tents .. but not a normal question

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cisamcgu

Legendary Member
Location
Merseyside-ish
Miss cisamgu (aged 13) and I are thinking of camping .. not in the first intance on a bike trip but by car. She has expressed a desire for a tent of her own, so that would mean we need two tents. what would you lot suggest for us ? We would need a cheap (but not too cheap) couple of tents, not the same perhaps.

We would stay on a campsite, probably in the Lake District, so it would be relatively comfortable.

I imagine that if we stayed in a hotel it would cost £100+ so we would be prepared to spend at least that on the tents.

Ease of use is at least as important as lightness etc...

Any thoughts ?


Andrew
 

HelenD123

Guru
Location
York
TBH I've never found a tent that's complicated to put up. Are you definitely looking for something just for car camping or do you think you'll eventually want to use one or both for cycle touring?
 
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cisamcgu

cisamcgu

Legendary Member
Location
Merseyside-ish
I'm not sure to be honest. We have cycle toured, but she seems to have lost the urge for that, so I would imagine that if they were used for cycle touring, it would only be one of the tents. Sorry I cannot be clearer ;)
 
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cisamcgu

cisamcgu

Legendary Member
Location
Merseyside-ish
OK .. so height is an important factor ... how high is high ? ;)

Sorry to seem dim, but I have only camped when I was young .. which was a LONG time ago
 

HelenD123

Guru
Location
York
What about something like this for one of them so that you've got somewhere to go if it's wet. Then just get something smaller as the second tent.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
I have two tents: (both a bit old, so you may have to just think of them as examples of types)

One is a Coleman Aspen. Quite a big package, I wouldn't want to carry it by bike, not far anyway, but it's easily luggable. Not big enough to stand in, but fine for sitting up, and officially a two man tent. It came with two different 'porches' - one smaller, just a flap, and one bigger, with an additional hoop pole, giving you a decent outside storage area (albeit without a flysheet). You swap them by zipping on the one you want.

The other is a cheap Pro Active from Argos - much more a cycle touring tent, packs small and quite light, I'm just back from 3 nights in it. Not a lot of spare room once you're in, but enough for my big rucksack, clothes, cooking gear etc. Less headroom, but you can still sit up if you're not tall.

If you got a combo like that, you could eat/socialise in the larger tent, and then one of you retire to the smaller one to sleep. And you'd have the smaller one for if you ever wanted to cycle camp yourself.
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
What would you do in the case of heavy persistent rain? In a large tent that you can move/walk around in you can sit it out without feeling too bad ... in small tents it starts to become very hard when you can only sit up in your tent and have to cook in the rain.

Or would you pack up and go home? (not talking a shower but prolonged rain.) Thinking about what you might do might help to decide what you want out of the tent. Some of the ideas such as getting one larger tent and a smaller one person tent sound quite good from a flexible point of view ... but the larger tent may be too big for putting on the back of a bike.
 

BearPear

Veteran
Location
God's Own County
Halfords have a camping section, and I bet there's a camping shop near you so you can see some up and get a better idea. The forum on ukcampsite is very friendly and helpful. The Go Outdoors superstores have tents on display as well.

Would your daughter feel happy camping "alone"? I have camped with my 2 when Mr BP was at work and I know that my daughter (currently 15 until next week) would refuse to camp alone. I don't think that I would like her to be alone either.
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
I assume the tent of her own is just for when she's with cisamcgu - pitched close enough together, they will be able to talk to each other even in separate tents.

Another plus for having one big, one small, though - if she changes her mind, there's room for both in one tent.
 
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cisamcgu

cisamcgu

Legendary Member
Location
Merseyside-ish
Yes.. the plan was for two tents close to each other (a couple of feet away I guess). I like the look of the Decathalon tent .. is there a similar one, but smaller (but must have a porch, I made the mistake of showing it to her, and now the porch has become ESSENTIAL in her tent ;)

Andrew
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
cisamcgu said:
Yes.. the plan was for two tents close to each other (a couple of feet away I guess). I like the look of the Decathalon tent .. is there a similar one, but smaller (but must have a porch, I made the mistake of showing it to her, and now the porch has become ESSENTIAL in her tent ;)

Andrew

You could always be super heroic, and let her sleep in the big one with the porch, and you take the 'servants' quarters'
 

Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
When I was an archaeology undergrad, we had to go on a 3 week field school, camping onsite. Most of us went by train, but three girls, one of whom had a car, clubbed together, went by car, and arrived with two tents. One big family type one, for them to share, and a small one.

To keep their clothes in.;)

They weren't really cut out for fieldwork.
 

Jaguar

New Member
Location
Norfolk/Suffolk
I started cycle camping with a cheapo 2-man Millets thingy: perfectly usable, and lasted for years. Quick to put up too.

Now I'm with Mr Jaguar (and his feet poke out the bottom of the Millets thingy) we are using a Vango, bought on eBay. Lovely tent.

(don't bother with a Halfords £99 jobby, they are utterly useless. Ours was full of holes, one mattress was punctured on purchase too)
 
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