we tent camp.. get 2x the size.. , if you have 5 ppl.. get an 10 person tent MINIMUM.
we have this one... about 5 yrs old now... served us well.. love the hinged "door". Wife & I have a queen air mattress and my younger kids slept on 2 twins.. We still have plenty of room for all our clothes and crap. There's enough room to stand in the middle and I'm about 6'.
WeatherMaster® 10-Person Tent
^This. CostCo (Nashua) had some Coleman tent with a hinged door
~2 summers ago, and I was very impressed to look at it.
Not a bad deal.
Kelty Discovery 6 Tent | REI Co-op
Be sure to get a footprint, or at least a tarp to put under it though.
Both our backpacking and car-camping tents have footprints,
and we put a blue tarp underneath
them.
And The Bride uses the teentsy hand-rake from her overpriced Brookstone gardening set
to remove
all the sticks, pebbles, and acorns before we lay down the blue tarp
before we erect the tent. Because poking a hole in the floor sucks,
and poking a hole in the footprint is almost as bad - it doubles the odds
you're gonna get water pooling that will desperately seek a way inside.
Frankly, be sure to get every damned accessory they sell when you buy the tent.
Because tent-makers change tent designs like car makers change body styles.
And if you decide you want the accessory after purchase, you probably can't get it.
In particular, if there are optional vestibules that add overhang
or storage space outside the door, get them immediately.
We got the optional vestibule for our car camping tent, and it's big enough
to sit in with two lawn chairs in a pinch. (You need that to doff/don shoes anyhow,
to keep the mud out of the tent). By the time I realized that REI had a meta-vestibule
that added an igloo tunnel that we could have run to the dining canopy,
they'd changed the tent design, and the V2 tunnel isn't compatible with the V1 tent.
Hell, the V1 tent came with instructions that refer to some strange not-included
(and not sold separately) frob that would hold up the center panel of the roof fly.
I have to wonder if it caused capillary leaks (see below) or premature wear.
But that center panel fills with over a gallon of water in a heavy rain anyhow.
Stupid thing ought to have a grommet with barbed drain
and a few yards of surgical tubing.
You definitely want to double the number of people. 'Sleeps 5' means 5 people crammed against each other.
And you don't want gear or people touching the side walls,
at all.
In the days of canvas tents, that would initiate a capillary leak through the fabric,
and you couldn't stop it until the fabric dried again.
That may not be the case for modern nylon cloth, but why tempt fate?
See more about air mattresses below.
Something worthwhile that's a PITA and looks a little ugly would be to apply liquid seam sealer to all seams. I don't care who makes the tent and what they claim for waterproofing, I apply seam sealer.
Well, apply it to all the seams that are supposed to keep water out.
I went nuts and applied it to seams
above the level of the bottom rim of the mesh roof,
before I realized it was absolutely pointless. Duh.
I'll second what EMT said, bigger is better.
We also have a separate easy-up shelter to go over a picnic table-cooking area.
A good thing when it's wet out.
For the picnic table, we have the 10'x10' PahaQue.
It's the only shelter I could find with screening
and opaque walls that flip out to become awnings,
on all four sides.
Turns out there's an optional floor, which is out of stock when I look.
I wouldn't use it camping because NFW
am I going to slide a 400 pound Dannemora Prison-built
log picnic table atop a piece of fabric, let alone walk on it with shoes.
But I might buy it on general principle if only it would go back into stock.
Also, I got a gen-u-wine 10'x10' pantograph E-Z Up without walls
for short money at Ocean State Job Lot before the Dayton/Xenia Hamvention this year.
Was vital because my secondary elmer's deluxe E-Z Up w/ walls
has acquired a hole the size of a bucket at the apex. It'll be the size of
a bushel basket next year, too.
I am almost tempted to bring the E-Z Up as well as the Paha Que,
because setting up or breaking camp in a downpour is insane...
...and while an E-Z Up is going to fail first in wind or heavy rain,
it gives you someplace temporary to stand and fold stuff,
yet can be closed in less than 2 minutes.
I have a Coleman Sundome 6 person that I use when I camp alone. It fits a 42" wide cot and all my gear comfortably. It may have room for another person or 2, but it would be tight. I have been able to get a couple of queen size air mattresses in it, but it was tight with gear bags. I think when they size tents they take a standard sleeping bag and orient them to get max SLEEPING capacity with no consideration that people need to move around or stow gear.
Cot in tent by noon, hole in floor by evening?
It took two Queen-sized airbed failures
before we found a merely Full-sized replacement.
Which is what we should have had in the first place,
except they're rare in stores in our preferred design (no built-in motor).
The Queen made it almost impossible to fit gear inside the tent,
and the extra sleeping space was useless.
I use Tyvek for tent footprints. They work very well; very durable.
Interesting.
Note Sardaukar for scale, in front of the door.
