I think that's a trap. Much like an acquaintance of mine whose hobby was putting together the absolute lightest road bicycle he could. He'd gush about the new part he'd spent eighty euros on that saved fifteen grams off the bike's total weight! It's not the worst hobby to have of course, but he didn't care that all the savings totaled up came to less of a difference than the rider skipping breakfast.

I kind of started out that way when I was putting together my first camping bag. I still have the Coleman Biker sleeping bag - the vacuum-compressible stuff sack it came in was an absolute pain to deal with, and I was happy when it tore so I had the excuse to throw it out. I still use the sleeping bag, but just stuff it into the airbag that my sleeping mat came in.

My first sleeping mat folded down really small. But it was uncomfortable as hell. At some point I realized that if I can't get a good night's sleep, I simply will never choose to camp, and the whole rest of the setup makes no sense anyway - so I spent two hundred euros on what was, at the time, the absolute top-of-the-line thermarest. But it's not particularly small.

Ultralight backpackers will tell you to use your folded-up jacket as a pillow. Screw that, I loved the inflatable pillow I got at the Decathlon in Hong Kong.

This summer, my partner and I were doing a two-week road trip down the length of Norway, and she didn't really have any camping gear - only an oversized sleeping bag that she'd used for festivals and canoe trips. So she invested in a nice - not absolute best, but maybe third most expensive - Ferrino sleeping mat, and it's better than my thermarest. She got an inflatable pillow, and it's bigger and more comfy than mine. Part of our summer camping involved our 30+kg dog, so we got a nice big 3-person Coleman Festival tent with blackout windows and a separate "hallway" - it packs up only a tiny little bit larger than my old Darwin 2!

All of the stuff I listed in my post above, plus all of HER stuff, and the larger tent, fits into a single duffel that's larger than my drybag, but definitely still a reasonable size for me to put on my pillion. And since we were in a car, we could just leave the car at the trailhead and easily carry all the camping stuff a few hundred meters to a nice spot.

You're on a motorcycle - you're space- and weight-limited, but you're not THAT limited! In the world of camping gear, if you go for slightly above the absolute lowest weight and size, you get a MASSIVE comfort advantage. Gear that's maybe 15% bigger by volume will be 200% more comfy.

The thing about the ultralight absolutists, you have to remember, they are the sort of people who go on multi-day mountain trail runs, surviving on protein bars and dehydrated fruit skins, in the rain and snow, for fun. They are all confirmed masochists, and their camping setups reflect the fact that they derive pleasure out of their own suffering!