I am looking for a weekend tent to take my wife, daughter and dog camping for a few weekends over the summer to North Wales or the Lake District. We are complete beginners and are unsure of which tent to go for. We have been looking at the Sprayway River Hood 4 starter package but there are no reviews on this site at all for this tent which makes me think this is a bad choice. Would I be better off with the Vango Icarus 500 that seems to be much more popular?
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I'd personally go for a 5 or 6 birth or you will be tripping over each other. No idea about the Sprayway tent but the Vango ICarus 500 is a great tent. Invest in a carpet as well to keep the tent cosy.
I would advise you read the reviews on other sprayway tents before you part with any cash, another option is the Outwell Virginia 5 from Yeomans, i personally wouldnt mind spending a little extra on a tent that will last a bit longer. there is a thread atm on icarus 500 or virginia 5.
with tents you may want to add to the births as they are very narrow spaces, we are a family of 3 and have an Oakland XL which is a 5 birth and we dont feel like we are sleeping on top of each other, plus if you use airbeds you will struggle to get them into a small area as they tend to be wider than the allocated person space.
just a word about poles as you are planning to go to north wales, its very windy on a good day in north wales so be aware flexipoled tents are going to move around a lot more than steel poled ones, another reason we chose the Oakland XL as we often go to Anglesey.
Hi,welcome to the camping nuthouse, The vango icarus is popular with families,It depends on your budget really Kampa,Vango and Outwell are amongst the favourites although Bell tents are also becoming more and more popular and take about 15mins to pitch,Am sure there will be others along soon to give you their valued opinions...Outwell virginia 5 (only at yeomans) £199 or thereabouts,is a nice family tent and not too much of a horrendous price...happy tent hunting!
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Thanks for all the advice. Im glad I wrote on here now as I had not even looked at the Outwell Virginia 5, it seems a really good quality tent for the price.
As a new camper would you advise me to buy the additional canopy too?
I personally would buy the tent and go camping in it to see if you really need it. If you are going to buy an new tent and a new canopy why not buy a tent with a canopy already fitted that would be much nicer
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Depends on if you plan to do any cooking, certainly would advise against cooking inside the tent, seen too many posts against it, we have a canopy on our Oakland and it's really nice to sit in if it rains or a good place to stand if you smoke, we had an Icarus beside us on last camp and they struggled to cook inside it when the rain came, spilt stuff on their tent, on the other side was a Tigris 800 and they actually had damaged theirs trying to cook onside. So it's up to you.
Really like the look of the Outwell tents and by a fluke at the last minute yesterday I noticed a complete set up on ebay thats only been used a couple of times so I decided to go for it and take the plunge. I got myself and Outwell Nevada M with all the extras (canopy, carpet, footprint and lots of equipment)and we are going to collect tonight. Just need our sleeping bags now and we are away.