who wants to help me choose a tent?

[eggybrokenoff]

my adult, single, independent sister likes to come on camping trips with me and my dh and dcs, and our parents. she doesnt have her own tent and usually sleeps in a small hike tent on one of our pitches and we use our cooking gear etc. she is fed up with it and wants her own tent and equipment so she can habe own space but also use it on weekends on her own etc. so what would you recommend ? needs to be tall enough to stand and maybe get a chair and table in, poss two bedrooms, and easy enough for one peraon to pitch? i was thinking something like a big tunnel tent with a room at each end and sitting area in middle where you can peg out the door in middle to make a sun canopy thingy.

get a really interesting tent company, lightweight geodesic dome really lovely to be in, easy to put up, any size, and link together.

very social to sit in, great internal space, and brilliant.

check the real interesting tent company on FB.

I have very limited camping experience, but we opted for a vango icarus (available from 4-8 berth) its a tunnel tent with bedrooms at the back, tall enough to stand in and plenty of room for chairs etc. It's v quick and easy to erect, just insert the three poles and peg out. If you buy the king poles you can make the door into a canopy. We wanted something for 1/2 nights, so didn't want to buy something that took ages to put up, does the job perfectly.

I pitch our Vango Artemis (5man) tent with canopy by myself.
I do have three dc hindering helping, of which one can reliably stand still and hold a pole without dropping it - so actually easier to do it myself

My husband swears by Jack Wolfskin, they are a bit on the expensive side but great quality. A seam broke on our 2 man tent about a year after buying it and we sent it off to be repaired but they replaced it so they have really good customer services.

What about one of the Quechua family pop ups? Assuming she has a car of course? They have a bedroom at each end and a living space in the middle and you can stand up in them. Plus you can increase your living space by putting a tarp out the front.

And I can pitch my one on my own (albeit it is a 4.1 so not with a second bedroom but I doubt that would make things much harder). And after a few practise runs, packing them up is easy.

Maybe this one: www.decathlon.co.uk/seconds-family-42xl-illum-fre-id_8245574.html (extra large with lights)

or this one: www.decathlon.co.uk/seconds-family-42-tent-id_8245452.html

or this one: www.decathlon.co.uk/seconds-family-42-xl-tent-id_8245573.html (extra large without lights)

or even this one (because I think they do have limited stock still in some stores):
www.decathlon.co.uk/seconds-family-42-xl-4-man-family-pop-up-tent-beige-id_8171231.html

The last one is last season's and is not as high in the middle so she would need to consider how much head space she needs before buying. it is a really good price though...

pop up is a great idea why didnt i think of that?! others are fab too but i can see pop up really meeting her needs. and she would be pitched unpacked with wine in hand before we had even started!

Went camping at w/e with friend who unveiled her new Quechua pop-up. Lots of space, pitched and dismantled in slightly less time than it took me to do mine (Terra Nova Voyager - so not what your sis is looking for) and stood up to torrential rain (north Cornwall - flash flooding further down the coast, max rainfall where we were in excess of 32mm/hour - sad spod that I am, I checked the radar data!). Flaps in the wind though, so she had rather a sleepless night when the wind got up.

One slight downside to a pop up is you can't air it indoors, you have to wait for a dry spell and put it up in the garden (if you have one and you have space). For me this is quite a big consideration, as they go mildewed really quickly if you don't look after them.

Check out putting them away again esp for lady on her own.
brute force and, er, technique is needed for some. (obv we wouldn't have been cruel enough to laugh at the poor man across the field trying to put his pop-up family tent down after its first outing, and was still attempting to do so when we came back from our walk an hour and a half later I gather he'd chased it round the field several times with near misses with dhs help he did it eventually).

I agree with MrsBottesini that putting them away can be a challenge but, honestly, if you watch the online videos a few times and practise in your garden, it really is just a knack. It probably does help to have two people to get it back in the bag again but it is definitely not impossible to do it on your own as I have done it and I am only 5'4" so do not have especially good reach or unusual strength.

And the speed with which you have your chairs out and your wine bottle open makes a few practise runs and a bit of unwieldy grappling all worthwhile.

this?

I used to hate putting up and folding our non-pop up on my own, this has transformed camping for me.