where to buy a tent in the sales?

[darlingbudsofjuly]

Advice please!
We want to buy our own camping equipment this year - car camping, probably 2 weekends/year, though could be more if we love it. 5 of us (kids 9, 7, 4). Likely to be with friends who have massive family tents.
Do we:

• get a massive family tent that will take us all, plus table and chairs etc. if it's pouring? or
• get a 3/4 man tent for us plus youngest, and the two eldest share a 2-man? (we have a v elderly 2-man)

If we do the second, what do we do with stove, table etc.?

Budget not a massive issue, though we don't want to spend crazy amounts of money as we won't use it that much. Storage much more of a problem, but again, not impossible.

I'd get a big tent for you all. Most places I have seen specify you can only have one tent per pitch, so you'd be paying double pitch charges if you got a smaller tent.

I'd probably get a 6 berth with a porch. Go Outdoors usually have good offers and if you join the Tent Talk group on Facebook I think they offer a 10% discount too.

I agree a big tent would be best. If you'll only be camping for a couple of nights at a time I'd choose a tunnel tent as they are quite quick to put up and take down.

Go outdoors
My children think it's a day out :o it's just so exciting!

oh really, that's interesting: a unanimous vote! I thought that the 2 tent option might be a good one, as it would be that bit more flexible - sounds as if it wouldn't be.

So - any particular dos and don'ts for 6 man tents? Yes to quick putting up! We have nothing but sleeping bags at the moment, so there's everything to get.

I think it's a real case of you get what you pay for. Check the hydrostatic head of any tent you plan to buy - the higher the better. Also check the tent can fit in your car!

Going against the grain a bit, if you are only going to be camping at weekends rather than as a main week or two week holiday, I would be tempted not to go for a massive tent that will take ages to put up and take down but rather get a couple of pop ups and a central event shelter. Then you can use the event shelter as your living area and sleep in the pop ups - way quicker set up and put down for weekend camping.

Examples here:

www.decathlon.co.uk/base-seconds-pop-up-camping-shelter-id_8208602.html

www.decathlon.co.uk/camping-shelter-3m-x-3m-fresh-id_8295843.html

www.decathlon.co.uk/2-seconds-easy-iii-pop-up-tent-3-man-blue-id_8300683.html

Or if money is not an issue and you would prefer a single family tent, maybe consider an inflatable tent for you all, like this:

www.decathlon.co.uk/air-seconds-63-xl-family-tent-6-man-id_8300026.html