Practice, practice, practice setting up your tent!
Our second tent is self-supporting, which means that we can set it up in an open area and then carry it to the place where we want it. Sometimes we are surrounded by brush, with only the door opening to a clear area. We can sleep two or three in this tent, but again, there is no room for storage. This tent stands alone, but once it’s in place we peg it down so the wind doesn’t blow it away.
Our smallest tent, a backpacker’s tent, sleeps only two, but we have to take turns sitting up. It’s hard to crawl into this tent and really difficult to change clothes inside. It has to be pegged down to be set up. It is a very lightweight tent, which is important when you’re backpacking.
All of our tents have rain flies, and we have added a clothesline inside from one point to the other, where we hang the clothes we take off at night. We also have a pocket sewn into one of the side seams, where we stash our glasses at night.
CHECKLIST
Questions to Ask When Choosing a Tent
Most tents are much larger than ours. Some of the largest have side rooms opening off the main room. Michael refers to his tent as a “condo.” It has three rooms, with curtains separating them. A tent with a peaked roof provides headroom so you can stand up and walk around inside. Dome-shaped tents come in all sizes. The largest have ample floor space, but you can stand up only in the center. Still, there is room enough inside for low camp cots if you don’t like sleeping on the ground, and there’s plenty of storage. Many dome-shaped tents are self-supporting. Some manufacturers advertise a “bathtub floor.” This means that the waterproofing on the floor of the tent extends up the sides several inches, keeping the tent floor drier in case of rain.
In the Northwest, where I live, most tents come with a rain fly, which is a cover over the tent with an air space between it and the tent roof. Rain and dew collect on the outside of the fly, and moisture exhaled by the people sleeping in the tent collects on the inside of the fly and not on the tent. Some campers carry extra tarps to use as dining flies, to protect their picnic table and cooking area from the dew and the rain. They tie the tarp to trees or to their tent or even to the car, if there’s no other place to tie it. If you’re camping in a dry, sunny area, you might want the extra fly to provide shade.
You will also see tents advertised as “three-season” or “four-season.” There is no national standard for designating seasonality to a tent, but in general, four-season tents have better protection against the elements, heavier coating on the floors, extra reinforcement around zippers and stress points, rain flies that extend farther beyond the tent, and better ventilation (to keep moisture from condensing inside). They are also more expensive. A family camping in the late spring, summer, or early autumn should not need a four-season tent.
If I were starting to tent camp all over again with my family, I’d buy a tent like the one I saw last summer when I was walking around a Forest Service campground talking to families with children. It had two rooms, an inner one and outer one. The outer room was screened on three sides. It had a zippered door to the outside, and another zippered door to the inner room. The outer room functioned as a mud room; it had a fabric floor where the two little boys were playing amid a stack of shoes. The inner room, the sleeping room, was kept relatively clean because all the shoes were left outside.
Tents with two rooms keep dirt outside.
We buy all of our tents on sale at the beginning of the season (last year’s model) or at an end-of-season clearance. Prices for tents vary considerably. A family tent, which can accommodate six to eight people, advertised in my latest REI sale catalog, is $260, reduced from $350. Campmor, a discount outfit that issues a popular catalogue, lists family tents for four or more at $100, $120, $150, or $190. Larger tents from Campmor that sleep six to eight are $260 and $330. Your local outdoor store or warehouse outlet will often have deals as good as or better than these.
If you’re a garage sale or thrift shop fan, you can often find good deals on a used tent. Some communities hold gear swaps, another good source for a used tent, but remember it’s buyer beware when you buy a used tent.
Sometimes a friend is willing to lend a tent, so you can try camping before you spend any money. Some people are reluctant to share their outdoor equipment because it requires good care.
In that case, you may have to rent. (See the section on renting.) Rental fees for tents will vary with the size of the tent and the season; expect to pay more if you rent over a holiday weekend. My most recent REI price list gave the fee of $28 for the first day and $14 for each additional day for a five- to six-person tent. Prices may have gone up since then. In addition to REI, many of your local sporting goods and outdoor stores will rent tents and camping equipment. Wherever you rent, don’t expect a lot of choices; you have to be content with what’s available. If you rent for your first trip and plan to continue camping, it might be wise to put your rental fees toward your purchase.
A spacious three-room tent sleeps six to eight.
Regardless of the size of the tent you plan to take, or whether it’s rented, bought, or borrowed, you should practice setting it up outside on your lawn or in a park before you go. In fact, it’s a good idea to put it up and take it down several times, so that you won’t get into a situation like Maggie did on her first trip. Her family arrived at the campground late, and they had to set up an unfamiliar tent in the dark, trying to read the instructions by flashlight.
Tents are fine in the summer, but if you’re planning a camping trip in the fall or early spring, you and especially your children might find the tent inadequate. You may need a more substantial home away from home, like a motorhome or a camper with a heater or at least some protection from the wind.
Some years ago, my husband and our youngest son went off to the mountains in early autumn for a father-son weekend with Indian Guides, a program of the YMCA. They were guests in a camper truck. During the night, the temperature dropped below freezing, and the groceries in the truck—bananas, oranges, bread, sitting outside on the counter—froze solid, but the milk, inside the well-insulated cooler, remained liquid.
On another, longer vacation some years ago, my family rented a travel trailer that we hitched to a station wagon. When we stopped for a few days, we unhitched
