How do I choose our first tent?

[PerfectPrefect]

For a family of 5

What "features" do I have to look for/avoid?

I know not where to start. We have a Go Outdoors close enough. Lets start with this one, comments welcome whats this one like - it will be £200 in a couple of weeks so sounds like a bargain. Is it too big? Do all tents fit on all pitches? Where do I start?

Do I go for an ebay bundle from someone who is selling a complete package of camping gear they have steadily accumulated - or do we just buy new and accumulate as we go?

What are the essential accessories for a start. We already have 1 double airbag and 2 single sleeping bags. We also have a kids camping table and a couple of camping chairs.

Teh halford packs get slated for being not very waterproof and poor quality airbeds.

That is kind of where we started.

I was going to say this yesterday but didn't because there were so many "cold night" threads I thought someone might tell me to shut up!

The main problem people seem to have when camping is being cold at night. I would suggest you consider self - inflating, insulating mats instead of airbeds. Seriously they are just a few cm thick but amazingly comfortable and WARM. Try one out in the shop anyway.

(PS there are usually cheaper ones but Go Outdoors seem to have run out temporarily - they usually have some for about £15-£20 each)

If your sleeping bags are cheap, take some thick wool blankets and thermals to wear in bed. In the UK I'd say you need a 3 season bag unless you only camp in heatwaves. If you look up and down the Camping board you will soon see the lengths using airbeds, blankets, tinfoil, groundsheets etc that people go to to keep warm.

Am not sure about tents but we had a not-particularly cheap one (bendy pole dome) last year and the sodding thing blew over nearly horizontal and ripped. This year we have gone for a tunnel tent as the neighbouring one seemed to be more stable.
could you stretch to something like this?

Also you can find very detailed tent reviews on ukcampsite, good for weeding out the hopeless ones anyway.

Having seen them we LOVE the Sahara 6.

But I am worried it is the wrong choice because:

1. Is it too big for some pitches
2. Is it too complicated to erect (compared to tunnel/dome) for newbies
3. Is it too big/complex for what may just be long weekend use. We don't have definite plans to use it for whole weeks - but we don't have definate plans to use it only for weekends either

We didn't like the tunnel tents for size (unless you go for stupidly big ones). The other one we liked was the mojave. But it is the same price for less (but doens't have the same potential problems listed above.

I am also eyeing up this....as perhaps a compromise between tunnel and Y shaped - but we haven't seen this one in the flesh and don't know where to find it.