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I have never had luck with tents. Then again, all of my tent experiences have been on the beach (Texas coast) and have involved insane amounts of wind, inability to keep the tent staked, missing poles, etc. Did I mention that the tents were always my mother's tents and she always swore that they had all the parts and were ready to go? I spent too many trips waking up to a tent that had collapsed on us all. I'm tent inept, or just need a better tent anyway.
I still think I'd like to give it another shot. My only other objection is the heat. Most of our free time is in summer, so tent camping in summer means never-ending hellishly hot temps. Makes me think about a popup instead. Or moving out of Texas.
Well if it helps, modern tents have come a long ways. You don't have 20 individual aluminum poles like in days past. Now days you get 4 groups of fiberglass poles that are connected by a thin bungie cord. This makes erecting a tent much easier. As for temps, you can leave the rain fly off to help improve wind/breeze flow an they make tent fans.
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Originally Posted by kadylady
If you're borrowing a tent, it's always a good idea to set it up in the yard, before you go. It's like borrowing a jigsaw puzzle....there's always a piece missing.
The Nemo tent we have uses a hub design at the top of the tent. The poles rotate outward 90deg from each other, clip them on, then attach two short 'brow' pole above the doors (two door tent which is GREAT). Add the fly and you're done.
Tents have come a long way. Outstanding features and weathertight (at least if you are willing to go a little deep on price (North Face, Nemo, Mountain Hardware, Marmot, etc..).
Tents have come a long way. Outstanding features and weathertight (at least if you are willing to go a little deep on price (North Face, Nemo, Mountain Hardware, Marmot, etc..).
Even my 4-season Coleman backpacking tent keeps out the weather great. It held out 18" of snow one night in Yosemite. Upper Pines 1 by scorpio516, on Flickr DSC_1961 by scorpio516, on Flickr
There it is not buried in the snow. I prefer that hammock though.
My REI 2 person tent that cost 2x the Coleman is a much better tent though - superior construction, easier to set up, better design, and lighter.
And finally, why a tent not an RV? No roads here, this shot was taken about 15 miles from a road. S6300300 by scorpio516, on Flickr
Sure, you could park your RV somewhere, drive to the trail head, park, hike 30 miles, drive back to the RV and sleep, but IMHO that's silly.
That's good for Coleman. My experiences with tents have been that brands like Kelty and below tend to wear down a lot faster. Shockcorded poles break, seams come undone, design flaws etc.. Our scout troop wore down Kelty tents in about 3 seasons. We replaced them Mountain Hardware and they are really a notch above.
But I think the advances in tent designs have boded well for the entire industry. I know my North Face Aerohead is a 4 season tent designed before it's time. Quite literally a bombproof tent. Wind proof, weathertight- been in 50+mph winds in a whiteout and we didn't even put guylines out. Little tight for 2 if you are hunkered down for a day or more, but a great tent. It is my go-to late fall-winter-early spring tent. 19 years old and still chugging along! Maybe expensive at the time, but man have I ever got my money out of it!!
I"ve been reading through this camping and RVing thread and seems like everybody has an RV or some type of big camper to call "camping". That aint camping! That's taking your house with you! When I camp, we pack the tent, a wooden camp kitchen my dad made about 40 years ago, the lantern and stove, and the rest of the gear we need. No TV, no radio, no microwaves, nothing electrical. We still camp in the regular campgrounds, but with no electricity, $12 a night is nice! An old friend told me they started to go camping for the weekend but had to cancel. Something was wrong with the microwave in the camper. Am I the only one who still tent camps? I know I'm not because my wife and I went last month (her first camping trip in 31 years and she loved it) there were quite a few tents in use.
This brings back memories!
We were the only ones with a tent in a medium-sized campground in central Minnesota. We camped out on my grandparent's plot there (next to their small camper, which we sometimes slept in), which I would estimate to be about an acre in size, and was right next to a gravel pit which gave us kids plenty of memories EVERYBODY else had campers, except one poor family in a tent. EVERYBODY. It made me furious as a kid, especially when I was going through that "why can't we have what everybody else (seems to) have?" stage. Yet nowadays I remember that and am sort of glad.
As a side note, we were thinking about buying a property there with THREE campers on it. Great deal, too...I remember one was a class-C, one was a tiny teardrop, and the other was a smaller class-C, I think.
Forgot to mention, modern tents has improved but I'm not a fan of the factory tent stakes. Their thin/narrow gauge an generally only 3-5" long. It never fails, I alway have a couple come loose. Anyhow, You can pick up some large 9" wider stake for about $5-10 at Academy an a cheap steak hammer or $5.
That's good for Coleman. My experiences with tents have been that brands like Kelty and below tend to wear down a lot faster. Shockcorded poles break, seams come undone, design flaws etc.. Our scout troop wore down Kelty tents in about 3 seasons. We replaced them Mountain Hardware and they are really a notch above.
Yeah, I was quite surprised. I wasn't expecting much, but needed a tent for November in Yosemite, and our 75%+ mesh usual tent wouldn't cut it.
Quote:
But I think the advances in tent designs have boded well for the entire industry. I know my North Face Aerohead is a 4 season tent designed before it's time. Quite literally a bombproof tent. Wind proof, weathertight- been in 50+mph winds in a whiteout and we didn't even put guylines out. Little tight for 2 if you are hunkered down for a day or more, but a great tent. It is my go-to late fall-winter-early spring tent. 19 years old and still chugging along! Maybe expensive at the time, but man have I ever got my money out of it!!
+1
Back 25 years ago, I slept in the old Eureka Timberlines as a boy scout. Without buying them new, it's hard to find a tent today that is that heavy and packs that large for a 2 person. But they did hold up to a bunch of tweens and teens for at least a decade (they weren't new when I started, and they still used them after I left).
For me the tent was just the beginning. As a poor newly wed and parent we chose tent camping as a inexpensive vacation. We started out with a little bit of gear and over the course of a few years we always thought of something extra to bring along until we had so much gear we ended up hauling it in a 5x8 utility trailer. Sure it was fun, but it became a lot of work to pack for a trip, set up camp, and do the reverse of those things when the trip was over. Also being from Texas we took most of our trips in the summer when the kids were out of school. We soon moved up to a popup and the loading and setup times were shorter and it really made for a nicer place to sleep at the end of the day. We then started to use our popup as a hotel room on wheels in addition to regular camping trips. While that was nice we learned our popup did not have enough storage for our liking and it was a PITA to pack away in the rain, an event that has happened on almost every camping trip of ours since 2000. Three years ago I bought a 35 foot bumper pull travel trailer and will have a hard time going back to anything else. At a moments notice I can have that rig ready to camp. Throw in a little food and a pair of underwear and we hit the road. We still do the same activities we did when we first tent camped, but we sleep way better, can have more people go with us and the space and luxuries are appreciated when hanging out in a rain storm. We also use it as a hotel room when we stay in "luxury" RV parks, but it gets most of it's use in state parks and COE parks. I still own a tent for those scouting camp outs, but for me the less work it is to get up and go the better.
Yeah I have truck camper now. Makes base camp that much more enjoyable. Like going hunting when it's cold, windy and you've been trekking all day- nice to come back, climb inside, turn the thermostat on and sit and unwind.
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It's like borrowing a jigsaw puzzle....there's always a piece missing. 
EVERYBODY else had campers, except one poor family in a tent. EVERYBODY. It made me furious as a kid, especially when I was going through that "why can't we have what everybody else (seems to) have?" stage. Yet nowadays I remember that and am sort of glad. 
