Complete Camping Newbie, advice requested

[markybates]

Hi all,

I am totally new to the idea of camping and am looking for some advice from the experts. We are a family of 6 with the kids ranging from 3 to 8 and are looking to get into camping as the price of other holidays is getting ridiculous! I have a few questions to get me going.

We went to a camping show room at the weekend where the very nice salesman showed us his range of Outwell and Vengo tents. From that and reading a few posts on here would I be right in thinking that Outwells are considered one of the best tents ? They did seem quite expensive. What other makes would be comparable and is the extra expense really justified ?

The very nice salesman also suggest that we should budget for around £1,000 to get completely kitted out with the essentials for camping ie cooking, sleeping etc (including the tent obviously). Would that be a fair assessment ?

Finally does anyone know of a place to hire tents or borrow tents so that we could try it out over a weekend to see if it is for us.

I know these are a little vague as questions go, but any advice would be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance
Marky

[Boris]

There are a couple of ways to go. If you are sure that it's for you (and it might not be) £1K will give you a great start but you could get 90% of that for a lot less.

Tesco do good summer sleeping bags for a few pounds and airbeds (again cheap) are fine for most of the year. Assuming you aren't planning to carry everything cooking can be done using household pots and pans and a couple of cheap suitcase gas stoves.

The only real expense is the tent and even then you can get some pretty good last years models often for a fraction of new price. I wouldn't recommend a display tent as they have probably been pitched for months and the sun does degrade them and often they are pitched on a hard surface and have had people clumping around inside them with boots on.

[Madhouse]

My advice would be to go for the best tent you can afford now and build up your kit as you go , as Boris says you can use a lot of things from home for now as long as you have the basics , another point is use a good site were you can have a lot of ammenties to hand . Depending on your budget I would advise looking at getting a polycotton or cotton tent they will last way longer keep you warmer at night and are cooler in warmer weather , but to be honest one the size you need is going to be in the region of £800 new for polycotton and even more for a cotton tent unless you can source one on ebay. If you can afford to buy new take a look at the Kampa Polzeath a very nice tent done by a british company , another thing you need to consider when buying a new tent is a lot of tents description of how many they sleep can be a bit on the ambitious side always buy a tent larger than you think you need , for example a 6 birth tent would suit four people better , The Kampa Polzeath is an eight man tent with 4 bedrooms so would suit your family needs , there is nothing worse than being in a tent with kids when its raining with hardly an room inside.Another tent you could consider is Outwells Wolf lake 7 again another big tent which to be honest with you has a better ground sheet than the Polzeath it also has ZIG which is a zip in ground sheet rather than SIG which is a sewn in ground sheet , being able to remove the the groundsheet is a great help when packing away as it makes the flysheet ( the material of the tent) lighter and easier to fold away. Also remeber these tents are heavy and bulky bits of kits like all big tents so you will need either a large vehicle or trailer to put them in .
DaveS and myself both have the Outwell Norfolk Lake (which is now discontinued) which is from the same family of tents as the Wolf Lake 7 and the quality of these tents are superb and if looked after will give you years of camping.


Kampapolzeath
Wolflake7

As for tent hire there is a number of companies up and down the country that do hire tents a quick google will bring them up , look for the nearest one to where you want to camp here is one to get you started.But personaly I wouldn't hire a tent as it will cost you a large portion of what you could have put to buying one, if you don't like camping and you want to sell it you can always stick it on ebay or something, the good tents always demand a decent price as long as you don't sell it over winter.

http://www.tent2hire.co.uk/tents%208-9%20man.htm The tent on this link is very similar to the Kampa Polzeath, its a Vango Polyester tent.