Is there really any need for high end equipment?
 

I was thinking about getting a new tent for a trip, so I popped down to a local shop and saw the prices but they were extravagantly high. A few years ago, I went over to Europe and I had a very cheap, £10-20 tent and it did the job perfectly fine. It was waterproof, had good ventilation and so on, which makes me wonder how exactly companies can charge £100-200 for a one man tent. I just don't see any value there at all. They might be slightly better, yeah, but a tent is a tent, surely? I certainly don't see enough difference between the one I had a few years ago and a high end one now.

I think quite a few camping/survival items are overpriced. Groudsheets, for example. For what they are, there is no way they're worth £25 or whatever you can get charged.

Anyway...rant over! haha

Well, any answer to this is of course subjective !
You don"t really need someone to tell you "you get what you pay for" Do you ?
Sometimes you get something that works great and you payed half price of what you could have payed for something that did not work half as well, sometimes you pay a lot of money for something that is crap.

Better question would be recommendations for specific brands and cost/quality.

In terms of tents there's no point shelling out on a Wild Country Quasar (amazing tent) if your going to a festival, and there's equally no point taking a 20 quid pop-up tent into the Tien Shan for some high-altitude super-alpinism.

Same goes for weight savings - a mountain marathon runner is likely to pay a lot for single-skin goretex tent if it saves him 2 kg.

There is undoubtedly some high-end kit that is totally and utterly pointless..... Why anyone would pay 40 odd quid for a piece of laser-cut anodised aluminium to protect their sidestand switch when cutting the switch off and throwing it in a bin would save weight and money is beyond me!

Is there really any need for high end equipment?
 

I think that in general that people feel a big need to have the best / lightest/newest equipment.
And i know that there are Manny people that are happy like a kid with there high end equipment.
So is there a need?? Yes
Do you "really" need it??No
(Almost everything apart from food and water you do not "really" need,but it can make you feel very happy:mchappy:)


And i do see a difference in cheap shit ,and something better made.
But always look if it meets my needs,sometimes normal is good for me,
sometimes a bit more high end.

Saludos.

My opinion and its only my opinion but
£20 tent probably cheap enough to last the year before a zip gets broken or the crinkly groundsheet wears holes kids borrow it and dont return it.
£180 tent good quality lasts 11 years before you have to replace it cos the groundsheet is not as waterproof as it once was.

I have recently replaced my 14 year old tent that cost £165 back in the day.

A better tent could be more spacious so you would be more likley to use it rather than the B&B option when its raining.

We have friends who bought a Tipi because you can use it in any weather and be comfortable and now never use B&B or hotels.
Tipi very expensive £1k 5 week trip to europe hotels/hostel at £60 per night very expensive tent more than paid for and you still have it for the next 15 years trips.

I've recently upgraded to a 2011 MSR Hubba Hubba, it cost £225 brand new (including a Petzl Headtorch worth £20). Was it worth? I don't know yet but I am very impressed with it so far. I will be testing it out on a short trip next weekend, along with my large Thermarest Ventra down comforter/duvet.

Why did I pay £200+ over a cheapie? Because I wanted to! Moreover, it packs a lot smaller than even the smallest 2 man cheapie or moderately priced tent I've ever seen or used. It's free standing, it has situp headroom, it has 2 entrances/vestibules, it's green and it has that nice mossie mesh rather than that hot sweaty greenhouse inner that most tents have.

It's not perfect by any stretch of the imagination but perfection is a hard thing to attain in anything, but it's the best solution I could find to meet all my requirements, necessary or otherwise. Only time will tell if I'm happy with it and whether it was worth the extra money?

The makers of high end equipment are also the pioneers
of new products and materials. After a wile the other makers follow and copy those ideas, prices drop and high end ideas become available
for a bigger public,and become a normal standard to people.
And the pioneers invent something else,other follow....... etc etc

So it is very good that there is a big marked for high end equipment.

Haven sad that,i do have a few of those products.(but not everything)
In parts of South America it just is not available.(not easy)
And if available ,its twice the Europe price,really ridiculous.

I do ride a lot with the locals here,and see everyone with 5dollar rain ponchos,30 dollar tents,and a 20 dollar backpack.
And they do fine .
I lowered my standard since i used to live in Holland
and also use a few cheaper solutions now.
Sometimes by choice ,sometimes because it just ain't available.
The good thing about that is that you don't worry about loosing or braking
stuff,just becouse you dont have it,and that is a nice feeling.


Saludos.

High-end (and thus expensive) gear is not necessary by any stretch of the imagination, but it certainly does make life a lot easier sometimes! It depends entirely on the conditions. If you use a tent once a month only in the summer, anything will do. If you use a tent every day for a year, paying for a quality tent will make your life a lot more pleasant. A lot of high-end gear is like this, though there is a lot of over-priced junk available as well.

Also note that you should not underestimate the usefulness of a small lightweight tent if you ever get off pavement. It can make handling the bike a lot easier in difficult conditions.

^^^true, same for me. It´s adictive, harder then giving up smoking is NOT going to the next outdoor shop and search for the newst tech gear ;)

I had a look at the hubba hubba too, but in the end the apside space was to small for us and we decidet for a Forum 4.2. A great concept and I hope a great tent (and its green too!), will take it now arround the planet and will see ...

cheers Sascha

I must admit to owning a lot of tents, it's a disease!

The tent I use on my big trips (3 -4 weeks) is a Hillerberg Nallo 2 GT. I've had it for 5 years and it's in as good condition as the day I bought it. I have the footprint groundsheet as well as this gives you a floor in the vestibule. But, it's a very expensive bit of kit, currently a new one with a groundsheet is £700!! No-one needs to spend that kind of money on a tent. Take my experience with tipi's...

A few years ago I bought myself a nice new Tentipi, a lightweight 5 man. I'd seen plenty in Norway and Sweden and I wanted one. How cool would that be? I'd been invited into a couple and just loved the whole idea of having all that room and being able to cook inside it.

To cut a long story short Tentipi had a manufacturing issue with the thread the seams were made of and it leaked. I tried another 2, one was even posted to me from Sweden, but they leaked too. Taunton leisure were great and tried to resolve the issue for me but in the end I had my money back and roughed it in my Hillerberg. So my tipi was not to be.

Then this year, a couple of weeks before Ripley I noticed that Argos had a tipi in their sale for £40. Now I like a bargain and thought I'd give it a go. You may have seen it, hard to miss really, the brown one next to all those Serows. I gave it a head start by proofing it with £10 worth of Fabsil, bugger the expense! As those of you that were there know we had a little rain over the 4 days and did it leak? Not one bit!

Currently a Tentipi Zirkon 5 man is £729...

Tentipi... Zirkon 5 light - Zirkon - Tentipi Tents & Accessories - Nordic Outdoor

The Argos special is now reduced to £36!!! Go get one whilst stocks last.

Argos...Buy 4 Man Teepee Tent at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for Limited stock Sports and leisure.

Even if you only use it once a year at Ripley like me it's worth it. It even packs down pretty small, I did bring it to Ripley on a Serow after all.

cowboys and indians
 

That Argos teepee tent looks the business for that price , how do they hold up in windy conditions :stormy:

Hi,

I used my $50 Iglu tent for more then 10 jears wild camping in europa and around africa (but left the two front sticks at home). Only after that time finaly the ziper broak so i got exactly the same to ride around southamerica now.

Transafrika - Riding on a motorbike through africa part 1

I think these days many people do have money but no experience with adventure so they dont know what to look for and get the moast expensiv stuff because they think this will be best but its not.

Travel save, Tobi

In 1995 I bit the bullet and paid £250 for a Eureka Hobbit 2 man tent in Australia. Over the next 12 years I probably spent 12 months in it including a couple of months in the winds of Patagonia and it finally expired with worn out zips, leaking seams and fracturing poles, money well spent.
At the same time I bought a cheap self inflating matt which fell apart in two years, I then did the right thing and bought a Thermarest which I still have. If you use it a lot it pays to buy quality, the other point is in many parts of the world you cannot replace camping equipment so it has to last.

An Inuit mate of mine gave me an igloo last winter.
It only lasted until the sun came out.

The original posters question is really unanswerable.

What you need is equipment that will handle the conditions you experience. The trick here is being able to predict those conditions.

For me I do "summer" camping in Europe. This includes spring and Autumn. I like to be warm so I carry a Coleman Hudson 450 sleeping bag. I have never found it wanting even in icy conditions in the Alpine mountains, frost pockets in North France or snowed in in my car. I have two tents. A four man double skin tent that is very warm and waterproof (£30 Argos) and a cheap £10 dome tent, that keeps out rain including heavy thunderstorms in the Pyrenees, but being single skin is a bit warm in the sun and cool in cold wind. The bag compensates for this. It does not need any pegs to be erected, but works better if they are. Can be moved easily when erect so you can squeeze it into exactly the right position when wild camping or seeking shelter.
Of course in unpredictable conditions either of these tents could fail but the balance of probability is they wont.

I have three stoves, a £10 one that fits on top of a 270/470 cartridge, an Optimus omnifuel and a gas double burner with grill for car camping. I have just completed a 2,000 mile trip with wife in the car to Rhein falls Switzwerland, bike rally in N Germany and back. Despite being in the car and having room, my stove of choice was the £10 single burner. because it is very quick and simple to deploy for a quick cuppa and will simmer properly when heating or cooking food.

In the end it is down to luck and your own perceptions of risk. I have chosen to break down the functions of different pieces of equipment. The tent to provide shelter and keep me dry. The bag to keep me warm so I can sleep. Mt camp bed to keep me off the floor. the stove does its job of heating drinks and cooking.

As I said, making the perfect choice is impossible, often even with hindsight. Same as looking for the perfect bike.

Oh! yup, I went by car as my Enfield is still in bits after the crank failed last year in Poland, but rattling or not it did get me near enough home to get home.
Ok so the Enfield was on that occasion not up to the job but without it I would not have chatted to the German biking couple at the campsite in the Alps, or the hotel manageress in Germany who wanted a small enough bike so she could ride with her husband. Nor the two young Czech lads on a country road who were riding harleys that were older than themselves which they had both lovingly restored. They reminded me of my early biking days back in the early 1960s (1961 to be exact) when I and most of my friends rode bikes as old as we were, many ex WD from the war. Courtesy of "Pride & Clarke".

I bought a Coleman Coastline for a trip a while back. Perfect size and features.

After about a 1.5 weeks of pack up and set down everyday the fiberglass tent poles started to break at the joins. 6 weeks later and after replacing over half of the poles the zip started to fail. The tent ended up just lasting the 13 week trip.

If I could got a more expensive version that had better fiberglass poles or shaped aluminium poles I would have.

So I am saying buy the best you can that fits the trip and your budget.

The more I've paid for things, the more I've been disappointed.

With most equipment, you seem to get a cut off price where quality doesn't seem to climb with cost.

If you compare a £10 tent with a £1000 tent there is certainly going to be some big differences. That expensive tent will not be 100x better though.

That doesn't mean you should buy the cheapest crap on the market, because you WILL be disappointed.

You can get excellent quality gear at fairly low prices if you research, shop around and ignore fancy names and marketing.

Never be afraid to buy second hand gear. I have saved THOUSANDS like this. There are tons and tons of almost new bike/travel gear on Ebay/gumtree which is going for peanuts.

I think the biggest factor is being realistic with yourself and your trip and what you NEED to spend. (I've also wasted thousands thinking I need stuff I don't)

Why get a £300 stove designed for climbing Everest when you will be boiling water for coffee at sea level ??? A £60 Coleman Dual fuel is actually a lot more practical for the task.

Why buy a £1000 tent designed for the Antarctic when you will probably just be getting drizzled on in a Camp site in Wales etc ?? Vango make loads of tents under £150 which are FANTASTIC.

Do you need £1300 Aluminium panniers when a set of £35 Ex-Military canvas bags will outlast you and your bike combined and weigh 30kg less ?

Do you need a £600 GPS system when a 5 year old model for £100 does exactly the same thing, minus the features that most people will never use ?


Do some research, use your head and don't get sucked in by marketing. I wish I had listened to people telling me the same thing when I started out. I can't actually think of anything "expensive" that anyone would 'need' to buy when doing a RTW at all really.

If I didn't buy £1300 Metal Mules I could of spent another two months in South America. Those tin boxes are still in my shed keeping spiders warm at winter, where they have been for the last four years. Think about it...


Ted

The 3 man Vango Force ten tent I used at the recent autumn rally cost me (roughly) £750! Except it didn't. I actually paid about £70 for it and inflation took care of the rest because I bought it in 1975. In those days it was pretty much as high end as it got and, to date anyway, quality has out. It still gets used a lot and despite having seven other tents to choose from in the loft it's still pretty much my tent of choice. And this isn't a one-off freak, like pre war light bulbs that are still working, nor is it still in use on the "Trigger's axe" principle. Cynthia Milton has the same tent of about the same age and I have a friend with one about five years older. That's the up side of buying high end - they can last a lifetime (if you keep them for a lifetime). If you're a gear freak and buy expensive tents on the basis of "this year's colours" then it's probably £1000 wasted. If you're going to spread that over 40 years it looks good on an annual basis, plus you've got a tent that you've got confidence in.

Re MM panniers etc, if you saw my bike and set up at the rally you might wonder how the hell I'd ever consider buying a high end tent when the rest of the stuff is even more low end than ex army canvas bags. It's because I've evolved the set up to work on the sort of trips I do (or hope to do) based on experience. If I could envisage circumstances where MM boxes were the best (as in best suited rather than best looking) then I'd buy them. That doesn't seem likely for me atm so I won't be beating a path to their door.

Axe!?! Sweeping the streets of Peckham must have got a bit rougher since the riots I guess!!

Certainly is a tough area! I was near there yesterday and the streets were running red! All that paint going to waste. :rofl::rofl: (My son lives in New Cross and the paint came from a DIY mishap).

I must have axes rather than brooms on the brain :( - I spent Saturday working at an outdoor event near Kew teaching axe throwing to the public - and no, that's not a joke! Just the sort of skill that'll come in handy on a long bike trip, maybe I could do a workshop on it at the next Horizons rally :thumbup1::nono::nono:

Ha!! I reckon 'the best weapons to launch from two wheels' is more of an ADVrider topic than an HU one! (they had a long drawn out thread ages ago on the best place to keep your gun on long overland trips - no joke!)

The biggest hassle to me is the unpredictability of production standards on half this stuff. I had an MSR Dragonfly that was a PITA to light until rebuilt at 5 years old. The weld holding the burner to the axle that swivels in the frame then broke. Most people rave over these but mine was a POS. I have Swedish army Trangia and Korean Army Optimus copy that cost a fraction of the price but work time and time again.

On the otherside of the coin I have a Khyam tent that most people say the poles will fail on that's been going for ten years without a hitch. I use a British Army winter sleeping bag that's 25 years old and an Argos summer one that cost a tenner.

Give me expensive kit and I'll be pitched and out of the rain trying to get the ***ing stove to go. Give me Army Surplus and I'll be fighting the nylon bivvy bag that only did freezing or boiling in 1953 but will at least get a decent cuppa after the sleepless night! Finding the right combination in the right quality only seems to produce a garage full of jink and a very active E-bay account!

Andy

Well said....:thumbup1:


And there is a reason I have 700 feedback ratings on my Ebay account. :smartass:

Quintessentially HU debate, enjoy it a lot.

Nowadays, being everything made in China/Asia at very low costs, I find really difficult to distinguish a) what's money invested in better design/quality/materials and b)what's extra profit selling lower quality at higher prices.

So, in case of doubt, I go for the cheaper which looks reasonably ok.

Tepi's generally stand up to wind pretty good as they're shaped like a cone. The wind acts on them the same in any direction. The Argos one has lots of pegs and guy ropes so I would say it's as good as any other. One thing, which is common to all Scandinavian tipi/lavvu type tents is there is no sewn in ground sheet and it is only a single skin. It has a "skirt" around the base which is designed to be weighted down with snow to provide a seal in the winter. You could use earth or rocks in the summer if it got really windy but otherwise a bit of a draught will blow up your skirt. Which is quite nice on a summer evening!

The groundsheet on the Argos one is held in place with lots of adjustable webbing straps and if you take the time to position it correctly, as I did, then the wind can only lift it a small way before the strap stops it. This goes with the territory with this type of tent. This design allows you to roll back half of the groundsheet and get inside with your wet and muddy gear before changing into your smoking jacket for a relaxing evening by the fire. Tepi living is the dogs in bad weather. The mozzies can get in though as it's not a sealed compartment like most sewn-in tents. This is so you can pitch it without the groundsheet on uneven ground. Then you sleep on a camp bed or in a bivvy bag and commune with nature. Once you've laid down your reindeer skins and fired up the wood burning stove it's just like home!!

i think Touring Ted summed things up perfectly.

Its also worth bearing in mind you can always pick up/change an item enroute if you have a problem with it or it breaks.

I think in the camping and bike touring game its all too easy to end up angsting endlessly about the minutae of all your equipment.

personally i follow these principles:

*less gear is better
*simpler design is better (some exceptions)
*dont carry anything you cant afford to forget at a campsite or have stolen.

I started my camping career using army surplus, which is a great way to have a point of reference from which to determine where money is well spent and which qualities are most important in which items.

probably most important thing to bear in mind is that the characteristics which drive prices up in top end camping gear are often completely irrelevant to motorcycle travel, do you really need to keep weight so low while packing your GS1200 that you need titanium tent pegs and carbon fibre poles? I seriously doubt it :|

I am not rich so don't have the funds to spend a lot on equipment and bikes. Good gear is nice to have though. Of course, anything you take on a long journey can and has fallen off the back of the bike or been left in a guesthouse. It is much less painful to lose things that didn't cost much. Which is why I buy top quality gear for a fraction of the price. The thing is, there are loads of dreamers who think they might like to take up camping or motorcycling around the world only to find out that they haven't time or focus to do so. After some time their gear is on ebay, craigslist, at garage sales, or in the classifieds. Every day. Want a 400.00 Shoei helmet size medium? Let's see. Here's a fellow whose wife left him and he hates the maroon Shoei that reminds him of her. It wasn't until they got married that she told him she hates motorcycles and he rides too fast. Good riddance. He sells it to me for 50.00. I wonder if she was a babe? It still smelled like her perfume and fits perfect. Not a great color but it's like brand new, who cares? Same thing with riding jacket and pants. Here's a fellow who did some asphalt surfing and is embarassed to ride in his lightly roadrashed Firstgear jacket and pants. Waterproof breathable with cozy polarfleece zipout liners. Probably cost hundreds new. I offer him 100.00 for the pair and save big for decent gear with a scuffed elbow and a small hole in the butt. Nothing some black duct tape can't fix. Same with boots. An anal-retentive fellow who has a pair of Sidi riding boots with a slight flaw in the leather that he finds unsightly but can't return. Size 10, fit like a glove. He's a bit nuts and they are worthless to him. Surely they cost him more than twenty bucks? But that's what he sells them for. Or the top of the line down bag that the fellow slept with a little too close to the campfire and has an ember hole and hasn't used since. In fact he hasn't been camping since. It turns out he has a bad back and can't sleep on the ground. Who knew? Duct tape comes in colors that match and soon I have a killer bag with compression sack. Black Diamond tripod bivvy same deal. Anything you want is available for a fraction of the price used if you don't mind waiting until something pops up in the classifieds.

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against folks who have the money to spend on expensive bikes and outfitting them with expensive new gear. I turned minimalist out of necessity and have come to enjoy the freedom from worry that having nothing expensive to steal on the bike affords.

The thing is, if you are poor, you have to be creative and patient. Spending less is an art. Not everyone can tolerate used gear, bikes and clothes. It requires a certain amount of flexibility. And if you like shiny new things or are fixated on finding a specific brand of something then this method probably isn't for you. But there is a certain amount of freedom to be had by not bringing anything you can't walk away from on a long journey.

Kindest regards,
John Downs

I paid £160 in 1990 for a Vango tent, I used it constantly for 20 years before it went in the bin, it never once let me down. It worked out at £8 a year.
I then bought a wee dome tent from Tesco for £13, which I used constantly until the autumn there, in 2 years it never once let me down. Worked out at £6.50 a year.
Not much in it.

The essentials. Attitude.
 

Any thing can be stolen. You must be able to continue after the theft. If you regard something as essential to your trip, well it isn't apart from yourself and your attitude.

I was horrified that spent 100 quid on a Coleman tent 12 years ago,but its still going ok now has not broken or leaked and is pretty well used,probably cheap compared to a 30 quid thing that gets used 3 times before it falls apart..
There are definitely some things where it's cheaper o spend a little more,not always the most expensive but not the cheapest.
I have a petrol stove that's done me well too,survived fuel with 2 stroke oil and all sorts in it..
I've also had some complete junk that gone straight in the bin..

I think there are some great responses to this thread but this has to sum it up the best for me. Klim suit £1000 plus great if you have the cash to burn. I have a vented jacket and pants with some army gore tex jacket and pants to go over the top less than a tenth of the price and does the same job. Just be careful if you come off in the bush when its wet as no one may ever find you :):scooter:

just back from a 1 year trip South Central North America.
Our 5 years old Quetcha tent(dechatlon 50 euro's) did it very well. At the very end of the trip all the zippers gave some problems and the seals started to worn out, but it was still wind and waterproof.
Only disadvantage was the weigth.
I noticed that the lighter a tent is, the more it will cost.

Keep it dry guys! :funmeteryes:

ils

as i heard "Touring Ted" say on here...... "every $20 saved on preparation is another day on the road"


Been interesting to read this thread. Just going through the decision process of which gear to get at the moment and I'm tending to keep it minimalist and fairly cheap/simple.
I always remind myself of early travellers/ explorers/ adventurers and the simple gear/ setups they would of had.

local camp shop
 

30$ aus from local camping store has flymesh inner for those hot aussie nights

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...return/097.jpg

that's it on my bike behind the seat

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...return/003.jpg

In my experience getting the right bit of equipment at the right quality level ends up being cheaper on long term trips. Having to spend a night in paid accomodation because of a failed bit of equipment, or because your gear won't keep you comfortable in the weather can easily be much more of an expense than 50% more spent on a bit of gear for the right quality level.

Of course expense doesn't necessarily mean quality, which makes things more complex.

I'm a bicycle tourer which may make a slight difference for some bits of gear.

hello
To the OP question:
"Is there really any need for high end equipment?"
My answer is no, no need at all.
BUT, why not?
If you have bought the bike you like for long trips, changed some parts like original suspension to expensive öhlins, navigation system and so on, why go with a tent for $20 from the supermarket.
If it's only against insects in the bush,maybe yes, but if you will face the wind of mongolia or rain of scotland?
I found that quality has its price but not everything that is expensive is worth the price.
I'm travelling with a Hilleberg Saitaris, probably the most expensive tent you can find on the market.
But for me it has all the details and quality I ever wanted. I can put it up allone in a storm , it has all the space I need etc.
The price?
Well it's as much I have to pay for a shipping of the bike but I will still have it for years while the shipping is just memory.
And for a Hilleberg you know that there was no child labour involved, makes me sleep even better
sushi

buy both, well I did
 

OK with sitting on my arse here on the computer planning the trip, I wanted to be self sufficient, to be able to pitch a tent in pissing rain, to be able to stand up (dodgy back) and stretch so I got my self one of those expensive ones Redverz thingies that some people may want to park their bike in. Not me I liked the space.

But then realised that the time it takes to put up, takes too much time from my day. To do it properly was taking around 30 mins. Then by the time I unwrap my bed, sleeping bag and the rest of it was taking me as long as 50 mins every day. Packing up would take the same. So I lost at least an hour and a half every day pissing around with a tent and attachments, so then I would get more value by staying two days or more. Thats when it made more sense but when some campsites were charging 25 euros a night, I could find a hotel for not too much more and save myself a lot of time.

However, then I arrived back on Australia land and was aghast at the $300 a night asked by most hotels in the north west so angrily bought $17 k-mart special 5 minute tent. It wasn't until late at night when I couldnt breath that I realised why it was $17.

So thats it from both ends for me, nice and luxurious if you have the time, cheap and nasty if its not too hot or cold, or surrounded by mossies.

I've done most of mine on the cheap. You can buy a tent for lest than a room price. So if you use it for any two nights. You are in pocket. You can always buy a cheap tent some where. To get you out of a fix.

The down side is the setting up and taking down. A lot of time is spent doing that.
John933

If you are Coleman selling through Wallmart, you order up 50,000 tents per year from China and the design is such to only last a few outings before the zipper gives up the ghost, then you need to re-purchase next year. These tents are cheap and junk.

1 Coleman for 5 outings at $125.00 then failure or a Kelty type quality for $289 and 100 outings before failure.

I personally spend way more because it's worth it knowing the tent isn't going to fail.

I have the Redverz tent as well and it takes me about 15 minutes to set up and tear down. Just need to keep the water proof gear on until the tent is up. Packing it up while raining is not fun, especially the folding and rolling it up. So, I purchased the side loading waterproof bag they sell just to stuff it in when I'm in a hurry.

The answer to the unanswerable is: You get what you pay for.

Cheers
Chris
who purchases brands such as Therm-A-Rest, Trangia, VauDe, Mammut, Ajungilak etc. for extensive and rough family travel by bike and canoe and has rarely to replace or repair one of the heavily used items.

You get what you pay for up to a point.

A £20 tent is going to be junk but will probably keep you dry until it starts falling apart.. I used a £20 for 3 years with no issue until the seams started splitting.. Value for money. HELL YEAH !!

A £100 will be fine for 99% of people if they're honest with themselves. I've got three Vango tents which all cost £100 and they're BRILLIANT.

Lightweight, well made, lots of features etc.

a £500 is not 5 times better than a £100 tent. They is only SOO much you can do to a tent to make it worth a certain price. They might weigh 0.5 kg less and have space age designs to withstand high winds but no way are they worth the price to the average ABR...

To be honest, I see just as many £500 tents leaking and breaking than I do the £100 ones.

£20 tents are a bit like condoms - use it once and throw it away :rofl: Festival fields are littered with cheap tents that people use for two or three days and just walk away from rather than pack up and take with them. For £20 it's easier just to buy a new one next time.

I used to think that it was only a summer thing though until I went to the Elephant Rally back in Feb and saw many people doing the same thing there on the Sunday morning. Just pack up in the snow and leave the tent. You could walk round and take your pick, although some were more desirable than others -

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r...psa30755d3.jpg


Back in August my son lived in one of my £20 tents for a week in Amsterdam until he found accommodation at the start of the university term. Considering what a hotel would have done to his student finances that tent was good value - and he hasn't even thrown it away.

It just comes down to what you can spend. Some of us have no money so it makes sense to do an overland trip with cheap equipment as opposed to staying at home. Likewise, if you can afford a solid tent, warm sleeping bag, then why not go for it?

I've been buying stuff for an overland in S.America, and have basically tried to achieve a balance between buying decent gear where it matters and keeping in budget, i.e. not spending 80 quid on a Titanium fork, but spending enough on a tent which is going to have enough room, two doors, free-standing etc,.

For example, intending to camp most of the time, I bought a brand-new Primus Omnifuel, which was relatively pricey, but then what other stoves are there at can run any fuel and weight less than 500g? Likewise, spending a bit on waterproof sacks, a decent Ortlieb rackpack and proper gortex waterproofs will go a long way when your caught in a cloudburst.