Hello. Having done a minimal amount of camping in my life, I’m now in the market for a family tent. There are models we’ve viewed online called the Vango Stanford 800 or the Coleman Coastline Deluxe which seem to be what we’re looking for. Do these names mean anything to anyone? I don’t know who are the good tent brands. Any knowledge would be appreciated. Thanks.
ATM: Family tents
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They are both known brands. Can’t speak for Colman, but we had a Vango and it was relatively easy to put up, and weatherproof and roomy.
Vango are good quality tents, I have a small one for “wild camping” . Our family tent is an Outwell, who also make great, if not slightly pricey tents. If you’ve narrowed it down to Vango and Coleman , I’d go with the Vango, purely on the basis that they are good tents, and I don’t know anyone who has a Coleman tent.
If you don’t mind me asking does the budget stretch to an inflatable tent?
We have just bought the Vango Tiaga 600XL which is £750. It is a lot of money and we deliberated for weeks and weeks on it. However we were planning on renting a cottage in Scotland for the summer but are going to camp now and therefore the money we saved on that helped me to justify the extra cost of the tent!!
We have been away twice now, weekend just gone in 30mph winds, and the tent has been excellent. Loads of room and most importantly easy to put up. Bearing in mind that I am generally useless at such things, on Friday in the high winds, I had the tent fully up within half an hour on my own (don’t think I’ll ever do it in the advertised 10mins!!) as my wife was helping another lady whose tent was almost carrying her off into the next field.
Because it is a lot easier to put up, I am hoping that it means we are going to get more use out of it which again justifies the extra cost.
How many of you are there to fit in it?
One of the other good things with this one is the covered porch which means even if it is raining me and Mrs25 can sit outside and have a few drinks while the kids are sleeping inside.
I don’t know anything about their tents, but I have a Coleman sleeping bag, which is excellent (not least because it is named after my favourite character from Aliens (is there any other reason it would be called Hudson?))
Our family tent is by Gelert, think it is called an Ottawa 6. It’s done us fine over the years. How many people are you looking to fit in?
I have bought a vango 800 this year and used it at the IOW festival. It is great, very well constructed and most importantly fully up and running in 15 mins with two people. It comes down and packs away equally quickly. It is almost as big as a house and thats a good thing.
I would strongly recommend this – it also has an optional porch construction thing for about £70 – very good for keeping all your muddy stuff safe and out the tent its self
Thanks all. @gasman might have answered the question as we’re getting the tent for a weekend at a festival with three kids under 8. (Cue this: https://youtu.be/eBZ8nng-1-g )
@anth25 Would rather the budget be low, obv, but we’re trying to figure out our level of ambition for future camping holidays beyond this trip, trying to get the balance right between what the thing will cost versus how much we’ll use it.
I have both a Vango (5 berth) and Coleman (2 berth) tents. Both good.
Golden tent rules:
– always buy bigger than you think. Unless weight/pack size is a real issue.
– never buy one where you have to put the inner up first. Think rain.
– get a tent that gives you somewhere to sit in comfortably if it rains.
– read reviews – especially about putting them up and taking them down.
Last thing would be look out for camping exhibitions this time of the year. There is one in Wokingham where they have about 50 tents pitched so you can have a good look around both inside and out.
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Is Lisdoonvarna still going? I’m sure your kids need to start the joy of festivals.