Tent Advice.

Pay now or pay later, when you're out in the woods bumming 'cause your zipper won't work, it's raining and your tent's leaking like a seive, that's what you'll get at walmart.

I'm kinda partial toward Mountain Hardware tents, though they're pricey, they're extremely bomber in the weather, water proof, light weight and compact.

The coolest design I've seen recently is my buddy's NRS Hubba Hubba tent. Yeah I know the name's kinda hokey, but the tent is really cool, a mesh shelter for the clear star filled nights with a bomber fly that fits over it, and doors on both sides. Free standing, with clips for attaching the tent to the frame (you set the frame up first). I try and avoid getting tents with sleeves for the poles, sleeves are a pain in the ass.

Kelty makes a good tent, I just bought a Green River 4 for taking the family car camping, and I've got a Noah's tarp, which I love.

Hammock's are cool too 'cause you can crash anywhere there's trees, you don't need a flat spot.

I look for the following in tents:
Free standing.
Easy to set up quickly in the dark or the rain, with clips, not sleeves, for the poles.
Water proof/weather proof.
Light weight/compact.
Zippers are easy to use, and don't bind (you can check that in the store).

 

If I were gonna camp somewhere for a long time, I'd go for an army style tent. They're heavy and bulky as hell, but once you get 'em set up their sweet, especially if you have a stove or heater with a flu like we used to have on deployment exercises when I was in the military twenty five years ago. We had 'em rigged up with lights and wood floors.