Best camping trolley for summer 2022(1)

If you’ve ever been to a festival, you’ll have seen plenty of more prepared festivalgoers towing all their gear in those festival trolley things. Perhaps you’ve seen someone make a train out of trolleys like spotted above at Download Festival.

We’ve explained the different types of trolleys used in summer, along with some tips for choosing the best one for your next event.

Below that, we’ve found the best festival trolleys of each type, and where you can find them.

The best of the metal trolleys have big rubber tyres, so should be better suited for the bumpy ground and shouldn’t get clogged with mud.

The best full-metal festival trolley

This option from KCT comes with side panels double the height of the two trolleys above. It’s still fully metal and has fully rotational front steering.

If you’re carrying a lot of stuff that isn’t too heavy (ie pretty much anything other than drinks) the higher side panels mean you can pile more stuff in without resorting to bungee cords or tape – however, don’t get tempted to fill it up to the max and keep the heavy stuff on the bottom – otherwise, it’ll become ‘top-heavy’ and more likely to tip over on a sharp corner or on a bumpy bit of a festival field.

To keep the higher trolley manoeuvrable without tipping, its maximum load, by weight, is actually slightly less than the trolleys above at 350kg rather than 400kg – although as we say every time, don’t go anywhere near the max ratings when you’ve got half a mile of festival fields to cross. A few crates of beer on the bottom layer, camping equipment in the middle and sleeping bags + pillows on top and you’re good to go.

Umi by Amazon Metal Utility Cart

The Umi Metal Cart is probably the best type of festival cart for most cases, with a full steel frame along with ‘off-road’ wheels and pneumatic tyres making it one of the best suited for the rough terrain of a festival. It also has fully rotational front steering, so you can make really tight turns with its padded handle. Just make them slowly and it won’t topple over.

That 400lbs / 182KG max load is pretty massive, though keep in mind while it’s sold as ‘all-terrain’ that max load rating isn’t based on journeying for miles across rough festival terrain. It’s sold as “designed to overcome all surfaces” by the manufacturer, but they mean carrying compost around a big back garden and not beer for miles across a festival.

Try not to max out the capacity with loads of beer all at once! Stick to one layer of beer crates then pile stuff like tents on top and tie it all together. Do a few leisurely trips from the car rather than one that’s an ordeal.

This is our best pick, and it’ll be our Glastonbury trolley later this year. They’re fit to survive summer after summer of festivals without so much as a flat tyre, but it’s sold with a warranty should things go wrong.