Tent-Buying Tips

Above, a spacious hunter's cabin tent I saw at a recent camp-out. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Although I now enjoy the comforts of a RV when traveling to the "great outdoors", like many, I started camping in a tent. At my age, I feel that I owed it to myself to live a little and I paid my dues in tents when I was younger.

But there are some out there who either prefer tent camping or just cannot afford a RV. The question arises on what kind of tent should they get.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal has an article of tips to buying a camping tent.

They begin with:

In the years following World War II, Americans took to the open road in numbers never seen before. Not for recreational purposes anyway. 

New highways and paved roads opened access to the country’s wildlands and provided access to its natural wonders. And a booming postwar economy provided people with the financial wherewithal to get there. 

At first, there were no formal campgrounds, or few of them, especially in the West. And there weren’t any RVs, either. People who went camping either slept under the stars or in a tent. 

One of my earliest camping memories is of my dad telling us siblings to slide down inside a large double sleeping bag where we spent the night next to a campfire. Such was often the case, and I still enjoy sleeping under the stars when the weather is cooperative. When it isn’t, a simple tarp can provide shelter from the elements, but not everybody feels comfortable in such primitive digs. 

As a result, RVs have become the norm for many campers, but they are rather costly and limit the places you can set up camp. Then there is the storage factor. 

Tents, on the other hand, have remained relatively affordable and provide camping flexibility. While they don’t have the comforts available in an RV, tents can be easily stored in a garage or storage shed and transported in a car or pickup truck bed. 

Along with providing shelter from the elements, tents also give people the peace of mind that makes it possible for them to sleep outdoors. Not that tents provide the same level of physical protection that RVs do, but their walls provide just enough separation from the outdoors to soothe nerves and fears some have of being in the outdoors when the sun goes down.

To read more, go here.