looking at possibly buying a new 3 man tent – but dont want to spend too much cash. anyone used the gelert/regatta tents that appear to be everywhere at the minute?

plus any other recommendations for a good size 3 man tent – with a porch bit?

Decathlon have one of their 4.2 (ie, 4 man, 2 bedrooms) tents on offer at the moment – £60 I think. They're good.

They also have some fairly cheap backpacking type tents.

Astonishingly Sports Direct also appear to be stocking very good brands of tent with big discounts.

cheers tron, i'll have a look at SD, would never have thought of them!

Quechua pop-up ones from Decathlon are great for our car-camping and festival use, ours is a 2 seconds XL III which has enough of a porch (maybe 18" deep floor area) for cooking stuff, boots, and a couple of camp chairs when we go to bed.

Cost about £70, has had several weekends away so far and is holding up great. Only downside is it packs down to a disc shape so no good for sticking in a backpack.

simon – you had any bad weather experience in it yet?

Bought a Vango Beta 350 last year which I quite like, about £65 i think. I wouldn't class it as 'All Mountain' 🙂 but it is great for car-camping.

My money would go to Vango everytime:

http://www.vango.co.uk/tents/alpha-300+.html

yeah our current tent is a vango tunnel tent, its been a cracker but we dont camp as often nowadays and wouldnt want to spend more that £60

Be careful with the cheapy Vangos – there was one model being sold by CCC/Go Outdoors a year or two ago (a big dome – big enough to stand in for about £60), which I nearly bought on strength of the name.

A bit of a google found loads of reviews saying how they'd blown over, were made specifically for the discount places and were nowhere near what would be expected of Vango kit.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the Decathlon pop-ups too – my Mum's after a tent she can pitch single handed and stand up in – the big ones seem to fit the bill – but do they stand the wind well?

yeah our current tent is a vango tunnel tent, its been a cracker but we dont camp as often nowadays and wouldnt want to spend more that £60

Loads of choice from Vango for <£60

TBH the problem that tron outlined will be the same with any £60 tent, you pays your money and all that…

yeah i know, im keeping my eyes open for good offers on the better kit – but my budget is definately restricted at the mo! 😕

2nd hand canvas frame tent? Heavy but if you're in a car it does not matter and they are durable.

I've got the Gelert Solo and the 3 man version of it too. Great little tents for the money.

are you desperate to buy this minute? I'm probably going over here in the next few days / couple of weeks to get a new tent for bike events, etc. I rate the people, they were extremely good when we bought our family camping tent, so I can pass on their comments in a few days time.

Or – just give them a call?

http://www.campingworld.co.uk/Categories.aspx?CategoryID=19&CurrentPageIndex=0&SortExpression=PRICE_ASC

simon – you had any bad weather experience in it yet?

It's been rained on, yes 😀 Not pitched anywhere where it's had really strong winds to deal with, but it's coped fine with a few heavy downpours.

I was a bit sceptical about the whole pop-up thing based on the crappy single-skin cheapo ones you see at festivals – the Quechua ones feel like a proper, decent-quality tent. Except you can pitch it in under a minute (take out of bag, 4 pegs, 4 more if you really want the guy ropes) and take it down again nearly as quickly.

TBH the problem that tron outlined will be the same with any £60 tent, you pays your money and all that…

Not in my view. I've got a Decathlon tent that was fairly cheap (though not £60 cheap), and that's stood up to heavy winds quite happily. I think the difference is that the £60 Vango has been made to that price point, whilst the Decathlon tent has been knocked down (they've been sold at at £80-£90 for ages). Inevitably, there will be compromises in anything that's very cheap – that Vango came with sewn in groundsheets for the entire tent, but had a tendency to blow over, whilst the Decathlon equivalent only has a SIG for the bedroom area.

Ultimately though, you've just got to look at the reviews. I'd expect the vast majority of cheap tents to be able to stand up to the weather.

thanks all, sounds like decathlon's worth a look at dinner, and theotherjonv – cheers, that site look good, some good deals!

http://www.UKCampsite.co.uk for reviews on all things camping.

dunno where you are located, but in wokingham berkshire there is currently a camping and caravan exhibition. This is done every year and has a field full of erected tents to view. All shapes and sizes, various price ranges, and if you want to save a few quid you can opt for the model erected and take it down at the end of the event at the end of july on sat or sun. There are tents from Vango, coleman, sunncamp, khyam, gelert amongst others, hope this helps.Also located near to swinley so you could always get a bit of singletrack in too! good luck, hope this helps