What do you need an iron for if you are outdoors? Leave the iron at home. It takes too many amps. Use a solar oven to cook. Get a solar pane, a car battery and power inverter to charge your laptop and led lighting. Have fun.
You would just need a solar-battery-inverter system. It's most affordable to piece the components together yourself than to purchase a kit or system. There are some all-in-one systems around, such as the Goal Zero Yeti, but they are very expensive ($1500 or more).
Try to estimate your typical electrical draw (how often you'll be needing 120v AC and for how long). This will help you size the components in the system. If use will be short and infrequent, you can use a small solar panel to "trickle charge" a battery. If draw is more frequent and continuous, a larger solar panel will be needed to maintain charge. This is an inexpensive place to buy panels:
http://www.solarblvd.com/Solar-Panels-&-...
A solar charge controller should be used between the panel and battery to automatically maintain the charge level, otherwise the battery can be damaged by too much voltage. Simple charge controllers start at around $20.
A deep-cycle battery (also known as an RV battery) should be used in the system, not a automotive starting battery. If more battery capacity is needed, you can connect multiple batteries in parallel. The charge controller only needs match or exceed the rating of the panel(s), not the load.
An inverter converts the 12v Direct Current of a battery or bank of batteries into the 120V of Alternating Current for use in household devices. Inverters are available in many sizes.
Clothes irons have pretty high instantaneous consumption (1500 watts or more) so you'll want a 2000+ watt inverter and you may need at least 2 deep cycle batteries connected in parallel. The size of the solar panel then depends on how much you use the iron.
I'm a huge fan of solar, but for just a few weeks, that's probably not the appropriate technology.
Look into getting an inexpensive generator. They're less than $100 at Harbor Freight, if you don't need something that lasts. That, plus a couple 5-gallon cans of gas.
Staying outdoors, it would be better to burn wood for heating, and use electricity sparingly only when you need it, such as for a laptop. A flat-bottomed pot of boiling water, for example, can be used as an iron in a pinch.
For something like an iron, you would want a battery which you could slowly charge over many hours of sunshine before the few minutes of usage for the iron. Alternatively, you could heat the iron on a camp fire, perhaps in a frying pan to keep it from being blackened as the soot will surely rub of on your clothes.
If someone wanted to stay outdoors for a few days or weeks but needed to be able to use things such as an iron, what are some solar powered products they can purchase to do that?
