Pitch perfect: the 9 best tents for summer 2017
Whether you're festival-bound or heading to the actual wilderness, we've got the camping companions for you...
Smart homes and car roof tents are all well and good, but sometimes it’s good to feel the earth beneath your sleeping bag.
Yep, it’s time for a proper countryside adventure, but how to choose your nylon hotel? Our camping expert has picked his favourite canvas homes for 2017, ranging from festival-friendly pop-ups to solo sleep facilitators.
But before you pick the right one to match your summertime trip, here are some handy pegs of wisdom to pitch your plan on…
How to decide
1) Pack light
Be honest, do you really need an ultra-lightweight tent for the odd weekend away? Sure, they look the business, but anything under 2kg will be significantly more expensive. That money that would be better spent on a decent sleeping bag and mattress to ensure a comfortable night’s kip.
2) How big?
If you’re camping with a car, buy the largest tent you can fit in the boot. You’ll really appreciate the extra space for the dogs and kids. If you’re backpacking and have the space, buy a tent that’s one person bigger than you need, and if you’re a couple, go three-man and stretch out.
3) Quick pitch
Modern tents are reasonably simple to put up, but if speed is a priority go pop-up for small ‘festival’ style use, or inflatable for larger family designs. Packed away, pop-up designs can be awkward to carry and store, but they’re up in an instant, while inflatable ‘beams’ are impressively rigid, can create huge spaces, but do sometimes have the potential to go pop.
4) Family style
If you plan on enjoying longer trips with kids or larger groups, living space is incredibly important, especially given the inclement nature of British summertime. Look for models with enough head height to stand up, large porches, space for a chair each, and zipped doors to separate bedrooms.
The best lightweight tents
1) For solo missions: Nemo GoGo Elite (£429)
This single-skin design from US tent lovers Nemo offers many of the home comforts of a proper tent in a pack that’s not much bigger than a traditional one-man bivy bag.
It has one inflatable, 5cm wide support beam that can be inflated in just ten seconds from inside or out, which is handy if the weather turns on you. The supplied mini-pump also weighs just 32g.
Once pitched, there’s 69cm of ceiling height and half a square metre of porch for your boots and bag. Don’t invite anyone back for coffee, but given it packs to a pocketable 10x15cm, it’s perfect accommodation for cycle touring, backpacking, even ultra-marathon running.
2) The adventurous one: Mountain Hardwear Ghost UL 2 Tent (£400)
This ultralight, double-walled design weighs less than 1kg, but still has space enough for two, plus a porch (or vestibule, if you’re American) with room for boots and bags.
With fully-taped seams, the flysheet is completely waterproof and has super-light aluminium poles. It’s not one for Worthy Farm, but if you’re heading out to find some wilderness (no, not the festival) and want a tent that’s easy to pitch and pack up every day, the Ghost could be perfect.
3) The no-nonsense option: Hilleberg NIAK (£695)
Although sold as a two-person tent, the super simple, surprisingly spacious Niak makes an ideal choice for solo campers who want a little more space to themselves – as in, sit up comfortably, maybe take the dog along for company – without compromising their pack weight.
Weighing in at a mere 1.7kg, the Kerlon 1000 fabric and twin 9mm poles combine to create a solid three-season self-supporting dome, with two tent pegs only really needed to secure the porch (assuming you’re not on a cliff top).
The spacious options
4) The party starter: Vango Illusion 800XL AIR (£1350)
This epic, 7.5m-long inflatable design can sleep eight adults and has a massive, marquee-sized communal area with enormous skylight windows, perfect for drizzle watching
The whole side of the tent can also be rolled out the way to bring in the sunshine, while the bedroom pods have black-out liners to help you stay asleep past 6am.
Unbelievably, it’ll also pitch in under ten minutes thanks to the Airbeam technology which creates rigid inflatable beams instead of posts using nothing more than a foot pump.
5) The hippy tipi: Soulpad 5000 Hybrid-G (£650)
If your glamping kit isn’t complete without some Thai cushions and a string of fairy lights, this whopping 5mx3m tent will complete the look in style.
Made from luxuriously heavyweight yet waterproof cotton canvas, the groundsheet can easily zip to the flysheet for protection from chilly evenings, or be left open to let the breeze flow through.
The Hybrid-G also comes with a pre-fitted chimney panel, designed to fit a small wood-burning stove, so you can pretend you’re Costner in Dances with Wolves.
The quick pitchers
6) The speed freak: Heimplanet Fistral (£415)
Arguably the most stylish tents on the market, Heimplanet’s inflatable geodesic designs feature a ‘multi chamber safety system’, which means you can inflate the whole frame in seconds using a simple pump.
Once rigid, the frame can be divided into separate chambers, effectively preventing a limp night’s sleep if one section does get damaged and deflate. This two-man model weighs 2.5kg, packs down to a convenient shoulder bag, and has an all-weather resistant flysheet made from exceptionally tough ripstop polyester.
7) The talking point: Fieldcandy Original Explorer (£299)
Despite being available in 40 ‘zany’ designs – from patchwork quilt to Iron Maiden – the Fieldcandy is far from a novelty act. Admittedly, you do get a lot of kitsch per pitch, but despite looking like it was designed in the 70s, it weighs just 4.8kg and has a decent set of features.
These include a super-light poles, aluminium tent pegs and an expedition-grade, waterproof flysheet, to help keep you dry whether you’re at Green Man or in Greenland.
8) The no-brainer: Coleman FastPitch Hub Drake 4 (£199)
We applaud any tech that removes the need to throw a massive wobbly at the start of a camping holiday, and with its FastPitch system Coleman may just save a marriage or two.
Based around a pre-attached pole hub and argument-proof colour coding, the Drake 4 is fantastically easy to pitch by just one person, without the need for any extra ‘helpful’ advice.
Although not built for the arctic, the flysheet has a hydrostatic head rating of 3,000mm (that’s the equivalent of a three metre column of water placed on its surface before any drops will show through the underside), while the extra-large porch is a haven for muddy boots and children.
9) The festival essential: Cinch! 2nd gen (from £190)
Until Cinch, pop-up tents offered little more than a dry place to lie down at a festival – and a good laugh when watching people wrestle it back in the bag. But with dual internal layers, a spacious porch area and a host of tech extras, this is an instant-pitch tent to be proud of.
Available in three sizes (although only the four-man version is currently in stock), each one comes with trip-averting luminous guide ropes, four insanely sensible LED tent pegs, the option of a roof-mounted solar panel (£70) and a 13,000mAh, twin USB port battery bank with enough juice to charge an iPhone six times. You’ll be the envy of Bushy Ground.
Chris Haslam
Stuff contributor 
