Help me choose a tent!!

[TwinningIt]

I’m going round in circles looking at tent choices - help me please!

Here are my must haves:
6 or 8 berth tent (there are 6 of us)
Air tent
3 separate bedrooms
Sewn in groundsheet
Good HH rating (UK camping)

Really want something as compact/light as possible for a 6 berth. We will be doing weekend camping in the UK and hopefully be out exploring during daytime, so really don’t feel the need for enormous living area with lots of furniture etc.

We obviously need a bit of space to feed 6 people and have our stuff, but we tend to travel quite light. It seems the three bedroom tents are either enormous (7m plus) or the small ones don’t have sewn in groundsheets - I think we need this to help avoid the dreaded midges!

What are your ages? A too-small tent doesn't always work with small children as everyone trips over things and they will spill their cereal unless they have a proper table and chair.

If grown-up size /teens then you normally get two people comfortably in 3 berths. A "man" in a tent is literally the footprint of a sleeping mat.

You need space to gather for breakfast if it's heaving down with rain even if you are going out in the daytime and somewhere to cook even if only breakfast and hot drinks.

I'd agree a tunnel tent supplemented with one or two small 2 man tents would be lightweight and give you some options.

Decathlon are very good for efficiently designed tents. I wouldn't bother with inflatable it will take 5 minutes to put poles in with all that help!

Alternatively how about a Coleman Mackenzie 6 for your main tent (with or without the 2 person bedroom ) and a pup tent?

Also in Scotland, assume every evening you will be sitting in the tent with all the midge screens done up drawing straws for who will go outside to cook the burgers. That means space for six camping armchairs and a table you can put drinks on. Also it's nice to have a tent with lots of windows so you can still admire the sunset from your midgeproof haven and don't get the shut in feeling. And judge the direction of the rain next morning.

So yes look for a lightweight tunnel tent with windows and bug screens and possibly supplement the living space with a pup tent. Outwell are good for these sort of touches.

Midge shelter

www.decathlon.co.uk/living-r-base-arpenaz-l-fresh-id_8397099.html

Thanks everyone. The kids are between 5 and 11, so we’re not ready to have separate tents unless they connected together properly.

Good point about needing indoor space to escape the midgies! I’ll look again at poles tents as you get more tent space for the packsize, but I’m still not sure a big poled tent is what we want for camping 2-3 nights at a time.

this might work well. Will be quick to put up, inside screened area and outer sheltered porch, as long as you guy it well for stability.

I appreciate it seems like a lot of tent for short trips but you are 6 people and wanting to go to somewhere with both rain and midges.

We were lightweight campers/backpackers before DC. When we started family camping, we were given a 5 berth dome tent with a small sloping bedroom, no windows, no vertical walls. It was a good quality tent but we had some nightmare experiences, falling over each other, spills, no room for the table inside, wet/dry stuff all mixed up. Then one night of bad weather the cooker was blown over and ripped the side of the tent. After that we bought our Outwell and it was good for 10 years, eventually the teenagers decamped to pup tents but it is still a great base.

Just noticed that Vango comes in an Air version with mesh on the windows too.

Poled tents don't really take much more time to put up than an air tent, especially tunnel tents. There are really good tutorials on YouTube for quick easy ways to do it (cross camping method).

It's the guys and pegging out that takes all the time. Putting in the poles and getting it upright takes less than 20 mins, even with a big one. Air tents are great, but they're very heavy and bulky.