Best tent for family of 5?

[backonthedecaff]

Having just spent a week camping with our 3 dds (aged 7, 4 and 2)I've realised that our tent with 2 pods is far too small for us all. In fact cramming 3 of them into one pod was two much of a strain for the inner tent, which split around the zip. So, I'm on the hunt for a new tent for next year - keen to capitalise on the end of summer sales... Have spent hours (according to dh) researching this and am none the wiser. Have looked at the reviews here but, bizarrely, none of them seems to mention how many people the tents actually sleep. Ideally would like to have 3 separate sleeping compartments in a tunnel-style tent that will fit in our roofbox. Any good recommendations?

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Hello, this thread is a little old and some of the recommendations might be out of date. For more up-to-date suggestions, take a look at our round-up of Mumsnetters favourite family tents. MNHQ.

Can't make any recommendations but have just bought a Vango Apollo which is theoretically a five man tent even though we are going to be using it for four. I don't think it'll be any good for you though as it doesn't have separate sleeping pods. All the advice I got was to get one which sleeps one more than you actually have.

Here are some 5/6 ones which are on sale at the minute

5/6 man tents

You could prob get them cheaper than listed on that site but it's a starting point.

Well, ours only has two sleeping pods (which we open into one big pod) so probably doesn't fit your bill, but we are a family of 5 (me, dh, dd's aged 10, 7 and 3) and we have the Outwell Montana 6 with the front awning which we absolutely love!

I recommend it to everyone, it's fab!

we have this, loads of room for family of 5 and really easy to put up - can do it single handed!

Thanks for recommendations. The advice on buying a tent that sleeps one more than you have is definitely good. The one we have is supposed to sleep 6, though as it was only £70 from Aldi 3 years ago probably accounts for its quality!

we have just bought a vango icarus 600 for 5 of us,
it has 2 bedrooms which sleep 3 in each one and a huge living area,it has a divider between the bedrooms,but you can take it down if you prefer.

We have an Outwell Nevada L. We love it. Sleeps 6, 1 pod for 2 at one end, then 2 pods which can be unzipped into one at the other end. Huge living area too. Okay at the moment we're only a family of 3 but my last tent is still going strong after ten years so I needed to plan ahead.

This weekend we took the smaller pod down and had 10 adults sat in camping chairs around a table. With room for guitar playing and drums.

We looked at the montana 6 but I like the fact 1 sleeping area is separate in ours. Also when packed up it's smaller, so doesn't take up all the boot space and it doesn't look huge on campsites either.

It takes us about 15 minutes to put up, so easy, we don't even argue.

we have a coleman coastline deluxe 6 berth
it has two pods- one end is split into 2 doubles (but can be made into one 4 space)and the other end has another double pod. At the minute we don't put up the other pod as the 5 of us can fit in the one end so it gives us more living space.

Really really easy to put it up
the first time we did it was on the campsite without instructions and 3 small children 'helping'

it packs away into a holdall sized bag

hth

just to add - our boys are the same age as yours

coleman coastline deluxe 6 berth

we got a good deal so let me know if you want to know where we bought it :)

We have the Gelert Zenith 8, it has 4 sleeping pods, there are only 4 of us but we like standing and walking space.

DD's share 1 and DH in another, loo etc, in another and the 4th for a den.

Easy to put up, and spacious enough for 6'4" DH to not have to stoop anywhere.

Have you considered a 5m Bell tent? They have so much room for kids to run around in and take 15 mins to put up and abou 20 mins to take down.

The Amazon 600 is fantastic. We have the previous version (slightly bigger) and can't fault it. It has three good-sized bedrooms, plus a fully enclosed porch. Table easily fits inside for those wet days. It really is fab. The front unzips so that the whole front is open iyswim. Very sturdy with lots of nice touches (pockets for the curtains to fold into, lots of pockets and hangy things). So many people have admired it while we were camping [preens]. The only thing is it may not fit in your roof box - ours goes in the boot and the rest of the stuff goes in the roofbox instead! If you look on ebay you may be able to pick up an Amazon 800 (the slighly bigger, older model like ours) for a good price. I think ours new cost £385 if that helps.