Tent

Eureka! - Spitfire 1

Price: 129 dollars

There are many types of tents, too many to name them all, but two factors matter the most: self supporting (or not) and size. Since I was alone and planned of camping on soft ground I chose the Spitfire 1. With only four stakes (eight included) you got the tent up and stable in about five minutes. The rain cover worked just fine except for one time when the ground was too hard and the stakes were pulled out during the night by the wind. This caused the rain to pool on the cover and slowly drip in on my sleeping bag.

The bottom fabric could be thicker, so that rain water and moisture from the ground didn’t get through and in to my sleeping pad. It wasn’t a problem at all in my case, but it could have been if I had had rain several days straight.

The rain cover was sometime flapping too much in the wind and made sounds that could easily have been an animal outside the tent. Not too nice when camping alone in a desert.

Drying the tent and cover after a wet night was done in 15 minutes in the sun. Packing everything was just as smooth as setting it up. Practice makes perfect, do it enough times and it over before it even starts.

After using the tent for about 30 nights it is still as new. Not one scratch can be seen, but perhaps that’s because I took really good care of it and not the material or construction itself.

Rating: 4 (5)