We are looking at a new family tent, as we will soon outgrow our existing Winfield what with needing a decent living and cooking space indoors to coe with British summer camping, and are looking at one of these, probably the XL version so it will last us 5-10 years.

Anyone any experiences of them – we like our current Outwell tent, so happy to stay with them.

My main concern is how easy is a big dome tent going to be to erect for an able bodied male, his 4'10" wife who doesn't have full use of her left arm, and a six year old assistant…..(we'll ignore other, smaller "helpers"!)

They are very very good, but are one of the more tricky tents to put up (cross over pole domes in general, not just outwell specific). They go up inner first, you need someone inside the tent really to support the centre of the fabric whilst putting the poles through. It's so big it's a two-person job.

as it goes up inner first, you get very good air circulation between the inner and outer, which helps massively to reduce condensation build up. The inner-first dome design is also one of the most stable for large family tents.

they are very very well made, and the warranty is very good with outwells (assuming you're buying new, from a dealer). http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk do some cracking deals on them. I used to work there, in Sheffield, selling tents from a huge range. The Outwell is better made than the Vango euivalent (Diablo 600).

Um, Outwell's own specs for the tent say it pitches flysheet first…

Outwell Hartford XL

HI Swadey

We have recently returned from a great holiday using the Outwell Hartford XXL tent. I can vouch for the fact that it is a great piece of kit. We were lucky enough to have to camp through the tail end of the recent hurricane apparently ( typical British ‘Summer’ as far as I can see), so we had high winds and heavy rain and the tent proved more than up to the job. In fact we were among the few on the site that did not have any issues due to the weather. We did a practice pitch before going on holiday and found the tent simple enough to put up. During our holiday we visited several sites and have now honed our technique to make it quicker and easier to pitch. I would say that if you follow a few straight forward processes the tent will be easy for you to pitch.

As an aside I would say that the XXL is well worth a look as it gives you a spare ‘pod’ to use as a larder, wardrobe etc and its footprint overall fits on the same size pitch. The dome is huge and we had several requests from others capmsters for a guided tour. Oh yes, and it IS flysheet first and there are fitted, but detatchable inners in the sleeping pods.

If you do decide to buy or want any more info just let me know.

Regards

Ed

We've got one but haven't used it for a few years as we had problems fitting on to some camp sites so we bought another outwell.

It does have loads of room in and is very cosy inside but because its a done then space is restricted round the edges. The bedrooms are good but again they obvioulsy slope. The front porch isn't great to be honest – getting in and out, especially if its raining is a faff as the zip for the door is at the bottom corners. And the space in the porch isn't huge – with the porch door shut then cooking space for a family with all the gubbins is a faff.

Pitchinh is easy enough but you couldn't do it on your own.

We bought a Montana 6 with a side canopy and the interior space is much more useable. However it's not anywhere near as draught free as the hartford xl. Tunnel tents are much better space wise. I really fancy a Norfolk Lake.

not outwell but we've just bought a top of the range 8 man tent for a total outlay of £120

Vango Verona 8 DLX SRP = £400

Half price Millets/Blacks sale = £200 (had to hunt around to find one)

Millets/Blacks charity tent exchange = £160 (20% off any tent when you exchange for any other tent)

Sold old and slightly tired 8 man tent on here for £40

that's £120 for a £400 tent.

It does and only a certified lunatic would buy a tent that pitched inner first if they were using it in the UK. 🙂

We have a Vango which is similar to the Hartford and we will be changing next year to an Outwell Vermont XL. We looked at both the Vermont and Hartford recently at a camping show and for me us the Vermont seems a much better choice. The Vango has been a good tent but after 3 years experience the design of the Vermont seems much better. For a start it's under 5m wide which is the limit on some sites especially in high season. Secondly the porch area has loads of room for cooking and eating and can be fully opened or closed depending on the weather and thirdly I hope that it will be easier to pitch in windy conditions.

bugger, I could have sworn the last one of these i put up (back in 2007) was inner first! But yeah, defo outer first which makes life a bit simpler…

phew! The 07 version was inner first 🙂

so anyway, slightly less stable than they used to be then, but still cracking tents.

erm no experience of the hartford, but have a Ouwell nebraska xxl i will be looking to sell as just gone down the caravan route,now this really is a very big and roomy family tent

we've used a hartford XL but decided against buying it cos of the large area it takes up, when theres better uses of room with other tents.

in the end we plumped for the vermont XL, hich is basically just a large (very large) oblong shape, so makes the best use of space. and critically for us at the time, it just squeezes into the maximum size space allowed on a lot of camping and caravan club sites.

its also a LOT easier to put up than the hartford, with all its criss-crossing poles.

if weights a consideration, its also a fair bit heavier tho, as the vermont has heavy steel poles in another bag, whereas the hartford uses carbon fibre. is that a good thing or bad? strength against weight? you decide 🙂

ive got this beast from outwell its huge , easy to put up i managed on my own first time out too. put together great too very happy indeed with it
http://www.outwell.dk/TentMeasure.aspx?b=Outwell&bid=2&lid=1&l=en-GB&TentId=110&catID=4&pid=1

smaller footprint than the one you mentioned and id say easier to bang up mate

Sorry for delay catching up, some good ideas and comments that have been really helpful.