Talk to me about tents please

[tigerskinrug]

Had a lovely day out today, decided I need to buy a tent but don't know what to buy. We need at least 6 berth. I love the idea of something hassle free, such as a pop up tent, however, I bought a tiny 2 man one for the garden last year and it is still there as we were never able to fold it back into it's carrier thing Nothing too fancy, I can't imagine it will get too much use so don't want to spend lots of money either.

Go somewhere like a big branch of Go Outdoors or an independent camping shop where they have a lot of tents pitched so you can see what they look like. Tents are amazing value for money, and most of them are not difficult to pitch once you can the hang of it. Pop-up tents can be utter buggers to get back into the bag.

As a general rule of thumb, you will need more berths than you have people (if it says it an 8 or 9 berth, it's probably okay for 6 or 7 people...). If you plan to be away for more than a couple of days, get a tent you can stand up in. Having a lobby area where you can leave footwear out of the rain before going into the tent is incredibly useful. And get a tent where you pitch the flysheet first, and then hang the inner off it (or which has the inner ready-attached), rather than one where you pitch the inner and then have to get the flysheet over the top: this is not good if it's pissing down.

As for makes, we have a Coleman that has seen us through three or four two-week camping trips, plus a lot of shorter ones, and is still going strong.

You are looking at quite a big tent... I can't see pop up structure being any easier to manage in a larger tent than a smaller one, so I would avoid that.

Inflatable tents are heavy, expensive, and you still have to peg it so not as amazing as they sound.

Look up the crosscamping method of pitching if you get a tunnel tent it's easy for one person.

Quechua from Decathlon are very good but cheaper tents if for occasional use.

Also, people rave about bell tents, easy to put up, just one pole, but have you room in a garage or house to dry it out if wet.

The Go Outdoors blue 6 berth Zenobia tent is really popular. How many of you are there? Big enough to stand up in or hide from rain but not too big to handle.

I'm increasingly feeling that hassle free camping is taking as little as possible! Inflatables and pop ups and other things that save you 5 minutes are just bigger or heavier or harder to pack down and take up all the space in the car. (I'm looking at you, giant Outwell canvas beast!)