Frame tent or new fandangled Dome tents?

[misty]

Hi

Just a quickie - we are looking to buy a tent this year and I'm a bit bemused by it all tbh .

We need something big to accommodate big family (dm, ds & partner, 4 kids) so I was wondering would it be better/roomier to buy an older style frame tent with the stand-up 'living' area or a new style 'dome' tent that look really claustrophopic (?sp) to me??

TIA

Personally I prefer the old style frame tent. We've got an old Eurocamp one. Friends of ours who we camp with have one of the new dome ones. I do find ours better and roomier. We put the bedrooms at one end and at the other there's plenty of space for the cooker, table and chairs and easy chairs and with windows on one side it doesn't feel claustrophobic at all. Our friends' does though, and I don't think we could fit in all our clobber into theirs! If we camp together we sleep in theirs and use ours as the "mess" tent, ie the one where we eat, drink and be merry!

We used to have an enormous frame tent - 3 bedrooms, 6/7 berth and huge living area. We loved it but it was very heavy, took up loads of space in the car and was very tricky to put up on windy days (needed min 2 people and pref 3); and if you had to take it down when wet you couldn't just sling it over the washing line to air when you got home. Also the poles gradually got more and more bent and twisted over time and we finally dumped it 2 years ago.

Last summer we bought a Vango Vista 800DLX tunnel tent. It isn't quite as big inside as the frame tent but still has a large living area which you can stand up in and sleeps 4, 6 or 8 depending on how many bedrooms you put in. If it's calm one person can erect it easily, otherwise it needs 2; and it packs down much smaller and is easier to haul about.

If you got one of the dome tents with bedrooms off you would have even more space if you left one of them out and used that space as storage. (Second-hand unused one here - good price! It's Vango Colorado 1200DLX )

Our old one was a version of this - £700

Awww thanks for those posts - very useful!
Hadn't thought of the 'heaviness' aspect so worth considering newer ones for that alone. I suppose that they are also more 'waterproof' than the older ones anyway.

What do you guys find best to sleep on - blowup beds? Are these ok for young children to sleep on as well?

I have that Vango colorado 12 person tent and it is Fab. It folds up into the size of a large suitcase and therefore doesn't take up much space. DH can almost put it up on his own!! Although ususally I help and so do the kids 'help'!!

You can stand up inside with no problems, it has 3 bedrooms and but we only put up two, leaving us double the living area (there is only 4 of us ) Therefore last year when it rained all the time we were able to eat and even cook inside.

I have also done eurocamps and yes the tent is bigger, however it is so heavy and difficult to lug about unless you have a trailer you wouldn't want to do that. We can put ours up in around 45 mins - so we could do weekends with no problem.

Sleeping we have a double matress (electric pump runs off the car) and two very old singles (about 30 yrs old) DD's sleep on those and we take duvets and sheets, simply as I don't like sleeping bags. However they now have those blow up ready beds which we will try this year. I'll take a spare duvet/vblanket too incase of cold

large dome tent.. Nobody uses zimmer frame tents by choice anymore

It doesn't have to be a dome vs frame. There are Tunnel tents which have greater head room (so more like a frame) but having the size and put up advantages of a dome. We have an Outwell Colorado 8
outwell homepage

It is 3 M by 7 and they have a larger wersion if you want it.

don?t waste money on a heavy, awkward to put up frame tent, The lighter weight, stronger and better looking dome ones are fantastic value for money, many with loads of head room and space. Our dome style tent sleeps 8 comfortably (we take 4 adults and 2 kiddies so loads and loads of room) with big living area and use one of the empty sleeping bits for storage of all our pushchairs, hiking stuff, boots, golf clubs etc. and is just fab. Go out to a decent tent shop where they have ones out on display so you can stand in them and get a good idea of their size and you will soon see that the new style dome ones are big enough for any family group.