Having sold a few tents lately, can anyone recommend a good 2 person car camping tent. Ideally have good headroom, so at least can sit on a chair in the porch, largish porch space and ideally can be pitched by one person when I go alone with the dog.
Up to £250 to spend. Weight not an issue.
The Vango Omega 350 is an excellent tent for car camping. Having previously used mountain tents on campsites, I used one of these a couple of weeks ago, including a day of seriously wet weather in Pembrokeshire. I really liked having the huge porch after a mountain tent, particularly useful in bad weather, and the bathtub floor of the extension is great. The only downside I found was that the design of the doors, curving inwards at the top, aided ingress of water in wet weather when you were going in or out of the tent. A tarp rigged up here would prevent that though.
I got one really cheap last year from Go Outdoors on their price match scheme.
You can unclip the groundsheet in the porch & fold it back in wet weather to help overcome the problem above..
The Omega 350 is great value for money. After trying to use my more hardcore TN Super Quasar & TNF MTN25 for car camping I quick realized I needed something with more room for bad weather when camping with my son & dog. The Omega 350 fits the bill perfectly - loads of room for me, the lad & the dog & enough headroom to sit in the porch on a chair. Easy big enough for 3 adults & luxury for 2 plus kit. We got ours cheap from aYeomans tent exhibition. Can't remember how much we paid but well under £200. The tent features the Vango Tension Band which works really well in windy weather.
Dead easy. This is the Omega 350. There is also a Beta 350 - same design but cheaper fabrics & fibreglass poles at under £100 (& the Titan 300 - higher sepc than the Omega plus extra door at front of porch & snow valance - <£500).
I may modify mine & add a door at the end - one day. The open door could then be used as a canopy to sit under.
I agree with Spiritburner, I found it really easy to pitch. In fact, the first time I ever pitched it was in my neighbour's garden (I don't have one!) by myself. Didn't take that long, it's pretty intuitive.
I got mine for under £100 at Go
Try to find a decent tipi of poly cotton. Loads of room, easy to pitch (indeed one man) and potentially you can use a woodstove in it to heat the tent. why go lightweight when car camping if you also can go in great comfort?
My preference is to use a vintage paraffin pressure bowlfire. Tilley & Bialaddin were popular British makes but there were many others - that & a 500cp paraffin pressure lamp - that throws out a lot of heat. You can see a Bialaddin bowlfire & an Aida 500cp lamp (like a petromax) in my pics. That said, Mrs S does like the big bell tents with wood burner stove option.
The bowlfire lit (normal caveats about ventilation etc!)
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