Question: new tent?

Hi Julie,

Last summer we bought a tent from a shop. It broke very quickly (one of the tent poles fractured in perfectly decent weather...) and we had a heck of a job getting the company to acknowledge that they needed to refund the tent.

During the long-winded wrangling with the company who sold the tent, we were due to go camping and needed to quickly get another tent... we couldn't afford a brand new one (having not yet received the refund!) and so we bought one from... yes, sorry...ebay for £50. It had hardly been used. Perfectly good tent which we have used without problems since. Grantedly, we bought it locally, so we could go and see it before we bid.

Morals of the story for me... don't bother buying a 'home brand' tent from a highstreet camping store... always pay the extra for a better brand... and, when you know what model you want, consider getting a second hand one if pennies are tight.

Must haves when camping for me are insect repellent (boohoo) and a head torch for fumbling about in the dark looking for a lost toothbrush or such like!

Hi Julie,

Hooray - the joys of camping!

We have got a two man Outwell pop up tent, called a Fusion. I know that you can get them in a 3 man size, if you want a bit of extra space. It's great for erecting - you literally just throw it. Getting it away in the bag has taken me a little bit longer getting used to (I have had to watch and re-watch the video on Youtube...) but I am getting there.

Do you want a tent with separate living quarters/separate sleeping areas so that your son can sleep separately? If so, this one mightn't be suitable.

My 'must have' item for camping - apart from the bottle opener ;) - is a roll of foam that we used for a mattress. Having done years of blow-up (and deflating) mattresses, we went and bought a double-bed sized roll of foam that would normally be used in caravans for furnishings. It's fabulous. I does take up a bit more space than normal camper mats or inflatables, I'll admit. But the quality of sleep makes up for it... it's silent (so no noisy turning over in the night) and doesn't propel the other person into the air whenever you move. We bought foam about 2.5 inches thick, I'd guess.