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Frame Tents

Having a good tent is a necessity if you're going to be spending a lot of time camping. There have been a lot of innovative tent designs released in the marketplace in recent years, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're better. Sometimes it's better to stick to the older style designs, because they have been proven over the years by thousands of campers. One of the most popular tents for many years has been the frame, or A-frame tent.

Buying a new frame tent doesn't have to be a difficult experience. If you take the time to find a tent that's well designed, you'll find that it's easy to use and will contain any extra features required to improve your camping experience. When you're shopping around, look for brand names you recognize, because these companies have many years of good quality designs behind them that they can apply to their current range.

It's important to make sure your new frame tent is sturdy. Weather has a habit of changing more rapidly than you're expecting, and quite often is a lot worse than predicted, too. So your tent needs to be strong enough to withstand very bad weather. It's also good if your tent is reliable, because if you're out in the backcountry you don't need to have your tent fail, leaving you without shelter.

When you see all the exciting new tent designs, it's easy to get carried away with all their cool features. In reality, though, simplicity is often the best. When you've been hiking for hours, you just want to put your tent up quickly and easily so that you can cook a meal and relax. An A-frame tent is certainly simple, particularly as many of us have used these tents in childhood camping trips. There's no need to memorize lots of complicated instructions about how to assemble your tent.

Although A-frame tents may have been around for a while, there have been some recent changes to make them a little more comfortable. Most tents now have clips that you use to clip the tent material to the poles, so no more fiddling around with awkward ties. It's also possible to buy frame tents that are freestanding, which is very useful if you're going to be camping in a rocky area. It also means you don't have to carry lots of tent pegs and a hammer when you're traveling light. Some tents give you the choice of whether it's freestanding or anchored.

Other things to look for in a new frame tent include zips that don't catch, a durable fly, and mesh windows for air circulation. It's also handy to have a few loops near the roof for attaching a camping lantern or hanging up wet clothing. It can be useful to have some small mesh pouches on the inside of the tent, too, for storing little items that have a tendency to disappear among your other stuff.

Finally, and possibly most important, find out how big the tent is once it's folded, and how much it weighs. If you're planning to travel to campsites by car it probably doesn't matter, but if you're going to be carrying your tent in a backpack, it needs to be light and compact. The last thing you need is to buy a tent, only to find you never use it because it just doesn't do what you need it to do.