To take a 4 man tent to the beach?

[Snailsetssail]

We are going away (hopefully) in August within the U.K. and lan on spending most of the time on the beach (with waterproofs if needed).

We have a beach wind tent but it’s very open to the elements. I’ve seen a basic 4 man tent at Tesco cheap- would I be crazy to take it to the beach? It’s a very simple dome tent, no inner compartments etc.

Don't you want to see the beach though? What are you going to do in the tent?

Why? Surely the beach wind tent is open because that's the point of being at the beach. If you want to be at the beach, why be inside a tent?

Depends how busy/crowded the beach is. Deserted beach, fine.

Busy beach, hard to find space not so fine....maybe if you’re happy to be right at the back of the beach so you’re not spoiling the view for others.

Those very cheap single layer tents are basically the same thing as the beach shelter tents anyway, and not much different in size. I think it's fine on a beach with lots of space. A bit anti-social on a packed one (but would you want to be on a packed one?). The last few times I've been to the beach we could have put up a marquee each and still had space.

Quiet beach. As somewhere to put our things while we are in rock pools. Somewhere for the kids to eat lunch without moaning about the sand, somewhere for baby to nap, a bit of shelter if it starts heavy raining.

If its a nice empty beach and a quickmpop up tent then it sounds like a good base idea to me, even just to get fully out of the sun for 10 minutes.

You can actually get beach tents for this exact purpose.

www.vidaxl.co.uk/e/8719883783789/vidaxl-pop-up-beach-tent-220x220x160-cm-blue

[quote OneForMeToo]You can actually get beach tents for this exact purpose.

www.vidaxl.co.uk/e/8719883783789/vidaxl-pop-up-beach-tent-220x220x160-cm-blue[/quote]
That one is 3 times the cost of the tent I’ve seen!

This is the tent. Not pop up but very simple with just 4 poles.

I’m not surprised by that. It’s because of the pop/pull up nature plus the way it’s designed as a beach tent rather than tent tent means nobody would question it on a beach. I’ve seen a lot of them in Wales.

I'd think it was a bit odd to see a full size tent on a beach, it's very different to a pop up one. I'm not sure why but it seems a little selfish to take up the space a tent needs, I know you say it's quiet but I'd think it anti-social

Check the height of that. It might not be very good for actually sitting in. But if it ticks the boxes for for it for some reason I thought like a vis a vis 😅

I think it would be fine as long as your mindful as to where you pitch it. I would be a bit peeved if you came and plonked it right in front of my family blocking our view but assuming you won’t do that I can’t see why not

Will you need different tent pegs, don't the usual sun shelter beach tents have bigger tent pegs?

But they're not very different to a pop-up one at all. I've had a pop-up one and a cheap "normal" tent and they're basically identical, except for the opening at the front.

beach shelters usually have spf but tents don't

We always take a pop up tent to the beach. Good to keep all the bags together safely. And it provides shade

That would probably be fine if you can pitch it out of everybody's way!
Be aware it will get full of sand.. and check it's also got a vent at the back of the baby going to sleep in it as they get very hot so u need through draft
We had a beach shelter about £20 on eBay for same reasons..

We will definitely be mindful where we plonk it, and wouldn’t be using it if it was really sunny. It’s more for windy rainy days with 3 under 4’s as a bit of a base really.

I would say try it out and see if it works. You may need some heavy duty bags to fill with sand and place inside in the corners so it won't blow away.
If it doesn't work well at least you have a decent play tent for the garden.

Windy days may make it pretty hard to put up and take down as well as staying put. We used to have a pop up beach tent and struggled at times to get it right.

I get the point about it being similar to a pop up beach tent but I would think a 4 man tent will be quite a bit bigger and will take up more room. You have to think of the height of it too - not just for sitting in but the amount of room it will take up and how much of other people's views it will block. I think it might be ok if the beach was really deserted but honestly - on even a half busy beach I think you might end up taking up more than your fair share of space and views.

Last year we had a pop up beach tent on the beach. It was reasonably quiet. We put our stuff in it (nothing valuable) and went to get ice creams. In the time it took us to walk to the esplanade from our tent (4 minutes) a wind sprang up and dislodged the tent. It then poured with rain and we ended up soggy with an upside down, sandy tent.
I think next year we'll secure it better!

We used a large Beach pop up tent that had a door. It was ideal getting changed out of wet swimsuits, and if one of the little ones needed a potty. How big is the tent including height?

It’s H130xW210xD240cm