Vango Aspen 700 Tent

*** Vango Aspen 700 Family Tent ***

The two tent bags are large and the pole bag especially is very heavy. I would not like to carry it much further than the front door to the car. Not really a problem as when you get to a site you just pull it out the boot and almost straight onto the ground. 

I have a Mondeo and the pole bag would go across the front of the boot towards the tailgate, and the tent bag would push in lengthways along the side of the boot leaving a reasonable area for other stuff to go in, eg. Folding table, chairs, gas stove and bottle. Our suit case will just fit on top. That leaves bedding, mats, sleeping bags to all get squashed up in the back seat of the car with our daughter. Other bits to go under seats and in the front passenger well with my wife. A squeeze I know and not ideal but I reckon we’ll manage it.

Getting it Up!

We emptied the bags on the grass and assembled all the poles first, easy because they are wired so you just unfold them and push them all together. The poles have coloured plastic bands on them that correspond to coloured bands on the inner tent sleeves.

We unfolded the inner and layed it out nice and flatish and because it was a wee bit windy just lightly pegged each corner, no need usually.

Now taking assembled yellow and green roof poles we carefully slid them through the corresponding roof sleeves of the inner tent. Yellows and greens first which go across the tent (3 lengths) and then reds which go front to back (2 lengths), also a blue fibreglass pole that goes down the middle of the roof but doesn’t seem to fit, seems too long until you start getting the roof lifted up and supported then it can be closed in with it’s Velcro fastener. Take care pushing the poles through the sleeves, I supported the weight and pushed slightly while my wife fed them through. Two people can assemble the tent. Once all the roof poles are in place and lying on the ground it’s a case of lifting up the sides in turn to first attach the down poles or legs. Someone can stand inside to help hold the pole up while another fits the legs in turn, it can be a bit awkward but not too problematic. We just went around each one in turn, first the two sides, then the front and back legs were fitted until we had an awkward looking free standing inner. I say this because until they are attached to the inner tent and pinned down the whole thing is very collapsible looking *lol*

Just go around each leg in turn attaching the clips of the inner tent to the poles first as in the picture below, you can see the plastic clips of the inner hooked onto the leg poles and also the colour coding system is clearly visible too.

Conclusion

She is a beautiful tent, very roomy and comfortable. We fitted everything in with space to spare. The porch area makes an ideal kitchen for the camping gaz stove etc, thereby also keeping the gas bottle out of the tent and sown in ground sheet area. We had two tables and three chairs inside with a 10” portable tv and electric hook up and room to walk around them. Due to the light blue colour she is very bright inside, so much so that even at night especially under a moonlit sky you can see inside really well. Very handy for getting up and using the chemical loo in the area of the third bedroom. It’s a handy room with a partition that divides it up into a rear toilet area and front wardrobe with hanging pole or it can just be used as a bedroom of course. This tent was as close to a home from home as tents get.

So I hope this is of some help to those thinking of buying or wanting to know how to put up an Aspen 700/500 series tent. It may look daunting but really it’s one of those instances where thinking about it is actually worse than just going ahead and doing it. It’s really not too bad to put up, just spend your time getting that inner tent erected nice and straight with the bedrooms looking right and the sewn in ground sheet sitting right and the rest is easy. The outer goes on easy by pulling it over front to back and just going around pulling it down and straightening it up, pegging down etc.

Where Can I get them From?

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