I'm pretty sure a 3 season will have a full fly capable of handling pretty intense rainfall, it will probably also have a ground sheet. A camping tent will just have the little touque style fly and probably be larger, have windows etc.
I love it when a tent looks like it's wearing a yarmulke.
That's a foreskin.
Okay, so whatβs a 4 season tent?
4 season tents can handle snow loads on them without collapsing. Can sustain higher winds. Usually donβt have any mesh panels.
Nice, thanks for the info
It's like a 3 season tent in steroids. You can really batten down the hatches and they're typically stronger to withstand heavy winds or the weight of snow.
Awesome. Thank you!
The "3 season tent" path starts with not being able to see your car from camp, while the "camping tent" is close to the car. So I'm thinking the 3 season refers to a backpacking tent like the MSR Hubba line, while the "camping tent" would be some big heavy Coleman type of thing. I once lived in an MSR Hubba Hubba for the better part of seven months, though only spring through fall. I definitely wouldn't want to spend a winter in that thing, so I would say it qualifies as a three session tent.
A good rule of thumb I learned growing up camping is;
3 season; you can make it through a storm.
Basic bitch starter tent; you grab your important shit and bolt for the car to wait it out. Maybe watch your tent fly away, depending on how good a job you did hammering it down and how wet the ground gets.
That Coleman has no reason to be over 10lbs
Fiberglass poles are a bitch.
I have this tent, it comes with a bunch of surprisingly heavy steel stakes as well as a mallet to drive them. I bet you could swap them out for aluminum and ditch the mallet, and drop at least a pound.
Also, that weight is almosy certainly the shipped weight, and includes the canvas bag it ships in, as well as the cardboard box inside it, neither of which are needed.
The steel is to help prevent bending the stakes, and in harder packed ground it'll penetrate better than aluminium, but it's all about what your use case is.
But ditch the mallet and bring a hatchet with a flat backside and a bit of rubber mat to lay over your stake when you hammer it in with the flat back of the hatchet. Hatchets can be used for more stuff than a mallet, rubber mats as well. If you're travelling light, it cuts out a whole extra tool.
Shoes... suck for driving stakes.
All makes sense now!
Three seasons can also.mean different things to different regions, though there is supposed to be a clear definition. For my region, we have cold-ish, cool, and balls deep in humidity. For me, a three season tent has tons of ventilation and mesh with the solid rain fly when needed for rain and when it gets chilly for a month. I got the TarpTent with full mesh to meet my needs vs the one with partial mesh.
You got a TarpTent in a humid climate? Me too Can I ask how you deal with the trekking pole right in the damn middle? I'm playing around with trying to set it up like trekking pole tents where the poles are on the outside, as there are very few trees to set it up on a ridgeline where I live... it's not going well...My foot box keeps getting wet from wall condensation
Ah, thank you! That is helpful.
in this case I assume they mean a heavy camping tent vs a lighter backpacking tent, although both kinds of tents are frequently called "3 season" tents
I think a "camping" tent is just the basic bitch, bargain, hobo tent every beginner gets: four or six man, two shitty poles in an x, tiny fly, one door
Accurate
This is the comment I came here for
3 season tent has mesh walls on the main tent and a water proof rain fly. A 4 season tent has no mesh.
βReally?β made me laugh. I feel like an extra question mark (or two π) would make it even better!
Overall, itβs pretty spot on.
I have never felt so seen until I got to that
I dig it, though $1k is on the low end of rooftop tent budget...
Rooftop tents are the IG models of camping. Fake as hell and a waste of space!
Hehe I kinda agree. They're costly, add significant weight and drag to your vehicle that you're probably going to lug around all the time, and once you're set up you can't drive anywhere. Each to their own and everything but my dome tent and inflatable queen size mattress is fully set up in about 15 minutes, cost a couple hundred bucks, and fits in a bag.
Not long ago I realized a lot of people have RTT and I started looking into them to see if maybe there was something I was missing, and honestly I couldnβt find a single justification for where a RTT would be better than a regular tent.
The rooftop tents Iβve seen set up and taken down take as long as a regular dome tent(not a cabin or wall tent). Like you mentioned, your vehicle is disabled while camp is set which is a big no-no for me as Iβm usually there to do something other than putz around camp or drive roads just because.
For me, I just canβt see a point to them other than the vanity aspect and being able to say βI have a RTT Iβm an overlander!β.
At the end of the day itβs a free country, you guys can spend your money as you see fit. Iβm not gonna bag on anyone because they have one, I just couldnβt justify it.
At some stage I would like to build myself a really compact and minimal overlanding trailer on which I would put a RTT and an awning on. But then it's really just a camper trailer not a RTT.
This is what I'm looking at.
I built my camping trailer before covid back when prices were more reasonable. It has the 1st gen smitty built rtt on it and its been great for me. Today, would I buy a 3 or 4K rtt tent, Nope.
I can think of a very niche use case that couldnβt have been their intentionβ¦ I camp at an island with βwild horsesβ frequently, they walk right through camp and it can be unnerving to have that large of an animal with hooves inches away from your head with only nylon between youβ¦ and used to have an extremely anxious spouse who would have freaked tf out, if she had gone.
So they may be helpful in getting a non-outdoorsy spouse to go with you, but itβs cheaper and easier to find a different spouse.
Also maybe if thereβs a lot of snakes/scorpion/large spiders where you camp.
For me, the benefits of the RTT are basically: 1. I don't have to set up multiple things in the tent, e.g. set up the tent, lay out my sleeping pad (which will also be less comfortable than the foam mattress in the RTT), and lay out the sleeping bag. All of that is just done already as soon as I open the tent. The tent itself isn't any faster to set up or take down, as messing with the spring-steel rods for the fly are just as annoying as tent poles, but not having the extra time of the accoutrements within the tent is nice. 2. It's nice not to crawl around on the ground.
That's basically it, from my perspective. I tend not to use my site as a base camp from which I go places with my truck during the day, so the immobility of the truck doesn't bother me (though if it did, I'd probably just put the tent on a small trailer.
less comfortable than the foam mattress in the RTT), and lay out the sleeping bag. All of that is just done already as soon as I open the tent. The tent itself isn't any faster to set up or take down, as messing with the spring-steel rods for the fly are just as annoying as tent poles, but not having the extra time of the accoutrements within the tent is nice.
It's nice not to crawl around on the ground.
I have both an RTT and a tent for back country. They both have their benefits. An RTT is great for comfort, ensuring you have a flat surface, if you intend to cover a lot of ground (road trips etc), or are in areas with a lot of wildlife. I have a video of a pack of coyotes under the tent - pretty cool :). It also allows me to camp in a lot of areas I wouldnt want to with a traditional tent like riverbeds or rough forest floors. I got my RTT before covid so it was $700 all in and have got much more use out of it than my past tents. It has also held up in some gnarly weather and is comfortable for my spouse who is less inclined to completely roughing it.
My backcountry tent is very purpose built. Lightweight and minimal. Unfortunately it hasn't done as well in blizzards and heavy downpours so am now looking at a 4 season replacement. Granted I am bought my RTT pre covid and am now shopping post covid so my new tent will be more expensive than the RTT was and less comfortable, but obviously there is no substitute for its purpose.
Something I haven't thought about with rooftop tents is how awful it would be to be if I was caught in the rain with them. Like my tent has a vestibule big enough to take off my jacket and shoes and enough space to comfortably hang out in.
Heard from a friend who has one his biggest fear is actually the wind. I guess it feels like youre about to blow over when it gets a bit gusty.
lol what are you talking about? it takes less than 5 min for a rooftop lol the whole point is the setup convenience.
I didn't say it wasn't convenient to set up?
Only responding because I hate it when gatekeepers call any kind of camping "Fake".
My wife and I have a Yakima roof tent that we bought when we drove to Alaska for our honeymoon. Especially while driving through Canada, we had several 11 hour days of driving only to get to a campground that was made up fist sized rocks. If you've ever been to McCarthy in Wrangle-St Elias NP, you'll know that tent camping on the ground is miserable.
We both agree that the roof tent was the best decision we made for that trip. It lowered our overall mpg by about 5, but in a Forester, we were still getting about 30 highway. Within a few days, I was able to set it up and take it down by myself in about 5 minutes each while my wife was setting up the rest of the camp. It gave us cover, was always much flatter and more level than a normal tent would have been. The mattress was comfortable and it never felt like it was sliding around under us. We could leave our sleeping bags and pillows up in the tent while driving, saving us precious room in the car.
All this to say, something that you might not understand the draw of or like doesn't mean that it's "fake" or "a waste of space".
stop hating, it's not for everyone, each to their own. Advantages are easy setup, having an elevated sleeping platform, Comfort (most have mattress), mobility and versatility to different environments, Weather Resistance, Security, Leave No Trace, and better views from your tent.
Youβre the second person in this thread to say βeach to their own,β rather than βto each their own.β
Is that a regional thing? Iβve never heard the former phrasing.
I disagree.
Could four wheeler substitute for a llama?
Don't count as consumable.
You clearly haven't seen me park.
- There should be a branch keeping you away from tarps and hammocks that says "are you camping somewhere that wildlife (including bugs) might kill you?"
- Rooftop tent should also include "do you want to climb a ladder to get to bed or use the bathroom and be unable to drive away from camp?"
There should be a branch keeping you away from tarps and hammocks that says "are you camping somewhere that wildlife (including bugs) might kill you?"
bug bivy inners exist.
Many tarp tents have an integrated floor and mesh connecting the floor to the tarp to keep bugs out
do you think tents protect your life from bugs and critters
they can protect from bugs to a certain extent but I wouldn't stake my life on it
Tents canβt protect you from daddy long legs. They are able to walk through tent walls.
Able to walk through solid house walls too.
Only logical conclusion is that they can access alternate dimesions
The branch should also add something about the amount of trees in the area. If you are camping somewhere without trees hammocks may not be an option.
Hamock are suprisingly a exelent protection against wildlife
i have sleep in the amazonian rainforest during 30 days and i Never had Γ bad suprise the morning or been waked up by any of the eldrich abomination we can found into the jungle
Note to self:
When are you gonna get a tactical llama?
I can't believe goats were left off that list.
Rafts, too.
Goats can carry around 40 pounds.
Never used a packing goat before, but from what I gather it's gonna take engineers several decades to come up with a robot that's better!
And my kayak!
lacks my favorite: the trekking pole tent
According to this I'm well suited with my 3-season tent, but I'm sad I don't have a llama travelling buddy.
Yep, not too shabby and pretty spot-on
Yes Iβm really a polar explorer and no Iβm not necessarily serious about it
Bivvy bag needs to be on there too IMO.
separate decision tree that starts with "do you want to suffer"
not in the least: RV
no: van
no?: truck camper
not really: tall canvas tent
maybe: nylon tent
If necessary: backpacker's tent
Suffer is a strong word: tarp shelter
I'm tougher than you think: bivy
I can handle anything: hatchet
Yes: flat cardboard on the sidewalk
Yes, but also I want to be at least 1km off the ground on a cliff side for the night? Portaledge.
Hear me out...what about one of each? I mean, then you have it, j-just in case.
R+1 tent
It be like that. π
Lol a 1000 dollar roof top tent. Mine cost 5000.
If you buy a hammock and no tarp you are in for a bad time.
No swag option?
I followed my needs and ended with a tarp tent... guess the mosquitos and blackflies will be well fed.
But you did answer "no" to do you like walls!
Rooftop tents start @ $3000
The fuck they do. There's also such a thing as a used market.
They start at about Β£800 in the uk,
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09V6GDXCS
That will be shit and fail fast but it is a starting point for something quite elaborate.
The model I have is $1600 and has lasted me 3 years at this point and shows no signs of wear and tear.
RTT flow should just say reevaluate your decision
Lol, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen.
Where does my $800 DCF hiking pole tent fit in?
Wow what a dumb ass post
As an avid hammock camper, I'd add an "or" at the camping tent option. So you could get to camping tent and then chose to consider the donkey, horse, llama decision tree.
Camping tents should have an extra category for the quick setup ones like Gazelle.
Wanted a tent, got a hammock lol
What about if you have pack goats?
Canβt I just use a cabin tent with the car?
Hammock Gang Reporting in
This is great because I have that orange 4-season tent (I bought it used π), I also use a tarp shelter I made...
And a camper shell for my pickup - maximum easy
What if you want a woodstove, walls, and hammock (inside)?
Hey I bought the right tent.
Anyone else irrationally upset by that misplaced No arrow on the left?
Three seasonβ¦ got it. Taking my first camping trip next weekend, and Iβm very excited, but Iβm also very stressed about what all I might do wrong.
Love this, so adorable!
Not the most experienced camper, but my 3 season has been more than adequate for all my needs. So far itβs encountered heavy rain, wind, sleet, and multiple trips. About 3 years old and no complaints so far.
I always seem to run into this eager to help salesperson when Iβm just meandering through the sporting goods section at Walmart for no apparent reason. The REAL reason I was even going to Walmart is because I remembered that we needed triple A batteries. But after this conversation, Iβll totally forget about the batteries, not buying them, instead walk out of the store with a jumbo sized bag of beef jerky that I saw on the end cap.
Hmm maybe I could out a rooftop tent on a crown Victoria, they are pretty sturdy. Lmao
I love this diagram
The "no" answer arrow is in the wrong place for the $1000 budget question.
I always thought those guide tents with wood stoves were cool. They take up a ton of space in the truck, so I have never bought one. Looks like a serious PIA to set up too.
Now I want to go camping around continents with my donkey.
Be safe. Get two of each.
You should edit the rooftop section to read something like "want to wake everyone up and possibly break an ankle when you need to get up to pee?
pee bottles are your friend in those situations. Fewer broken bones.
Straight, to the point, love it
Really?
Potentially the most important question when buying any outdoor gear
No ultralight option for backcountry camping.
In fucking dying over here. Also where is my goddamn llama?!
Do any of these tents come with a Llama?
Didn't realise there are so many options
Never seen a Llama as a pack animal, but goats on the other hand....
Sure, let's get weird!
Explain to me, an idiot, what the difference between a "camping" tent and a "3-season" tent is.