The Ultimate Tent

Of course there is no such thing as the ultimate tent, it all depends on the conditions in which you plan to use your tent, this is how I see it. I use my tent primarily in the summer in the Scandinavian mountains as well as in southern Swedish forests. Mostly I camp with a friend so I need a two person tent. I don’t know how you use your tent, but I think that the way that I use my tent will fit many people.

Need to have

I have split the features in two categories, ”Need to have” and ”Nice to have”. The ultimate tent would of course carry all these features.

• Max weight 2000g. I carry my tent a lot therefor I like to keep the weight down, to be the ultimate tent it cannot weigh more than 2000 grams (or 4.4 pounds). This is the total weight of the tent including all pegs, poles, storm lines, bags etc. When I go camping I bring the lot, because I never know what mother nature will throw at me.

• 2P tent. The tent needs to accommodate at least two adults. It would be great if it could fit more, but to don’t think it’s possible.

• Two Layers. The climate in Scandinavia is wet and it rains a lot, especially in the Scandinavian Mountains where the close proximity to the Atlantic ocean brings in quite a few rains storms.

• Three Season. I use my tent primarily in the summer, but the Swedish summer can be cold and rainy and in the mountains, snow is not unlikely even in the summer. I also camp in the spring and autumn so a three season tent is a must.

• Fly first (aka. Nordic Style). I have already mentioned the rainy Swedish summers so fly first is a requirement. I really don’t get why not more North American tent manufacturer are not using this pitch technique, but recently Sierra Designs got it with their new Tengu tents.

• Self supported. This might be a little strange to have as “Need to have”, but I really like it. I have seen dozen of different self supported designs and I really don’t care about the exact pole configuration other than it must be functional and easy to pitch (more on that later).

• Roomy. A great tent has lots of space, I want to be able to spend an entire rainy day in my tent with out it feeling too cramped up. It should be large enough to two adult to be sitting up at the same time, getting dress for example. To achieve this steep walls probably a must, or the tent must have a huge floor area.

• Vestibules. The tent has to have large a vestibule area and I would prefer dual vestibules, since that enables you to have a vestibule each, making gear handling easier. Large vestibules is necessary since I like to keep as much gear as possible out of the inner tent.

• Easy to pitch. It essential that the tent is easy to pitch, in a stormy situation you don’t want to fiddle with tent pitching, you just want to get out of the wet and into the tent to dry up. This is an area where tent manufacturers must be able to improve, an example of an innovative idea is the 2-second-tent.

• Easy to pack. It is also important that it is easy to pack the tent down again, I don’t like the fuss with to small pack bags etc. Not having a large packed size is another important feature, if the tent has a small packed volume it might be possible to have a smaller backpack and save some weight.

• Good ventilation. Wet conditions as well as warm conditions (the Scandinavian mountains can be really hot as well) require good ventilation. It no use having a waterproof tent when the tent is soaked on the inside.

• Light color. I have seen some black tents, really really dumb. In Sweden we have midnight sun and the sun shines all night, making a black tent feel like a sauna. A light tent color is great, even though it gets dirty more easily.

• Storm lines/Storm proof. When the sun doesn’t shine, storm winds can be fierce. An ultimate tent must be able take on a storm without a second though.

Nice to have

The ultimate tent has all these features, though a tent would still be great, carrying all the “Need to have” features and a few “Nice to have” features.

• Dual entrances. Waking up in the middle of the night just because your buddy is climbing over you, heading out to take a leak, is not pleasant. Dual entrances really makes tent life easier. When having two entrances, two vestibules, as mentioned before, is also great.

• Self supported vestibule. Most self supported tents have “unsupported” vestibules, having the vestibules built in to the self supporting design would be nice. The tents made by Haglöfs has this feature.

• Four season. Even though the need is a three season tent, if it were possible to get all the features in a four season tent, that would be great.

• Gear pockets. Many tents (most maybe) has gear pocket inside the tent for storing all those little gadgets, otherwise found under the sleeping pads (at least thats where I usually find them).

• Clothing line. My current tent has a homemade clothing line, in the “ceiling”, to dry socks and wet clothes and it works great all tent should have this.

• Lantern hanger. Another homepage feature in my current tent, really great to have.

• Pitching helpers. Reflecting marking on the pole line openings and color coded pole lines makes pitching the tent much easier.

• Glowing zipper pulls. Glow in the dark zipper pulls to help find them at night.

• Windows. There are many different variations of windows on tents, but Vaude has one that I really like on their Ferret I tent.

Innovations

I would really like to see some innovations on the ultimate tent, I have a few suggestions for the tent manufacturers below.

• Inflatable floor. We all carry sleeping pads around, these could be integrated into the tent floor, saving some cloth weight. There are of course drawbacks, but..

• Inflatable poles. Air filled tubes instead of poles, Nemo Equipment, has already made tents like this, now the weight just has to come down.

• Gear hangers in vestibule. I would like to see gear hanger in the vestibule making it possible to get gear of the wet ground.

• More more more..

If you know of a tent that fulfills all these features, please let me know, because I haven’t found it. If you disagree with me, please, post a comment, discussion are always fun. If you agree with me please let me know that too or if you have new idea etc, let me know. If you are a tent manufacturer, stop surfing the web and go and build my tent!