What Gear Do You Actually Need to Paddleboard Camp Around Lake Tahoe
The night before my best friend Michael Whalen and I set out to paddleboard around Lake Tahoe, our gear situation was a mess. Dry bags were short. One of our boards had no clean way to mount a power bank. Camp stove fuel was split across a dozen half-empty canisters that needed a connector to consolidate. My camera gear sat untouched on the floor until the morning of day one. We figured it out, but figuring it out on the fly is not a plan, it's a scramble.
This is the gear list I'd hand someone before they make the same mistakes we did, built from five days and seventy-two miles of actually needing this stuff to work.
The Board and Paddle
Each of us paddled our own board, fully loaded with camping gear strapped to the deck. A board that handles well loaded is different from one that handles well empty, so if you're planning a multi-day trip, test your setup with real weight on it before you're a mile offshore and finding out the hard way that it tracks differently than expected.
Dry Bags and Why You Need More Than You Think
We came up short on dry bags the night before departure, which is one of those problems that seems minor until you're trying to figure out what stays dry and what doesn't with hours to go before launch. Bring more capacity than your gear list suggests you need. Extra room costs you almost nothing. Not enough room costs you a wet sleeping bag on night one.
Camping Gear That Actually Fits
Everything you carry on a multi-day SUP trip has to fit on the deck of a paddleboard, which is a much smaller footprint than a backpacking pack or a kayak hatch. That means prioritizing gear that packs small and light without sacrificing what you actually need to sleep well and eat well across several days. We kept our setup minimal by necessity, and it worked, but it took real thought about what earned its place on the board.
Power, Camera Gear, and Staying Charged
If you're documenting the trip, power becomes one of the harder logistics problems to solve. One of our boards had no clean way to mount a power bank, which we had to work around on the fly. If you're bringing a camera, plan your charging setup with the same seriousness you'd give to food or water, because a dead battery on day three means you lose the ability to document the rest of the trip.
Food, Water, and Fuel
We resupplied at small markets along the route rather than carrying five full days of food from the start, which kept our load lighter but meant building the route around known stopping points where resupply was actually possible. Camp stove fuel gave us trouble before we even launched, with half-empty canisters that needed consolidating. Start with full canisters and a clear count of how many cooking days you're actually planning for.
Sun Protection for Days on Open Water
Open water reflects sun in a way that shoreline hiking doesn't prepare you for. We picked up SPF 100 sunscreen the day before departure, something neither of us had seen before, and it made a real difference across five full days of exposure with almost no shade available. Don't underestimate how much sun you'll take on across multiple consecutive days on the water.
What I'd Change Next Time
I'd sort every piece of gear at least two full days before launch instead of the night before. I'd test the power bank mounting situation on land before assuming it would work on the water. And I'd pack the camera gear first, not last, since it turned out to be the piece I was most anxious about and the one I had the least margin to fix once we were on the water.
Why Testing Your Setup Beforehand Matters More Than Buying the Right Gear
The gear itself mattered less than whether we'd actually tested it together as a system before we needed it to work. The power bank mounting problem on one of our boards wasn't a gear failure. It was a testing failure. We hadn't put the full loaded setup together before the night before departure, and that's exactly when problems like that surface, at the worst possible time to solve them calmly.
If there's one change I'd make to how we approached gear for this trip, it's running a full dry test of the entire loaded setup, board, dry bags, camera mounts, power, food, at least a few days before launch. Not to check that each item exists, but to check that all of it works together the way you're actually going to use it on the water.
What We Left Behind and Didn't Miss
We kept our kit tighter than most multi-day trips I've done for brand work, mostly out of necessity given how little space a paddleboard actually offers compared to a backpack or a kayak hull. We left behind extra clothing layers, backup cooking equipment, and anything that felt like a nice-to-have rather than a need. None of it was missed. A tighter kit also meant faster packing and unpacking at each stop, which mattered more than I expected once we were five days deep and tired every evening.
How Our Gear List Changed Once We Were Actually on the Water
A few assumptions we made before departure turned out to be wrong once we were living with the gear day to day. We underestimated how much sun protection we'd actually go through, restocking sunscreen partway through the trip rather than the single application per day we'd planned around. We also underestimated how quickly camp fuel would run down given how much we relied on hot food after long paddling days. Plan for consumption rates that are higher than your first estimate, especially for anything tied to sun exposure or cooking. The same goes for battery power. We went through more charge cycles than expected once we accounted for camera use, phone navigation, and general use at camp each evening, so build in more capacity than your first estimate suggests you'll need, and carry a backup power source rather than relying on a single unit for the whole trip.
Before You Close This Tab
What piece of your own gear setup have you never actually tested under real load?
How would you solve for charging camera or phone batteries across multiple days with no outlet?
What is the one item you'd rather over-pack than risk running short on?
Would your current gear list actually fit on the deck of a loaded paddleboard?
Dalton Johnson is a photographer, filmmaker, and brand storyteller based in South Lake Tahoe, California. Over the past decade he has worked with brands including Patagonia, GoPro, Arc'teryx, Four Seasons, Nike, Rivian, and Ford Bronco across all seven continents. He is the creator of the Follow The Journey distribution framework, which has produced over one million organic views per 30-day cycle without paid media. His work includes two published books, an award-winning documentary that aired on PBS, and more than fifty commercial spots directed. He runs Stories by Dalton on Substack, read by more than 34,000 subscribers.