Pop-up tents

[randomblue]

Hi again!

I'm currently in the market for a 2 man tent, preferably with a porch, for my 4 month solo tour. It doesn't need to be 4 seasons quality as the tour will be May - September and the furthest north I'll be going is Hamburg in June. I'd love to have something under 3kg but happy to go up to 4kg if necessary. Ideally, I'd not want to spend more than £50-60 on the tent, however I've found when looking online that within this price range the main options are pop up things which look like they'd be totally flattened by anything more than a gentle breeze and which pack down to a 2ft wide disc which would be totally impractical for attaching to the bike.

Are my expectations entirely unrealistic or am I just having bad luck with my searches? Any recommendations for budget tents or any feedback from people who've used pop ups?

Thanks in advance!

[foxyrider]

Yes you are being unrealistic. Your tent budget needs to be @ £200 - more if you can manage it. Plenty of advice on here if you search for what tent. Remember your tent needs to be robust enough to be put up and down maybe 120 times, the cheaper stuff is designed for occasional use and often even pretty much single use! You might find a better quality used tent worth looking for - take a look at whats out there new then search fleabay!

[IanW]

Something like: http://www.decathlon.co.uk/quickhiker-ultralight-3-tent-id_8245651.html perhaps?

[randomblue]

I really can't afford to go that high on a tent would bivvying be a reasonable alternative? I mean there has to be budget options out there and I totally get what you mean about some tents being one use if they're being used for festivals or that kind of thing but surely if it's being well looked after on tour the lifespan should be considerably longer?

[randomblue]

For example is something like this not a feasible option? Seems to have decent enough reviews on other sites?

[freebooter]

Your described usage is summer low land camping in Europe. For this you can certainly get away with a cheap low spec tent. Probably 90%+ of people on this site only camp in similar situations but for some reason a large number believe they need hundreds of pounds worth of top spec mountaineering tent to do so.

The great advantage with a cheap tent is that if it does get destroyed in a hundred year storm or stolen or suffers any other calamity it is no great loss and you can just get to the nearest town or supermarket and buy another cheap tent.

Some things to consider is space - are you taller than average, how much space will you need for kit? Also colour - are you going to stealth camp, if so then a bright orange tent isn't great. Other than that quality does tend to go up with price. Materials get lighter and more waterproof. Alloy poles are better than fibreglass. Cheap tents may come with steel pegs which are heavy. If so buying replacement alloy pegs will be a cheap way to lighten the tent.

The tent you linked to will probably do the job but it does have fibreglass poles (you can buy it for £5 less if you look around). If you can stretch into the £50-100 range then you will find better specced tents that will easily cope with what you want. This would be a bargain and probably ideal for what you want if you don't mind the colour. It has alloy poles and pegs, reasonably good materials, just over 2kg and is from a decent manufacturer. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Coleman-Cobra-P ... 80-5492569

As you posted this question I assume that you haven't had much experience of tents. After 4 months camping you will know what you liked and didn't about the tent you take and will be in a better position to choose a tent in the future. A lot of what people tell you will be their own preferences and nothing beats experience in finding out what works for you.

Edit: GoOutdoor look to have a few reduced if you pay £5 for a Discount Card. eg
http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/vango-blade ... nt-p261510

This one at F&T looks ok
http://www.fieldandtrek.com/robens-chal ... e=78314590

[randomblue]

Thank you for your reply!!

It''s a massive releif to hear I'm not being totally crazy! And it's very true if the tent dies mid trip I'd be fine picking up a new one!

Thanks also for the suggestions!

Would you by any chance be able to give me a quick run down of which pole types are better than others? Am I right in thinking that to an extent you can replace poles for better versions like you can with pegs?

I am definitely looking for something that allows wild camping. I'm not planning specifically to wild camp but I'd rather keep that option open incase I need to stop early, and the plans I've made start out really structured with campsites picked out at distances I think I can do each day but the further the trip goes on the more I'm going to be winging it!!

With the Coleman tent you linked I came across another one of theirs on ebay but when I looked up reviews lots of them said they had snapped poles within 2 weeks of use and knowing not much about tent brands I figured that might well be a dodgy brand! Looks like it was just that model that wasn't a great shout though! Would the blues be ok for wild camping do you think?

I'm not convinced about the headroom in the vango blade but it was also on my list of tents to ask about in the camping shop to see if they'll let me try putting it up so I can test out the headroom! I'm about 5"9" so should be able to sit up in it find but only in the middle so I think I'd be better off with a dome or tunnel.

The last one you linked definitely looks interesting and I could probably stretch to that price =) Again I'm going to check them out in the store for ease of pitching and how spacious it actually feels inside =)

Thanks for your help!!

Edit: just looked at the one I originally linked again and realised it has an even lower top so will definitely need to chekc them all out in store to see what head room I'm actually happy with!

[RickH]

For example is something like this not a feasible option? Seems to have decent enough reviews on other sites?

And its only £35 at Go Outdoors at the mo(+£5 if you don't already have one of their discount cards) or 1 left at £30 on Amazon (if you don't mind buying via them).

Rick.

[andrew_s]

Your described usage is summer low land camping in Europe. For this you can certainly get away with a cheap low spec tent.

This is generally correct for France, Germany etc during the summer.
A cheap double skin tent will be fine for keeping the rain off, and strong winds are unlikely in most places, and most campsites are relatively sheltered.
The most likely problem would be broken poles, with aluminium poles generally being better than fibreglass. It is probably worth trying to find some tubing that is a fairly close fit over the outside of the poles and taking a couple of short (3-4") lengths, so if a pole breaks you can splint it until you can get to a camping shop for new poles or tent. Good tents often come with them.
Don't go for a single skin tent to save weight - you'll just get wet from condensation.

Note that this green light for cheap tents doesn't apply everywhere. For example, in the Outer Hebrides, strong winds can occur all year, there's very little shelter, and the nearest replacement tents would most likely be in Fort William or Oban.

[randomblue]

Thanks for your reply!

My route it pretty long but the gist is from the North edge of France going up through Belgium to Amsterdam, across Germany via Hamburg and Berlin, down to Prague and then to Krakow. From there I'll be heading down across Slovakia to Hungary (first section with climbs/remoteness), then along the river route to Vienna and on across Austria and South Germany to Zurich. From Zurich down to Milan via the Gotthard pass, although there's a high chance I'll cop out and find a B&B on the few days higher up. Then travelling by train around Italy to Rome and finally following the coast from Rome all the way around to Barcelona.

In other words I'm only doing 2 sections that aren't lowlands and expected to be in good weather and for the more extreme of those I'm likely to ditch the ten in favour of a real bed anyway. And throughout the whole trip I don't expect to be more than a day from potential supplies or at least somewhere I could replace the tent altogether =)

Taking repair stuff definitely sounds like a good idea though! Just to check... pole materials wise fibreglass < aluminium < carbon fibre? Where does alloy poles fit in that pecking order? And is it possible to buy a cheap and cheerful tent like the Vango soul and replace the poles with a better version since the poles seem to be the source of any bad reviews out there for it?

[foxyrider]

It amazes me that you consider replacing a broken/damaged tent mid trip okay but you seem unwilling to buy something from the outset that won't need such drastic action! Do you consider mechanical failures with the bike to be par for the course or does your transport get better attention?

Any failure on a trip is bad news, avoidable failure is stupidity. I've had failure of poles on expensive tents in europe in summer due to high winds but by the same score i've also had a tree land on my tent (with me in it) during a storm on a very sheltered campsite near Frankfurt - both i and the tent survived. You can't plan for everything and you could be lucky.

We all have budgetry restrictions but one of the main cornerstones of your trip deserves higher priority than you seem willing to give it.

[jamesgilbert]

I'm of the 'spend slightly more' opinion, you are planning on a lot of nights camping, and the wear and tear on most cheap tents will put them out of action fairly quickly. And it's not necessarily just poles breaking that you have to worry about - zips, eyelets, seams, peg loops and however the poles attach to the tent are all areas of weakness.

Good deals on better spec second-hand tents must come up on online auction websites fairly often.

But anyway, the difference between a really basic cheap tent and a reasonable (but still inexpensive) tent is only going to be equivalent to a few nights in a B&B. I'm struggling to see the justification in not spending an extra £100, and please note that I'm not talking about the extra several hundred pounds that would be required for the "top spec mountaineering tent" mentioned earlier.

[randomblue]

My total budget for the trip is only around £2500 and that needs to cover the bike, tent and up to 140 days worth of food/campsites/other accommodation and sightseeing. When I'm in big cities there's a very high chance I'll be using cheap backpacking hostels anyway so the tent will only be used around 2 nights out of 3.

Considering as has already been pointed out I'm not going anywhere where I expect to encounter high winds or torrential rain and for 90% of the trip I'm going to be below 500m elevation wise I just don't see the point in spending such extreme amounts on the tent. It's not like I'm camping on mountain tops or in the middle of winter and I'm sure at least a few nights when it's warmer I'm going to be considering sleeping under the stars anyway.

And with regards to potentially replacing a damaged tent that's an IF necessary. It's not like I'm looking for a tent with "Will break after one use" written all over it - I'm looking at second hand or discounted end of line options for a decent tent and several of the ones I've come across were RRP £150+ but now selling at £50-60.

The fact of the matter is, for me it's not feasible to spend £200+ on a tent and that's that! Even if I buy a £50 and have to replace it midway, which I'm still not convinced I will have to do, it'll still cost half as much as shelling out for something that will essentially do the same job anyway?

[jamesgilbert]

It might be quite hard sticking to that budget... you can save a lot of money in cities by using WarmShowers or Couchsurfing rather than hostels. I can really recommend WarmShowers as I had some great experiences last summer.

/thread hijack over

[foxyrider]

Considering as has already been pointed out I'm not going anywhere where I expect to encounter high winds or torrential rain and for 90% of the trip I'm going to be below 500m elevation wise I just don't see the point in spending such extreme amounts on the tent. It's not like I'm camping on mountain tops or in the middle of winter and I'm sure at least a few nights when it's warmer I'm going to be considering sleeping under the stars anyway.

I was making the point that you might not think you get extreme weather at lower altitudes - i know you can and have experienced most of my extreme weather camping at significantly less than 500m! Frankfurt is at only 110m, Bodensee at 395m and some of the worst wind i've endured under canvas was mid August at about 20m elevation. i think you'll find the Somerset levels are below 500m and they've had a little rain lately - don't think because its europe and summer its all blue skies - i generally have about 25% of any trip blighted by significant precipitation - thats averaged over trips from the Baltic to the Alps and most of in between!

I would hardly call £200 extreme but i have to say that i think i'd want a bigger budget for 4 months than you have - i'm hardly extravagant on my tours but i could get through most of that in 4 weeks without buying the bike and other gear. The areas where you are considering not camping are possibly some of the most expensive for accomodation in Europe! Hostels may be available in the biggest cities but try getting it in a small town in northern Italy!

All i can say is good luck