Tesco or Sainsbury's tent for touring?

[aek]

Hello everyone, i am trying to build my touring kit for camping and i am on a strict budget after building my Surly LHT. I have everything except the camping kit.
Visiting Tesco's and Sainsbury's i noticed they sell camping gear and the Tesco 2 person tent at £20 looks very tempting.
Does anyone have any experience with similar camping gear?
The tesco tent is only 2kg in weight and looks better made than the sainsbury's one.

By the way i will only be using it for UK touring for now and i only need it to last me for a while until i can afford better camping gear.

Your advice will be greately appreciated.

Thank you

[DevonDamo]

If you go on Tesco's website, you can click on a link which pulls up reviews for the tent. Here it is: http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-0497.aspx

Looks pretty good to me. Normally, these ultra-cheap tents are made of a single-skin of non-breathable material, hence they fill up with condensation while you sleep. That doesn't seem to be the case with this one.

[largeallan]

Oh lordy, If I were you I'd walk on by and wait til you can afford something half decent....even a second hand cheapie.
I cast my eye over these tents last year and felt they were just cheap and nasty. OK, I live in Scotland where there's a higher chance of rain, but even so, I think these tents are a recipe for a miserable experience and suitable for putting yer kids out in the back garden in mid summer, or for a teenagers music festival outing where maximum drugs and alcohol purchase is more important than tent quality!!

[largeallan]

LMAO "9.0 out of ten, its my third so far"

[andrewk]

Give it a miss and buy a proper tent.

[hufty]

We've had a cheapo supermarket tent for car camping and festivals for a few seasons now. It's been great, and when you consider the cost it's been brilliant. If you're basically staying on campsites go for it. It'll be a good way to see what features you want out of your next tent, and you won't have to worry about your expensive lightweight tent getting trashed by drunk "non-technical" campers or similar if you're venturing onto a campsite during the school holidays. The poles will probably be fibreglass rather than aluminium, the pegs will probably be wire and will go rusty (but will do the job better than the currently fashionable titanium drawing pins), but I bet the stitching will be fine. If it does break while you're on tour, you'll have one night in the toilet block followed by a ride to the nearest tesco to get another tent.

[cycleruk]

Nothing wrong with cheaper tents but obviously you get what you pay for.
Personally I would look at the practicality of the tent as well as the price.
NOT recommending but just pointing out :-
http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... 419414.htm

Where do you store your equipment when on site?
Obviously one man in a two man tent has spare room.
Can you cook if the weather is bad?
Will it stand up to bad weather conditions?
The Argos, in my estimation, would allow cooking in the porch area.
Look at EBay and try - 2 man tent - buy it now - price low to high. May give you some ideas.
P.S. Argos would allow you to look and return if not satisfied as maybe Tesco, Sainsbury.

[simonineaston]

You are much, much better off patiently waiting for a real tent to come up on ebay... the first windy rainy night you spend in a cheap tent that lets you down, you will sincerely wish you'd listened to all the folk who said the same as me.

Really good tents come up on ebay quite often - look for names like Roberts, Vango, Ultimate, Vaude, TNF, Blacks, Phoenix, MacPac, etc.etc. - with a bit of luck you'll end up paying less than the unreliable efforts offered by the supermarkets. Tents are as much the subject of fashion as anything else and folks get rid of perfectly good old-ish tents - no one much is interested in them but they might have been state-of-the-art 20/30 years ago, and will stand up to foul weather really well.

This post will be instantly followed by lots from lucky folks who've bought a cheap supermarket tent and loved it, but keep thinking about that one windy, rainy night when your Tesco-tent turns inside out at - wait for it - ten to three in the morning!

In the context of a single week-end away in mid-summer, when the weather is 'set fair', or maybe at a festival when you don't want to risk damage to a 'proper' tent costing 100s of pounds, I get the idea of a £30 tent, but when you're touring for some days on end and are going into country where there's not many other folk around to help out if you have tent trouble (or any other kind, for that matter!), my advice is get a proper tent.

[simonineaston]

Oh and I forgot to add a comment about UK weather, but of all the places you are likely to go, the UK has the most mixed and fast changing weather you can come across... Depending on exactly where you are going, you are likely to face a mix of weather ranging from sub-tropical to arctic in nature, so that's just more fuel to the argument for a real tent - I'm sorry to sound so negative and contradictory - I'm just thinking back to all the soggy, cold, wet mistakes I made back in my yoof, before forums were invented!

[gentlegreen]

I have a nice little 2 man dome tent I've camped in for a whole week before - when I had a car to keep my stuff in but seemed too heavy - only cost me £25 at the local camp shop - but it weighs 3.5 KG so will have to wait until I have a stronger rack.

Based on not much research I've speculated on a cheapie 2.5KG Coleman tent that someone said was decent value - somewhat annoying shape though.. http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B001P80GM8/r ... B001P80GM8 £35

Having only just weighed my old one, I'm surprised the weight difference isn't greater - it feels like an average load of shopping ...

My first outing is only one night and only 25 miles away and I'm sorry to say that until I can get my new Carradice (Old Man Mountain) rack and Super C panniers, it will be binbags, gaffertape and bungees.

EDIT :-

Just saw the reference about cooking in the porch area of a polyester tent - best be a cheap one then

[Barrenfluffit]

On the tesco tent:
The inner is made of mesh and the outer provides the water resistance. But if you look at the top the cover for the vent is quite small for the hole underneath. I think in a windy situation it would be possible for rain to get blown in.

Sometimes the corners of very cheap tents are cut too far but there is a lot of variety and you get a lot more for your money with a festival tent than with one pitched at outdoor pursuits. But you do need to think about the design.

I think this is better value and a sensible design http://www.worldoftents.co.uk/tents/ten ... -tent.html but the hydrostatic head is a bit low and it may be overkill for one. Also its fairly heavy and the poles are quite long. Pop up tents are a bit big when folded for bike touring

Also:
http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/gamma-200-p183861 looks a better longer term solution.

[irc]

This post will be instantly followed by lots from lucky folks who've bought a cheap supermarket tent and loved it,

Well my £20 Argos tent performed well enough for 70 nights across the USA. In fact I'm taking it back there this year. It's no longer produced though but while it was in production there were plenty favourable reviews.

http://www.stevewaltonsblog.com/2009/07 ... ght-1.html

[aek]

Thank you all for your replies. I've read other things about tents before on the forum and everyone seems to suggests that it's very important to invest in very good camping equipment.
I was thinking about the same, that's why i haven't bought one yet. Thanks for all advice so far.

I will do some more research, but i would like to know what you guys use, if you can send some links, what are your thoughts about your tents, would you buy something else if you had to do it again ?
Also, do any of you use airbeds while touring ? How heavy/bulky are they, can they be carried on a tour ?

All that would be very appreciated!

Thank you.

[Malaconotus]

At £75 delivered this is a great deal... http://www.outbacktrading.co.uk/product ... m=merchant RRP is now £120 for the 2011 model (which is pretty much unchanged)

I've just bought one because I packed my 2006 model up damp once too often and so have a few spots of mildew (now arrested with Milton Fluid) To be honest, I struggled to justify buying a new one but the discount price, the green colour (my old one is blue) the zipped access to the end porches (introduced in 2008) and the fact the old one becomes a full set of spares swung it.

It's extremely strong (withstood 70mph gusts on Mull a couple of weeks ago), light enough at £2.5Kg, easy to pitch, very roomy as a one-man even for a very tall and wide chap like me, (although a little intimate for two, perhaps) never had any rain or condensation issues, packs short for carrying on the rack, and well-reviewed generally.

On the downside headroom is limited, the side porch is inadequate for cooking in, or for storing much more than shoes in, and the 200 has only one door (the 300 has doors either side).

[Edwards]

I have a few tents ranging from full Geodesic 4 season to cheap. Depending on where I am going and the time of year depends on which tent gets used.
Ultra Violet light is the biggest killer of nylon tents so if I was going to be using a sheltered valley site in the summer I would use a cheap tent.
That way my good tents a still good when I want them to be.

The Tesco tent will do the job in sheltered locations but I would not use it where the wind could get under it. The design of this type of tent also tends to drip water into the inner in the rain if the fly door is open at all.