Tent and lamp advice

[EasterBilby]

Hello,

My DD is now 2.8 so I'm hoping this year I'll be making a return to camping after 3 long years away. My current tent is a Coleman dome tent with add on sleeping area. It's served us well for 10 years, but I don't fancy the idea of sharing a room with DP and DD so I'm on the hunt for something bigger.

I've been thinking about one of these. I like the numerous rooms (hopefully our family will grow soon and I want this one to last 10 years too.) I also like the big living space with plenty of room to stand up. (Unlike my dome tent.)

Does anyone have one? Or opinions on one?

I'm also thinking about a footprint and maybe a carpet. Any thoughts? They didn't have these things last time I bought a tent.
A footprint seems like a good idea, especially as we have a tiny garden so cleaning/drying a tent will be a nightmare.

Finally... for now anyway. What do you all use for lamps? Are there any really good (but still cheap) wind up lamps available? I hate spending money on batteries.

It looks like that bedroom is one big one with a dividing curtain (that can be unzipped or crawled under), best to see it in real life to see how it works. Outwell seem a good long lasting make though.

Footprint was good for us, we went for several waterproof picnic blankets instead of a carpet as these could be washed easily or binned when too dirty.

Wind up lamps may have improved, we got one from Millets that was quite useless a year or so ago, when charging it via our cigarette lighter it blew the fuse everytime (until we realised!). Happy hunting.

I managed to look at the 4 man version and the bedrooms on that one do zip together. That's one of the things I like, I imagine it'll be useful as our family grows.

That's a good idea about picnic blankets, we've already got one, and they're far cheaper than the carpet, so I think that will be the way forward there.
The guy in the shop was saying about how much warmer the carpets make it, but we have chairs and lots of crocheted blankets.

I'll have to hunt around for wind up lamps. I bought DD a little penguin wind up torch from Tescos. It cost £3 and it's that good that I'm tempted to go and buy half a dozen to hang around the tent. :0

we got one of [http://www.idealo.co.uk/compare/1573327/gelert-lakesbury-5.html these] at the end of the season last year. we've only used it once but seems very good, easy to put up, loads of space, and it came with foot print and carpet. we did a few trips last year in our coleman bispace 300. we found that ds wanted to sleep in the same room as us, though we have a separate bedroom, in the new tent.
re lamps, last year i bought some solar powered fairy lights (after reading a tip on here). they're great for low level lighting, they come on automatically when it gets dark, we just string them round the inside of the tent.

these even

fwiw outwell are fab tents, but expensive.

Outwells are good tents.
I have a footprint carpet for my big outwell but generally i use that for longer trips so usually put a picnic rug near the door area anyway. With my other (weekender )tent i just put down picnic rugs.
Personally i wouldn't bother with a footprint tarp (i just ordered a tarp from tarpaulins direct to the size i wanted )and use this for both tents...but each to his own.
If we are doing ehu then we use an inspection lamp from b&q. It as about 6 quid and is brill.
If we are not doing ehu then we use a few small hanging lanterns indoors (one in main room and 1 in each bedroom) . These are small gelert ones. They aren't wind up ones (tried them one year ...didn't repeat the experience as we basically had to wind as we needed it!) We still take one along as a spare though! . Don't know if they have improved.
We use a gas lantern or just candle light lanterns outside.

I've just been reading about wind up lamps and the ones I've seen say 1 minute of winding lasts for 8 minutes! I think we'll be using batteries for a while then. DD's little torch lasted for about 3 hours the other night.

We have a gas lantern, but it terrifies me. I've never done ehu (I had to look up what it meant ) I'll have to look into how much it costs.

I like the idea of fairy lights thrifty. DP does too which is amazing. I've been trying to get him to show an interest in picking a tent but he's not bothered. I suspect DD and I will be camping alone on some trips.

I've decided I will go for the outwell. I've looked around at the different designs and think this will suit us best. Plus I realised today that you can buy a separate canopy at a later date if we decide we want it. Lack of canopy was the only thing putting me off it.

My parents will be buying it for me as an early birthday present. I couldn't afford a bivouac bag at the moment. I need to start selling lots of things on ebay so I can pay for nice extras like lights and campsite fees