The Family Camping Trip: Tents

Welcome to the second article in my family camping series. Here we will be looking at one item you will need to purchase and, probably, the most expensive one you will face, a tent.

Let us start with basic gear for family camping on a budget. A camper (trailer or motor home) is not needed. You do not have to have a little house to drag behind you. It is a needless expense which you probably cannot afford. A tent will do quite nicely and is far cheaper. This brings us to the topic of tents. Most of the tents sold these days are cheap crap designed to last one season, if that, and then fall apart on you. This forces you to go out and purchase another tent. All in all it is a rather neat gimmick on the part of manufacturers but you can get around it. For those of you who grew up prior to the 1980's you may remember camping year after year in the same old canvas tent. Many of these tents did become stained with mildew over the years and could take on a bad odor but this was because they were not taken care of properly.

Canvas tents cost more upfront. A decent canvas tent will run between $300 and $400 for a new one. An army surplus "10 man" tent, which is a small sized tent good for a family of four, goes for $180-$300 plus shipping on eBay. These tents can last for decades if properly cared for. In the late 1980's and early 1990's Arctic infantry battalions, stationed in Alaska, were using 10-man tents with dates stamped on them from the 1950's. The soldiers took care of the tents, carefully hanging them up to dry every time they returned from "the field" and then packing the tent away. These costs may sound excessive but look at it this way, a nice two room tent, with a screened in porch, will run you about $130. If you have to purchase one per year while your children are growing up and you start camping when your kids are five by the time they are fifteen you have spent $1300. You were far better off purchasing the nicest canvas tent than you were buying a new cheap nylon tent year after year. Just take care of your equipment and, by the way, this also teaches good ethics to your children.

Once you purchase a canvas tent you should take good care of it, treating the canvas with water repellent and seam sealant and being sure to dry the tent and fold it carefully before storing. You have sunk a lot of money into this tent and storing it wet just one time, for a few days, can destroy it.

In the next article I will be going over stoves and cookware, or how to get by without a lot of the stuff many people think they simply have to have.