Advice Please, want to buy a big new tent.

[lostinwales]

We had our first season camping last year and loved it. We survived in a halfords £99 deal four man tent which was cosy but we had an amazing time. Now we are counting the minutes until we can go again and want to buy something we can use alot. DH is a teacher so we plan to be under canvas for most of the school holidays and as many weekends we can fit in around that. (Last year we camped in a field by the beach, and I did a whole weeks work from the tent, popping to our house for a shower before I went in and then coming straight home to the tent after!)

There are five of us, three boys aged 10, 8 and 3, who want to have friends with them, and we'd like something with enough rooms for them and friends and somewhere to store kit/food etc (we used a pop up one man tent last year for store/DS1's bedroom.)

Money wise I think we could go to around £400, we don't plan to go to the arctic or camp when there are gales, but we live in Wales so it needs to be quite waterproof! I would really appreciate your advice before I go and spend money on the first thing I see 'cos I'm too excited at the prospect of camping again!

we have a khyam which we like as nice and roomy. quick erect one. obviously look at ones erected and check for headroom. measure your beds and use this to check bedroom sizes - ignore what they say about the number of people its for. think about the size of your boot - our tent is enormous packed - too big for my old car. from your budget you look like you're going for quality which is sensible. ukcampsites.co.uk have tent reviews. think about whats most important - ease of putting up or room. lets hope we get a decent summer this year!

Thank you very much, that site is brilliant for reviews and pictures and links to places to buy the tents. I think I'll be playing tent porn on there all afternoon!

Outdoor megastore is a good site to ahve a browse at tenst by brand and berth.

The storage in a pop-up is a good idea though - I'd ensure that you ahve 3 or 4 bedrooms each sleeping 2 at least and possibly the option to remove a bedroom to create extar living space inside. Tunnel tenst give you more head room but for bedrooms you might be better with an outwell hartford or such like.this is the idea - and it should be fine if you are going to 'field camp' - it's too big for a lot of conventional sites.

Enjoy your tent porn though.

btw if you want extra pop-ups Decathlon deliver to some areas now.

Umm, that outwell hartford is a bit tasty! I think we're taking the plunge and getting the XXL, it seems comedy huge, but as we plan to live in it for most of the summer then I think it's justified. Come on summer we want to go camping!

I've for a Florida 6 by Outwell here It only has 2 bedrooms but they are big and the living area is so huge that you coul easily sleep anoth half dozen people in there if you wanted. Sewn in groundsheet so to draughts.

We camp in it as 2 adults and 2 children and there is enough room for the children to have thir own spread out blanket and toy corner.

One thing to consider with the Hartwell and geo dome / pod tents is that they take up a much larger footprint area.

We had something similar with our old wynnster satelite 12 here . We found that sites wanted to charge us a double pitch rate because the grass area needed was something like 9.5m X 8m. Our new tent has a 7m X 5m footprint and doesn't count as an XL tent to the camping & caravan club.

We have a Khyam tunnel tent - a Kansas 8 from outdoor megastore. It is fab, - 4 double bedrooms and an enormous central space (about 3m square) with a tent carpet

We have not yet been asked to pay for a double pitch - it is about 7m x 5m IIRC.

We have not had any weather problems, despite a few downpours, but we don't camp in Wales

Thank you everyone, everytime I click one of your links I lose another hour looking round different tents! Footprint isn't a huge problem as the plan is to take the tent to a farmers field just up from the local beach on the first day of the school hols and leave it there until september! They only have a licence for camping for a short time over the summer. AS DH spent most of his childhood in their kitchen the final bill for the summer last year was £50 and a pint the next time we saw him in the pub!

I will phone ahead though if we go to other places, mind you we are definately more 'field' campers than organised places.