please can you choose a tent for me?

[fingerwoman]

we're (hopefully) off on our first family camping trip this year, and need a nice tent as we only have teeny ones atm.
The choice is just too tremendous for me to even begin to choose one lol
we don't have a huge budget, (ideally under £100) it doesn't need to be huge, but I think we would need 2 bedrooms. it'll be me and dp, ds1 (3) and ds2 (3months atm, but older when we go)
oh and dp and myself are both quite tall, so sleeping areas need to be relatively big.

if you can't be arsed to look for me lol, could you give me some ideas of useful things to look out for when buying a tent and some good places to buy from?
thank you

[fingerwoman]

no-one???

[Lucycat]

will have a think and get back to you after Ashes to Ashes......

check out Argos?

[sandyballs]

Coleman Cedar Creek. 2 bedrooms, big enough to stand up in, but bit over budget - about 160 quid from what I can see on line lately.

Haven't got one yet, but really really want one and the reviews are great (on here and elsewhere!).

[MaureenMLove]

Argos is a good start for a starter tent. Good prices too. We bought our tent from an Ebay shop and although we could have been in big trouble, as we had no recommendations, we came up trumps! Beautiful tent, well made and good looking iykwim! We boughtthis one NOT at that price though! I believe, including P&P is was £124 and that was this time last year! Its certainly worth looking at the other Skandika tents though, I would highly recommend them.

[fingerwoman]

ok, have just spoken to dp, who says he would rather have one big bedroom as he is worried that ds1 could potentially unzip his room and get out without us knowing.

so one bedroom please :D

[MaureenMLove]

Argos it is then. I know until last year they did a one bedroom one. Tall enough to stand in, although not a whole load of space outside of the bedroom, if its raining!

This isn't the one I was thinking of, but its a good cheap start.

[worzella]

Usually, you can zip the compartments so that the pull bit of the zip is at the top of the tent so little ones can't unzip themselves. We have 3dc and 2 bedrooms - I wsh we had 3...

[Peachy]

Deffo go for Argos- we started with Argos and just upgraded when we worked out what we wanted.

bedrooms: if you think it will last a few years, lots have a divider curtain, so you can pin it up when LO is small and then let it down as they grow older.

Or if you get one with bigger rooms, you can of course use a spare for storage 9always a boon)

[MaureenMLove]

Oh you fingerwoman! You've got me looking for extensions to my current tent now! I want an awning! Its been such a lovely spring day here, I'm in the mood for camping!

[Peachy]

coleman tents are fine, under a hundred quid but with a 5 metre dimension and 190cm height would be comfortable as well as affordable.

[fingerwoman]

so, I don't need to worry about how much hydrostatic head it has then? or whether it has taped seams etc etc???? lol
I have done my head in comparing tents last night and now I think i'm even more confused than when I started

i had almost settled on this one til dp said about just having one room.

[MaureenMLove]

What you could do with, is going to a big tent shop, where they have them all up to look at. Where abouts in the country are you?

[Rowlers]

I would look out for a few things personally.

• Hydrostatic head is just how much water can be chucked at it before it leaks - the higher the better. I'm paranoid about tents leaking so I would go for high HH.
• How many rooms you want and how big you want them. As said earlier, many tents have divider between 2 bedrooms you can unzip to make one bigger room. Tunnel tents best for this I would say.
• How much room you have in your car. Some pack away much smaller than others. Look at pack size if boot space is an issue. And weight could be an issue for some. Tents with steel poles are heavier as a rule than those with fibreglass poles.
• Ease of ahem, erection. Some go up in a flash, others are more fiddly.

If you can, go to a tent show / shop and see them up. It makes a big difference when you can actually go inside the things.

[MaureenMLove]

The only thing about that one, is that you won't be able to stand up in the bedrooms. That would get on my nerves tbh. It'll be hard work getting dressed!

[fingerwoman]

hmm so what do you think of this one

or this one?

we have plenty of room in the car. and dp can be in charge of the "erection"

I am in the south-east. I know of one big camping place. maybe I did ought to see some in the flesh, so to speak

[MaureenMLove]

South East? Well, depending on how far South East you mean, there's a big camping warehouse in Gillingham in Kent and another one in Southend. Do a Google Search if they aren't close enough! Like the second one.

[Rowlers]

Go see if you can.
Might make things clearer.
Only other thing I'd say is buy bigger than 4 man for 4 people if you can.
Ours is a 6 berth. Nice and spacious. You might regret getting one which is too small.
What are you going to sleep on? If using airbeds, check they'l fit in bedroom compartments.
Ours is an Outwell but cost over £200 so over your budget. Outwell are good tents though.

[fingerwoman]

yeah I had wodnered if we ought to really look at 5 or 6 berths. as we'll probably have tons of baggage with 2 kids
hmmm
perhaps this one then?

[MaureenMLove]

Thats nice. Good you can remove part of it for a bigger living area too.

[fingerwoman]

yeah, that's what I thought. or we can just stuff crap in it lol
will deffo try and see some before making a purchase though.
thank you for all the help though, it definitely helps having someone to point out pros and cons (like not being able to stand up) that i wouldn't have thought of

[MaureenMLove]

No problem. If you can get youself to a tent warehouse, do. Leave your credit card at home though! It isn't just the tent you need to make a decision on and drool over!

[GrinningSoul]

there's a good website for tent discussions - i bought a starcamper from them last year and we love it.

[Peachy]

Yep, definitely recommend UK Campsit

might be worth remembering that all the ranges launch 2008 tents and that most camp shops won't put their displays up until AMrch / April- check for dates as an early Easter may alter that. our local one goes for April as the start usually.

Always worth a looka round a camp shop- the tent we have and which we love ( a massive 8 berth ontario but then we're expecting dc4 ) we never even considered until we saw it pitched, we ahd gone along to look at a completely different one.

HH- I'd never buy one under 2000 although lots of people are fine with 1500, we do a lot of earlys eason camping usually though. Our current tent has 5000 (!) but I am not convinced there's any extra benefit after about 2000 unless under water camping is your thang? LOL

The ability to add a canopy or annexe can be handy 9for cooking especially)- we have a canopy BUT you can equally add a day tent at a later stage should you wish.

I would never own a tent without a SIG, again others feel the exact opposite so thats personal preference.
Try to avoid tents that are too dark in colour as they get ridiculously hot unless they are canvas, whereas one too lihgt will be a pin in the mornings.