We went camping for the first time as a family this year. Covid has made going abroad near on impossible, so we decided to try camping. The only memories I have are camping as a teenager at a festival in a tiny two-person tent where you could come back after a heavy day drinking and pass out, and only to wake up in the morning cold and somewhat claustrophobic.
When looking for tents I realised that they have moved on a lot since I was a teenager. We were fortunate enough to work with Outwell and got to try out a seven-person Sundale tent, which was a pump up, so there was none of the thin, annoying polls to try and wrestle with, which was a relief.
When the tent turned up, I was a bit overwhelmed with how big the bag was and was instantly worried about assembling the tent with three excited crazy kids running around. But it was straightforward we laid out the tent, pumped up the five sections and pegged in the guy ropes, and that was it. With two of us, it took us 15 minutes which was incredible. The tent was spacious and tall enough for my 6-foot husband to stand up in, and we had a separate sleeping area along the back of the tent, which worked out incredibly well as once the kids were asleep, Craig and I had somewhere different to sit. We had the Outwell storage table to store all our food to keep off floor level, and somewhere for our cooker, kettle, and toaster to sit, making it a home from home.
I also loved the front of the tent had a porch a grass area where we threw all our shoes and chairs and things that just needed shelter, so it kept our living space clean and clear and made it very stress-free.
I think what I was surprised about the most was how warm the tent was in the evening, and even though we had a lot of wind and rain, it didn’t seem to affect the structure of the tent one bit.
I am not ready to go entirely off-grid, and I still need my home comforts like a kettle and plug-in heater. Still, camping is definitely for us being outside and without screens made us closer and happier as a family. I’m already looking at ways to keep us warm so we can maybe even go camping in the autumn and winter months.