need some advice on buying a family tent

[longlegted]

Having had a successful campng trip on borrowed equipment last year we have decided to buy a tent, trailer(for car) and a gas fridge. I would love advice on any of these items.

I'm thinking about buying this or this
I'm very excited about this, but don't want to waste a load of money. our family is 2dc and 2 adults ATM. We camped at a festival last year. Do campistes allow this size of tent or would they be too big?

Has anyone bought a trailer to put all the extra clobber in?

Firstly - go look at as many tents as you can. Think about living space, not just sleeping. There are 5 of us and we have a tent that apparently sleeps 8 - its just the right size, as if its chucking down with rain, you've got have room to sit and eat and play etc. Check out www.ukcampsite.co.uk - lots of advice on there about tents. Dont worry too much about the size - we've never had a problem with ours and its bigger but when you book a site let them know the dimensions. We also have a trailer plus a roofbox. I still cant reverse with the trailer attached but its not too difficult to unhook and swing round! Think carefully about how often you'll go camping, whether you will always use the trailer etc - if you are always going to need it and have room, get a large ish one with a solid top - you can get ones that you can put bike racks/roof boxes on. Ours is similar in size to an erde 122 and i wish it was bigger!
Good luck

Hi, glad to hear you are enjoying camping me and my dh and ds enjoy camping regularly but have to admit like to have all the luxuries and always have to have an electric hook up.

Depending on your budget I would always recommend Outwell tents for there fantastic quality we currently have the Outwell Montana 6, there are lots of accessories that you can also buy to go with it including carpets and extensions lol!!

Very easy to put up but also very, very sturdy once up and comes with sewn in ground sheet.

Worth have a look for the montana 6 on ebay perhaps for a bargain.

let me know what you decide on x

$ in a sleep 5 with be a very tight fit, unless you all intend to slepp on mats.

fitting 4 inflatables into a sleeps 5 may well be impossible

We used to have a Gelert Lokon Vario 6 and we really liked it. Plenty of room for 2 adults and 2 kids - even on a rainy day. No problems with the size on campsites either. Its a good first tent. The Outwell montana that Jambo recommends is a lovely tent but more expensive. We have a roof box to put our extra sruff in.

outwell montana 6

thankyou for your posts....the outwell looks lovely but is beyond my budget. dustystar, has your tent been going for long?

How long should a tent last for?

We had ours for nearly 4 years before we got our new one (a lovely Outwell Vermont L) It was still in reasonable condition though and i sold it to an mner last year. As far as i know its still fine. If you want a tent thats going to last a long time you really need to get a canvas or polycotton one but they are more expensive, heavier and bulkier than nylon tents.

What is the HH? We had a Gelert and it had a 4000HH and it leaked down the seams in the rain, the zips went as well. (Get an Outwell. )

Also, on the subject of gas fridges

was going to put:

...are they environmentally friendly?

I've got a tent similar to the two in the pictures you linked. Can't remember the name of it though but it is massive, loads of room to sleep (says sleeps 7 but there are only 4 of us - good to have extra space for storage of bags etc) and big living area.

We were given a trailer and it is a god send. We also have a roofbox. The first time we camped we just had an estate car but how it has progressed as we bought more stuff!

I like the look of the Gelert Lokon tents but I think we need a sewn in groundsheet, as we're wusses and like to be cosy with the outdoors staying outdoors! It's supposed to be a great size for useable space and the campsites don't complain that it's too big too I think.

camping is quite green re carbon footprint.

Poleyster tents are made with petrochemicals, but still probably generate less pollution over time than staying in a number of hotels of the life span of the tent.

Prob not true if you heat your tent

We've got an 8-man tunnel tent for the 4 of us , but then dh hates camping so I can only make him go by making sure there's enough space for everyone to sleep properly . The Outwells are nice, but v expensive - we went for something a bit more mid-range Anyway, as someone else said, ukcampsite is definitely the place to go for useful info. Btw, I foolishly shared a 4-man tent with 3 other adults one year at Glastonbury...never again!! Always allow at least 2 space more than people, if you want to stay sane ...

flutterbye - they say they are 3000hh, is that not enough? I think i really need to go and look at some tents in RL. A friend has suggested a place near colchester. any other suggestions of places to look at tents in East Anglia?

We have one of those tunnel tents, longlegted. But it's a Sunncamp Vario 9, so like those but with pods on either side as well. We can have it with 2 bedrooms or with the pods with 4 bedrooms. And yes, sites do take them, although we generally check the size of pitches before we go to make sure.

Vario 9.

We love it. It's the business. There are 4 of us, so we have a bedroom for dh and I, dsd and dd share (or dd in with us), the 3rd bedroom has all our clothes etc in and then the 4th one is used as a drying room for wetsuits and towels.

There's tons of room inside the main section. We had 13 lifeguards in ours last summer - and I cooked and served chilli for them all. We have a table, cooker on a stand, fridge, gas barbie and a toy box, plus a table for us to sit at!!

And yes, we have a trailer to put it all in. We keep everything stored in there, so when we want to go camping it's a case of hook up and go and we have everything we need. And because we have more room to take things I took our sunloungers this year and they were fab (and much fought over as we only had 2!).

We bought a 3 way camping fridge last year, so it runs on gas but also off the mains (not sure what the 3rd way is though ). It was our first year with hook up, which previously I thought was for wimps , but for a fortnight's holiday it was a godsend. No running up to the shop to change ice blocks over. Lovely chilled wine all the time!!