Well, here is where it all starts for most of us. Buying a tent and going camping with the kids. But there are so many choices out there these days, that a tent is not just a tent anymore.

Maybe your first camping experience was at school heading off for a week in the bush, with your backpack and a very simple 2 person (or 2 man as it was in my day) tent. Or maybe it was back packing around this great country of ours with a friend.

Well that 2 person tent you lived out of on surfing holidays along the Great Ocean Road, or Byron Bay just isn’t going to cut it now you’re heading off with the family.

Kids just love camping, and more often than not it is the excitement of staying in a tent that thrills them the most. It can be a really enjoyable experience shopping for a family tent with the kids. Whether that be at your local camping stores, or a Caravan and Camping Show in your city.

Over the years, from being single, to a couple, and now a family, I have owned five tents, all quite different in material, construction, size, and use.

Choosing a tent that’s right for you;

Materials

Most tents these days are made from light weight ripstop nylon. Like most materials, there’s the good the bad and the ugly, but as a general rule thin and lightweight ripstop fabrics have a 3-dimensional structure due to the thicker threads being interwoven in thinner cloth. Older lightweight ripstop fabrics display the thicker interlocking thread patterns in the material quite prominently, but more modern weaving techniques make the ripstop threads less obvious. A similar effect can be achieved by weaving two or three fine yarns together at smaller intervals. Advantages of ripstop are the favourable strength-to-weight ratio and that small tears cannot easily spread. Fibres used to make ripstop include cotton, silk, polyester, and polypropylene, with nylon content limited to the crosshatched threads that make it tear-resistant. Textures range from a soft and silk-like material to a crisp or stiff fabric that sounds like a paper bag when moved.
Ripstop nylon has good waterproofing properties, and is lightweight, making it an ideal choice for a tent. When packed up it takes up far less room than a traditional canvas tent, and yes, size matters when you’re packing it into the family wagon with all the other assorted paraphernalia that will be coming along with the kids on the trip.
When looking at purchasing a tent made from ripstop nylon ensure that the seams a well-sealed on the inside, and has well taped seams.

Another less common material is Canvas or often called ripstop canvas. Canvas is an extremely heavy-duty plain-woven fabric. Modern canvas is usually made of cotton or linen, although historically it was made from hemp. Tents made from canvas are going to be much heavier to carry around, and far more expensive. But far harder wearing than ripstop nylon.
Canvas must be ‘treated’ when new, meaning that it will need to be wet (soaked) for the first time to allow the fibres to swell, causing the holes in the weave to close up, making it waterproof for the next downpour on the trip.

Flooring

The floor of a tent is probably more important that the sides and roof. Let’s face it, very little ground that you will ever set a tent up on is level, and will always have high and low points. Even with a small amount of rain it will quickly pool under the tent in the low points and if the flooring is of poor quality or has holes in it you’re going to get wet. You may not know it until the middle of the night when you are woken by a soggy sleeping bag. The two common types of flooring are Silnylon or PVC vinyl.
Silnylon is the more common of the two, it is cheaper, light, and much thinner when packed. PVC vinyl is often used for the flooring of swags, but not so common on tents, except for trailer tents (camper trailers). Vinyl is a far better, more durable product, but is just that bit heavier and more difficult to pack.

Construction

There are three main construction materials for poles, fibre glass, aluminium, and wood to a lesser degree. Most tents these days will have fibre glass rods. 
A tent constructed with fibreglass poles will move around and flex more than one constructed from aluminium poles, but be more durable in the long run if it gets a hammering from the wind.
On that point, if the tent is constructed with fibreglass poles don’t get one too high, it will catch a lot of wind and blow around all night keeping everyone up. I still remember being in a caravan park in the late 90’s in Alice Springs, I was in a large dome tent, it was blowing a gale and had been all day. I was lying there in the middle of the night being woken by the sides of the tent, as it blew so hard that the roof was touching the ground. But to the tents credit it survived, so did we.
When you are buying a tent checkout the poles, there are some cheap ones out there that break very easily, and when they break they splinter, generally creating numerous sharp points that puncture the tent itself. After you have looked at couple of different manufactures poles you will soon see the difference. I have even had poles snap when simply putting the tent up.
It is always a good idea to carry a couple of spare fibreglass sections as spares, just in case. Although they are not difficult to buy when you’re at home, chances are that you will be in the middle of nowhere, outside business hours, or be in a town and have no idea where shops are, I know because it has happened to me. And there is very little that you can do about it without a replacement.

Shapes and sizes

Now down to the nitty gritty, the design…..
This of course is a personal preference, but let me give you a few things to think about.
Do you need a ‘family room’, my answer is no. There is no need to have a tent big enough to set up your table and chairs in, simply because you won’t. Even if the weather is really bad, let’s face it you won’t be sitting in the tent. That’s what camp kitchens are for, or the recreation room. And you certainly won’t be cooking in there, so I would say don’t get a tent thinking that you’re going to use it for sitting in if the weather is bad. Also a tent generally isn’t a pleasant place to be during the day, there’s very little windows, and if there is and it’s raining they will be closed, which leads me to my next point, there hot and stuffy, even on a mild day.

You will have to decide before going too much further, what are you all going to be sleeping on. A closed cell form mattress, an air bed, camp stretcher, porta cot and the list goes on. This will determine the amount of room and height you need. Bare in mind a camp stretcher or porta cot with small feet will put a lot of pressure on the flooring and more than likely damage the floor if you don’t take adequate precautions.

A popular tents these days for family’s is a three room design. Parents at one end, kids at the other, and storage, change room in the middle. We have one of these and its great for most occasions. Having the rooms at either end means they don’t need to be too high, the only high point is in the middle for getting changed, and there’s plenty of room for a family of 5. These tents take a bit of setting up, but once they are up they are very comfortable.

If you were intending on moving most days, and assuming the kids are a little older a great alternative is the quick erecting tents that go up in a matter of seconds, can’t be said for packing them up, but once you get the hang of it they take no time at all. In this case I would suggest that you buy 2 x 3 person tents, set them up side by side, or not, and make setting up camp a breeze.