Disclosed herein are methods of detecting HIV-1 nucleic acids in a sample (such as from a sample containing or suspected to contain HIV-1 nucleic acid). In some examples, the methods include loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) or reverse transcription-LAMP (RT-LAMP). In some examples, the methods include contacting a sample with one or more sets of LAMP primers specific for HIV-1 (such as LAMP primers specific for an HIV-1 integrase nucleic acid or LAMP primers specific for an HIV-1 reverse transcriptase nucleic acid) under conditions sufficient to produce an amplification product and detecting the amplification product. Sets of LAMP primers for detection of HIV-1 integrase nucleic acids (such as SEQ ID NOs: 8-14 or 8-27) and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase nucleic acids (such as SEQ ID NOs: 1-7) are provided herein.