The Blackstone 17 inch is a tabletop propane griddle with a cast iron cooktop, sized for a couple and small enough to live in a truck bed. Ours has been the most used piece of outdoor gear we own since the day we seasoned it, and if you full-time in an RV and cook at all, we think it earns its storage space faster than anything else you can buy for the campsite.
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Why we bought it
For our first few months in the Brinkley, every meal happened inside the rig. That works, but in 400 square feet the smell of bacon hangs around until Thursday, and running the stove in summer means the air conditioner fights your dinner. Meanwhile, every RVer we met asked why we didn't have a Blackstone yet.
We held out for a while, then bought the 17 inch tabletop model. The size was the deciding factor. The bigger cart-style griddles are great for a family, but for two people the 17 gives you enough surface for a full meal and still packs into a basement compartment or the truck bed between stops. We filmed the whole unboxing, seasoning, and first meal in our first Blackstone video, rookie mistakes included.
How we use it
That first cook set the pattern: burgers, bacon, and eggs on the griddle, fries in the air fryer inside running off solar. Since then the griddle comes out at almost every site where we stay more than a night. When we were boondocking at Richard Bong in Wisconsin, Fabiola made fried rice on it for dinner and cooked extra portions as meal prep, so on the next travel day we had ready food instead of a gas station decision. In Marquette we did chicken, asparagus, and onions on it before hiking Presque Isle Park.
Cleanup is the part people don't believe until they own one. While the surface is still warm you scrape the leftovers into the grease cup, wipe it down, and lay on a thin coat of oil for next time. Two minutes, no sink full of pans, and the seasoning gets better with every meal.
What to know before buying
Season it before you cook on it. The cast iron top arrives with a factory coating, and you need to burn in thin coats of oil until the surface turns glossy black. We did three rounds, and everything has released cleanly since. Skip it and your first meal will stick and taste like the factory.
Sort out your fuel plan first. Our day one attempt to run it off the RV's onboard propane did not go as planned, and we ended up on a Walmart run for a green camping bottle with the burgers already thawed. The eventual fix was a low pressure quick connect hose that feeds it from the rig's tanks, but out of the box, plan on 1 pound bottles.
Give it something proper to stand on. It is a tabletop unit, and the folding table we ordered for it unfolded to roughly knee height before we discovered the legs adjusted. Check height specs, not just size.
And be honest about your group. The 17 is right for two, maybe three. Cooking for a family, you will want the 22 or 28.
Where to get it
We bought the Blackstone 17 inch griddle on Amazon. Two add-ons we would buy again on day one: the Blackstone tool kit, because the scrapers matter more than the spatulas, and the fitted carry bag that keeps road dust off the cooktop in the truck bed. Everything Blackstone we own is collected in our Blackstone Grilling idea list.
For the table, the accessories, and the rest of how we cook on the road, see our full Blackstone and camp kitchen setup. And since half our griddle meals happen off-grid, the SOK lithium batteries that power the air fryer side of dinner are worth a look too.