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Tents are making me go mad!


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Has anyone got any opinions on these tents I'm considering? I want it to double as a family of 3 tent and a star camp tent.

Coleman Coastline 6

I've found this for £165.

Vango Maritsa 500

I've found this for £329.

Outwell Oakland XL

I've found this for £289 but includes a foldaway cabinet worth £41

If someone could put me out of my misery that would be great - fingers crossed! :)

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I saw a Vango 500 very similar to the Maritsa, which had almost the same specifications. It came up on the Local Bargain Finder pages on EBay, which my wife frequents.

It opened up at £50, and was timed to run for 4 days.

She decided to keep an eye on it, but next day, it had sold for £70.

Funny, because it didn't have a buy it Now Option, but I think someone must have put the offer in, and it was accepted.

I thought that was a bit unethical, as I'm sure others would have been watching it too.

You might want to investigate if you have a local Bargain finder.

You type in your postcode, and it will take you there. I think a link to ebay comes up too. Try this site and see how you get on. Can't guarantee any tents, but it's worth a try.

Ron.

www.localbargainfinder.co.uk

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It's hard to tell from the pics but do they all have a fixed sewn-in groundsheet in the living area as well as the sleeping? I wouldn't want this. It would fill with wet inevitably imported on your clothes when you come in soaked and would not escape easily. For me a living area should have a free standing groundsheet so you can swish the wet off it and get it out to dry when (if) it stops raining! The sleeping area should, of course, have a GS sewn in.

Olly

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Don't get the Vango - it's made with Protex - My cagoule is Protex and it leaks after an hour or so in pouring rain. I like the simplicity of the Outwell but the Coleman has more features and capacity. So for astronomy camping my vote is for the Coleman :)

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Whichever tent you go for pick one with a minimum of 1500HH (how much water it can shake off) the higher the value the more waterproof the tent is. Becuase i go camping all year round i went for one with a 4000 rating.

Steve

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We have an Outwell tent, and I must say that the attention to detail in the design is excellent - little things like velcro straps attached to all the guy ropes to secure them with when packing, day-glo guy ropes, bug screens on the windows, etc.

Also, being a tunnel tent, it's dead easy to put up - as fumbling newbies at campling it only took us about 20 minutes.

Robin

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Has anyone got any opinions on these tents I'm considering? I want it to double as a family of 3 tent and a star camp tent.

Coleman Coastline 6

I've found this for £165.

Vango Maritsa 500

I've found this for £329.

Outwell Oakland XL

I've found this for £289 but includes a foldaway cabinet worth £41

If someone could put me out of my misery that would be great - fingers crossed! :)

I have the Vango Orchy 600 and it has survived pouring rain in Wales (infact I think you should look at it for yourself) perhaps the poster with the protex mac got unlucky?

Of all of the ones you list I'd go for the Vango as I have never had a bad tent from them. It is tempting to go for the equal sized but cheaper tent by another brand but I have always found it to be a false economy (that said, I would trust coleman but I steer clear of tunnel tents as they are more vulnerable to the wind).

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for all your camping needs and a very friendly online community I would go to UKcampsite.co.uk

They are as friendly as the bunch on here and know everything there is to know about all your camping needs.

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Probably a bit late if you've already bought, but we've had good service and great prices from a place called 'Outdoor Megastore' - and you can get 10% discount (cashback) there via Quidco too.

Robin

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i am also a member of ukcampsites and have seen a lot of outwells on my travels they seem to be very well designed tents and all models are highly rated by their owners. certainly my next tent will be an outwell

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  • 1 month later...

Hi,

You should find that the Outwell is an excellent tent. I have an Outwell Trout Lake 4.

It is very heavy.... comes in two parts.... and weighs in at some 42kgs!!.

I purchased an Outwell Footprint for the tent, this is a heavy duty sheeting that goes underneath the ground sheet. The other thing that improves the comfort is an Outwell carpet for the non sleeping area.

On the question of sleeping bags, there are some questions worth answering, if you only intend camping in the Summer then you could go for a cheaper bag lighter weight bag, if you feel cold there is nothing to stop you wearing more clothes in bed!

I have a Vango 5 Season Down bag that can be used in temperatures down to

-32F ie adequate for winter camping, I bought the bag about 25 years ago and it is still in use. I leave the zip open in the summer.....otherwise I would roast to death.

Incidentally, the July 2010 issue of Trail magazine has a camping supplement which will answer all your camping queries for only £3.99.

I forgot to mention the importance of setting the tent up in your back garden before any attempts at a campsite. There is a video on the Outwell website on how to set it up, definitely worth viewing, if you have a laptop you could view and build in the garden. I found the written instructions to be vague, it took us nearly 4 hours to set it up the first time ;), after viewing the video and practice I can now set up the 4 man tent in less than an hour by myself :).

It is an ideal tent for Star Parties.

Best Wishes

Adrian

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