Camping in rain...decided that I need a tent with LARGE living area...can you help?

[zaphod]

Been camping in the west of Ireland, where we had torrential rain last night. What I want is a tent that has enough room for chairs, and the table, as well as decent sleeping space.

My other thought is to use the tent we have now, which sleeps six, and just not put up the sleeping compartments, and use it for living the way other people have gazebos. The downside of this, is paying the price of 2 pitches though.

Any ideas, camping gurus?

we have got the sunvalley 6 the smaller one but ours is huge and so this one is soooo much bigger

A deffo brill canopy comes with it in the price

This is our one

Thats the tent I was SO envious of last night, as the man and his kids sat in the living area with their lanterns reading, all comfy and warm. While we did an in and out dance with our chairs, as the rain came and went. How long does it take to put up?(vectoring in the putting up the tent argument, of course)

We have an Outwell Montana 5,....or is it a Colarado 5.

nyway, it looks similar to that last tent and I can put it up by myself in less than 20mins.

Anything under an hour is acceptable really. And dh being able to put it up alone is even better, as someone has to keep an eye on the kids. This last trip has seriously put dh off the camping experience. Typically the kids just loved it.

we have only used it once so far

And DH and I didn't read the instructions beforehand and so put it up in wrong order so it took a long time but after reading instructions we realised where we had gone wrong and it was much more simple than we made it

Also the height and shape of the roof means that the walls don't slope inwards like the montana cos DH couldn't stand up in Montana

The windows are HUGE and the canopy is HUGE too and is FREE

Taking it down was simple

I sat on the seat and watched DH do it

We have a Vango Diablo 600 which we bought because of the scenario you describe. It has two bedrooms, a huuuuge living area and a big porch for cooking in. It is a bit faffy to put up but that may well be down to mine and DH's chronic ineptitude.

We have this one

Bear Lake 6

It has loads of living space, one huge bedroom and one smaller one (can still fit in 2 people).

We love it.

We bought an Outwell flash tent for ds1, for this week-end. (had the dog with us, he's allergic in enclosed spaces) Up in 5 mins. Down in 25. Could we hell fold it properly, it took us longer than the big tent.

Got a Montana 6 - Outwell. Fab living area for the 4 of us. Also got a front canopy which is great for cooking under (except when there is horizontal rain and a force 10 gale like last night!)

We have a Wynnster Eagle 6, which has 2/3 bedrooms and a HUGE living space. We camped for the first time this weekend and it rained most of Saturday. We had a table, 4 chairs, the kitchen, a radiator (don't ask, lol!), all our parphenalia and 4 and a bit people (dh, me & bump, ds's x2) and we had lots of space. It does have a large canopy area at the front, so we still sat out even though it was raining and next time (cos dh wouldn't listen to me!) the kitchen is going to stay outside.

Vango 900- it has a massive 'living area'

Thanks for asking SS! It dropped a little chilly on the Friday night, but we took on board all the great advice from here about the insulated backed picnic rugs, so had those under the airbeds, a fleece blanket on top of that followed by sleeping bags/duvets and he slept in pj bottoms, t-shirt and zipped up fleece with hood, lol! We did have the heat on full and the boys slept fine, no waking from the cold (lets not go much into the annoying so and so's who played loud music until midnight and then talked/laughed LOUDLY until 4am....Grrrrr). Saturday night was warmer so although had the heat on, we only had it on low (it's a thermostat thingy) and it was more than toasty when we got up. It was very useful having heat to dry sodden trousers for the boys! A bit (ok, ALOT) of rain did not stop us from going and exploring on Saturday. They quite enjoyed the vigourous puddle stomping and walking through long grass that came up to the little ones waist

I am so glad we took the plunge to go, we had a great time and are frantically looking for somewhere to go for the bank holiday.

Sally Strawberry - my normal Gazebo collapsed! where did you get 'Camping Gazebo' from please?

We have the Vango Amazon 800 - and we bought it for the living area, which is bigger than our living room at home! (4m x 5m) It has three bedrooms, which aren't the biggest, but the living area is very big, with a large porch area to cook under and also the front unzips to make a double-sized door, which is very handy if you need to move your fully-laden table inside when the heavens open!
Have linked to a picture on ukcampsite - if you look it up on any other website you always get a picture of the 600, which is a bit smaller (although still enormous!)
www.ukcampsite.co.uk/chatter/display_topic_threads.asp?ForumID=32&TopicID=152570&SearchPagePosition= 1&search=amazon+800&searchMode=allwords&searchIn=Topic&forum=32&searchSort=dateDESC&ReturnPage=Searc h

Like smugmumofboys we have Vango Diablo 600. We must be equally inept because its a faff to put up, but loads of room once it is erected ( is it just me I always need to titter after I say that word).

Thanks for all these suggestions, now the hard part is choosing. I can't believe the living space in the Vango tents. On the other hand, SS's idea of a gazebo works out cheaper, as there is nothing wrong with our 6 man tent, except lack of living space. But then there are 7 of us, and the dc are getting bigger, so eventually we WILL need a bigger tent....AAAGH, I hate decisions.

Just in case you haven't bought yet...

We have an Outwell Georgia XL. Fabulously huge living area, which is large enough for table and chairs and room to move. We keep this area clear for playing (we have two toddlers) and use the porch area for eating. It's also large enough for a bench set. We don't like to get too much food smeg on the carpet!

The three bedrooms sleep eight.

DH and I have only put it up twice, but it is definitely under an hour. I'd really recommend it.