Let's face it: nobody likes mosquitoes. They're persistent, numerous, and extremely annoying if you spend any substantial amount of time outdoors. They leave you covered in itchy welts, and worse still, they kill hundreds of thousands of people each year by spreading life-threatening diseases like malaria, West Nile virus, and dengue fever.

If you're not looking to become a walking pincushion for these little blood-suckers, you have a few options. You could soak yourself in DEET, cover every square inch of your body in clothing, or even lather up your skin in a nice thick coat of mud. However, there's another option that's significantly more convenient and kills two birds with one stone: mosquito repellent lanterns.

Left: the Thermacell Camp Lantern. Right: the Thermacell Patio Lantern.

Thermacell offers a variety of lanterns that provide both nighttime illumination and relief from mosquitoes, black flies, and other biting pests. These lanterns use butane to heat and vaporize Allethrin, a synthetic copy of a natural repellent found in Chrysanthemum flowers, providing a 15×15-foot zone of protection. They also brighten your yard, porch, or camp site with soft, white light.

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Thermacell products have been tested by the U.S. Army in Turkey and Costa Rica for effectiveness against mosquitoes and in Maine against black flies. Also, the U.S. Department of Defense has used Thermacell for over a decade to keep sand flies, no-see-ums and other pests at bay. The products have even been approved by the EPA.

Depending on your needs, Thermacell has several different styles of lanterns to fit the bill. We'd be most interested in the rugged Camp Lantern, which offers 300 lumens of light output, low/medium/high/SOS settings, a color-changing battery life indicator LED, and up to 50 hours of run time using D-cell batteries. For inconspicuous use around the house, the Patio Lantern features a more traditional look with 4 LED lights, high and low settings, and AA battery power.

To learn more about Thermacell and how these mosquito repellent lanterns work, visit Thermacell.com/mosquito-repellent.

Written by Patrick McCarthy