft food · Youth expedition food

Sources: NHS, Understanding calories; food values from typical UK pack labels, rounded; Phoenix Bar values from our own pack labels.