Should we buy a tent?

[Pufflemum]

Hello I am hoping for some advice. We are considering buying our first tent.

Have two DC aged 6 and 8 who love the outdoors, went glamping twice last year and said 'it was the best week ever'. However my experience of camping was in a trailer tent as a child 25 years ago and my DH has never been.

I have looked at the Outwell Montana 6p and this would fit our budget. Do any of you lovely people have one? How easy is it to put up and take down? Also do you need a huge car? We only have a normal 4 door saloon type car.

Finally, how soon in advance do you need to book sites? My thought was that we would mainly go for weekends. So if we see the weather will be good I would pack up on a Friday and we would head to the New forest or the South Coast. Is this feasible or a dream?

All advice really appreciated

[hillbilly]

Can't help you with the tent but it's a very popular one I think. We have an Outwell Oakland XL which suits us perfectly(kids 7 & 5). Regarding booking sites, I guess it depends on what type of camping you want to do. Many of the tent-only, campfire allowing sites get booked up very quickly, especially if they have been mentioned in any of the weekend supplements or Cool Camping. There are many other sites though which may not be as popular but perfectly lovely and less well known.

I'm planning to book for May half term and hope for the best. Last May was wet but we still had a fabulous few days not celebrating the Jubilee in Norfolk.

[gerbilsarefun]

I don't know either about the tent but Youtube should have videos of people putting them up. Generally, if you are using airbeds/campbeds you need at least 2 more berths than people, we (4 of us) fit snugly into our 6 berth tent. Outwell are at the top end, quality wise. We fill an estate car with our equipment, tent, airbeds, cooker, table, electric cool box, chairs, and not many clothes. We also take duvets which take up loads of room. Our favourite sites are the Camping and Caravanning Club Certificated Sites, these are small, fairly basic and cheap. In my experience they don't tend to get booked up, we have been to a couple, in high season, and have been the only ones there. Camping is great fun, if you love the outdoors, there's nothing like sitting with a glass of wine watching the kids running around or even sometimes I join them!!

[Pufflemum]

Thanks Gerbil. Have looked into this further and we now think we should get a smaller tent as we will probably only use it for weekends in the short term. I checked out the Youtube videos and i think 40 mins to an hour to erect on a friday night would put us off going so often.

Therefore can anyone advise me on either the Icarus or the Outwell Birdland?

[gerbilsarefun]

We have an Icarus 6, quite easy to put up, lay it out, thread the poles through then peg it down. The bedroom pods are already fastened. It is quite small tent but it has plenty of space inside, standing room in the deceptively large living area and enough room for 4 airbeds. It is a luxury for us, our last tent was quite small, so it's like a mansion.

[sillymummy11]

My friend has the Icarus and loves it. She put it up by herself in 20mins.

[pausingforbreath]

I have one of these

www.caseysoutdoorleisure.co.uk/item/Kampa/Frinton-4-Classic-Weekend-Tent-2012/1NB

I have the front canopy for it also.

Pretty much same size as Icarus 5, this tent replaced my Icarus. It's benefits were the poly cotton material, the side covered door ( fantastic in rain) but takes only the same time ( very quick and easy to put up) as the Icarus happy days.

If its only for weekends , this would be fine for the 4 of you.

I also have the Kampa Holkham which is a 6 berth bigger poly cotton tent.

I also have a ' few' other tents too, so in direct answer to your question yes you should buy a tent.

[DeepRedBetty]

Hi, Gerbil's right about berth numbers - We needed to buy an extra porch to make the four of us comfortable in our six berth Big Tent. If you're going to invest in a good brand like Outwell, go for the biggest size.

For weekend camping I now use a canopy shelter and several 2/3 man tents, children are teens now and don't want to share with parents. The Big Tent only comes out for the week + expeditions.

I cart it all around in a Scenic with a trailer for the big expeditions.

The moment a site gets into Cool Camping the prices shoot up and it gets booked up to buggery .

I've got a handful of Certificated Sites which I use, but I'm not going to tell any of you lot where they are in case there's no room on them when I next go .

[Wiggletastic]

Yes, get a tent, but if its only for weekends get something that is quick to put up and down or you will soon get fed up. We have a Quechua Seconds 4.2 pop-up family tent from Decathlon that takes 10 mins max to put up and same to take down (costs about £200). It would be 'snug' for four of you (there are three of us) but fine for weekends when you hopefully won't really be in it much, really just to sleep. We had a normal saloon car with roof box which was a squeeze for all our camping gear and now have a people carrier which is much better. We are members of the Camping and Caravanning club and tend to use their sites which generally have good facilities for families. There are videos on the Quechua website that show how to put the tent up and down (there is a knack to it) and lots of reviews and photos on ukcampsite website.

[SparkyUK]

I would second getting a Quecha pop-up tent. We have a Vango Samara 600 which is great for weeks away, but we have the Quechua Seconds 4.1 (which is one big bedroom+living space) and it is really easy to get up and down and the four of us actually spent a week in france in it without going crazy (but DSs were only 1 and 3 at the time so take up a bit less space!)
Now the thought of spending half an hour putting up a tent for 3 days seems a lot less appealing ...