Just yesterday I wrote the first installment of the series I am calling “The Modular Checklist” which is all about what to take and what not to take camping.

Well this morning I was looking around some camping related websites that I like to keep an eye on and came across an article which goes into some pretty good detail about choosing the right tent.

Check it out:

Campers all over the globe prefer to use tents in their camping trips. With so many different kinds of tents available in the market, it becomes very difficult to choose the type of tent which is suitable for your needs. This article describes the essential criteria that you should look in a tent when going in for your next camping trip.

Size

No matter what you have heard of, size does matters! Typically tents are advertised as 2 person tents, 4 person, 6 person and so on which means that there is a room for a maximum of 2, 4 and 6 person in the tent. But buying a 4 person tent for a group of 4 people is not a very good idea.

While a maximum of 4 people can accommodate in a 4 person tent but the comfort level of these 4 people is not very good due to the space constraints. It is advisable to buy a tent that is advertised as 2* number of group members using the tent. So if you are traveling with a partner, then you might want to buy a 4 berth tent as it will provide good comfort for just 2 people.

High End Vs Low End

Markets are full of different kind of tents; some of them are pretty expensive while others are quite cheap. Sometimes it becomes difficult to choose from the high priced tagged from those low end tents. The simple solution for this problem is to judge your frequency of camping and then choose the right type of tent.

So if you are a frequent camper and love to go out often, even in bad weather, then you might want to buy a high priced tent that is durable and more comfortable than most of the tents available in the market. On the other hand, if you are an occasional camper who moves out once in a while then it will not be good to invest a considerable amount in buying the tent and you may go for any of those cheap alternatives available in the market.

Features

Modern day tent are equipped with a number of additional features that can turn your camping experience into truly memorable one. If you are going to buy new tents then you might want to look out for features such as roof vent, rain protection, strong stakes and heavy duty zippers.

Roof vent are used to provide an extra path for circulation so that the level of oxygen inside the tents keeps on a healthy level. This is very usable if you have kids in the tent and if the camping is done in hot weather.

Similarly looking out for good and strong stakes will help you much in a storm like condition where weak sakes easily breaks down. Most of the high end tents comes with heavy duty zippers that last long enough but you have to be extra cautious while going in for those cheap tents as quality of zippers is quite low.

Ian Wide has contributed many sport and leisure articles to sites such as tents and trampolines.

This place is pretty cool.

We went there with another family that has kids the same age as ours (7 and 9). We were tent camping but they have hookups for just about any size or type of RV.

They have plenty of activities and amenities to keep you busy on property for a couple of days easy. The kids got to do some arts and crafts (the one things that my kids still remember to this day is making their own pottery – they are boys so of course they created alien space monsters!), a fishing tournament, ping pong, basketball, volleyball, hay rides, a pretty nice jungle gym and a ton of other stuff.

We were there for a long weekend and I we didn’t leave the campground once and we were never ever bored. If you have kids (especially under about 10) I would very highly recommend this campground.

There were only two minor things that I didn’t like and neither of them would keep me from returning there in the future:

1. The tent sites were somewhat small and kind of pushed together. Almost like they were an afterthought. But since we had two site side-by-side for our families it worked out as we were able to put the tents & vehicles at opposite ends of the sites and have a decent sized “common area” for the meals and campfire stuff.

2. Saturday night about 1am we were awoken by some pretty rowdy and drunken kids (late teens or early 20′s). But they didn’t wake up the kids just us adults and when we woke up in the morning their site had been emptied and the only remaining evidence that they were even there was a bunch of empty bottles that some campground employees were quickly removing.

Overall a definite must see in Southern New Jersey!