Allak 2

I answered in another reply too, I just want to chime in re: inner tent. In the Dome 3 you can remove the inner tent without problems. It is a PITA to hang it in when you have really cold hands but super nice when you want to have a completelty dry inner tent and it has rained through the night (the HB domes have the same function and for the 1P Soulo I hang it in and out all the time). I can attach a picture of the Dome on a calm day in northern Norway where you even can see the attachments points: https://preview.redd.it/04unamadumdf1.png?width=1772&format=png&auto=webp&s=80268ef5274aa3dfd818cfbdd6401fd0bbad1388

Totally agree with your conclusion, all tents are great in this selection. I would argue that a badly pitched tunnel tent is worse than a badly pitched dome, but you will survive in all of these tents without problem. I think the flapping is actually a very big downside for me, personally, and I have seen lots of tunnels and weaker tents "collapsing" after winds shifted during the night, while the domes stood less impacted. For me that is worth the extra weight :)

Buying a Hilleberg used shouldnt be a problem. There is very little cases where warranty would actually help you after they have been used for some time. The great thing about Hilleberg is their fantastic quality and for everything else you can send them in for repair. I have two Hilleberg (Allak 2 and Soulo) and love them dearly. I also use an Abisko Dome 3 when out with GF and dog. It is a solid tent. The Fjällräven are a little bit lower quality than the HB but they are still very good tents that I can recommend after many nights. If I had a usecase, the Abisko Shape would be definitely an option for me. Depending on where in Norway you go, keep in mind that a large tent footprint can sometimes make it harder to find appropriate camp sites, especially in (sub-)alpine terrain. I went with a friend last year to Jotunheimen and we both took a 1P dome tent, which made it much easier to find small spots among the boulders - nothing I recommend to you specifically because it has a lot of other drawbacks, but it is something to consider, so maybe a 2P-tent with a big vestibule (GT) is better in some places. Regarding dome vs. tunnel: a dome is in my opinion superior for the fjälls, because sometimes you go to bed with a western wind and get woken up by a howling northern wind. On the other hand, a tunnel feels more spacious, so you could more easily get away with a 2P tent? A second point for the dome is its ability to be completely freestanding, but that is more relevant for kayaking :)

I was actually in Rondane last year as well (earlier during summer with the Dome and GF and dog for 5 days, lovely place, see picture). In comparison to Jotunheimen, these are on the gentler side for Norwegian mountains (more like the Swedish ones) and if you keep to the valleys and plateaus there are plenty of spots with lots of space. One night on that particular trip we ran out of time before a big rain and had to pitch on a sandy plain (loose glacial sediment). The rainfront came with very strong gusts, which meant I had to fix the lines several times that night. The picture is from that evening and it got blustery rather quickly. It didn't help that we sat in a wind tunnel along the valley. In general regarding winds and storms in Scandinavia: you want to always prepare for the worst when you pitch the tent. By this I mean simply: don't skip the storm lines just because you are lazy, it sucks when you have to peg them out in the night, cold and dark. Use common sense and a weather forecast to reduce risks. Avoid thunderstorms (which is right now the main season). Storms can appear quite suddenly. It is not really the constant wind that is the biggest problem, but sometimes you get some sort of downburst along the mountain flanks into the valleys (and in winter even katabatic winds) that can rip out the pegs out of the ground. A stormy night sound scary when you sit inside, but if you have set up a Fjällräven or Hilleberg with all their pegs and lines, they will take quite a beating. That is why I have not switched to tarp tents yet. I have videos of winds exceeding 100 km/h and the Allak stood strong through the night - not that I slept much because of the noise. So another advice: ear plugs for windy nights. If you are prepared and know how to set up your tent in wind and rain (so with cold fingers, even in summer), you will have a great time. So another small advice: thin merino gloves to handle the aluminium pegs and poles. I am heading to Trollheimen in a few weeks for another four day hike. Super excited. https://preview.redd.it/zwxmb9xmfndf1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=c2e4f492fba49e825f229a31f05533acf506dbab

Sounds like a dome is perfect for you. Domes are not necessarily the best in high winds, but you do not have to take care as much about how to pitch it perfectly - unlike tunnel tents or similar constructions. If weight is not your highest priority I think a dome tent is the mostconvenient for Scotland/Scandinavia, especially in exposed locations like mountains and coastal regions. I use Hilleberg Soulo/Allak and Fjällräven. A lot of lightweight tents use a pyramid construction but they can be a bit annoying to set up - in my opinion. People swear by it but I am not convinced for my use cases (northern Europe with chance for torrential rain and wind over days).

Not really! A Nallo 2, GT if you need winter capabilities, will do any month of the year! Need heavier duty? Allak 2

Had to look it up. A very sturdy tent. https://www.trailspace.com/gear/hilleberg/allak-2/ But also a bit on the heavy side for single person walking. But with a bike, a very nice tent. All your panniers in one vestibule and the other for getting in and out. With two persons it will be snug inside, but the two vestibules make life easier. Also, the freestanding is nice, as is the half dome design. Truly a tent that can resist almost any weather.

Which tent are you talking about? My 2P Allak weighs a smidge over 3kg and is a geodesic, not a dome tent (a dome has two poles, hence a geodesic weighs slightly more). Yeah it’s too heavy for me to do solo hiking trips with, but when I’m with my partner, or when I’m kayak camping, it’s fine. It’s definitely overkill for summer camping though. But Hilleberg do “summer” (their Yellow Label) tents, of which there’s two dome tents: the Niak (1.6kg, but only one entrance so tricky for two people, but possible) and the Rogen (1.8kg) which are fine for almost all British weather, all year round. But the OP’s budget wouldn’t extend to a new Hilleberg anyway, so it’s not really relevant anyway 🙂 Hillebergs are worth considering if you camp a _lot_, otherwise there are plenty of more suitable options. Edit: as usual, I cannot fathom why I’m getting downvoted when I’ve posted a few basic facts here.

Staika is overkill for the UK. Just go with the Allak. Not a big weight saving but it will be fine for anything Scotland can throw at you.

The Chinese tents you find on Amazon and other online marketplaces, like Naturehike, are generally copies of tents made by western companies. For example, the Cloud Peak is a copy of the Hilleberg Allak, which _is_ a four season tent. Broadly speaking, these companies in China aren’t actual outdoor companies designing their own gear. They’re simply manufacturing sites that produce copies; the problem with this is that while the gear does superficially resemble the original, it often lacks the strength and durability of that original. This is because the copies are being made by people who don’t necessarily always understand the features of the original. This isn’t just about tents either. For example, I’m a kayaker and in winter we wear garments called drysuits, which are basically fully waterproof suits that you seal yourself into, to protect yourself from the cold water in case of immersion. They’re very expensive because they’re highly specialised; every seam requires very strong taping, the fabrics themselves need to be extremely durable, and they need high quality latex gaskets at the wrists and neck to keep water out. My own drysuit cost £1900, as an example. But because they’re such a significant investment, a lot of kayakers have started buying ones of AliExpress and other Chinese marketplaces, and once again we see this exact same issue where gear does sort of look like a western manufacturer’s suit, but when you start looking inside, you find all kinds of problems. And this is because they’re being manufactured by companies that don’t actually understand how drysuits are used. I watched a video on YouTube of the owner of a Canadian kayaking gear brand compare one of their drysuits to a Chinese copy and it clearly showed how the intention of certain features was lost on the copy. Furthermore, all the taping peeled right off and the suit failed a pressure test. Basically, that suit would not keep a paddler safe. It _looked_ the part but didn’t function correctly at all. I’m not saying all Chinese gear is bad but rather illustrating, in a somewhat roundabout way, why a lot of it uses certain terminology that doesn’t actually apply to it. It’s because the companies producing the gear don’t always understand the features that give the gear specific functionality. A clear example of this is the constant labelling of tents as four season when they aren’t. The primary feature of a four season tent is the ability to handle snow loading. This is achieved with thicker poles (usually at least 9mm), and stronger fabrics. They should also have fly sheets that extend to the ground to prevent spindrift getting in. The way the tents are sewn also makes them stronger; eg they have flat felled seams. These features are generally not present in the many so-called four season Chinese tents being sold on Amazon. I should mention that despite these many Chinese clone factories, there are one of two companies there that _do_ actually design their own gear, like 3FUL. Although their Lanshan is, broadly, a copy of a Hilleberg Anaris, they’ve done their own kinda thing with it. Flextail is another company that do actually design their own interesting gear. As for the hype you see about Naturehike and other cheap tents - they’re cheap, they get people out and about. And that’s about it. They’re better than the crap you get from Lidl or Argos. Without wanting to sound elitist (although this will sound that way), there’s definitely a phenomenon of people who have only ever owned very budget gear insisting that it’s amazing and just as good as more expensive gear. Which is a comparison you can’t really make if you’ve not actually used a full spectrum of gear, but it doesn’t stop them. Once again, we see this in all gear markets, not just camping - I see it in the kayaking world all the time too. And the internet has made it very easy for hype to spread. Is a Naturehike tent a worthwhile purchase? Yeah, if you’re starting out and don’t want to invest much up front, absolutely. It’ll get you out on some camps, keep you dry, and allow you to spend time in some cool places. Is it as good as a Hilleberg? Absolutely not. Do you need a Hilleberg? Not necessarily.

The Anaris model is relatively new but is based on the Keb, a trekking pole ridge tent which Hilleberg was already making in the 70s 🙂 The Lanshan took the design and made it ultralight (as indeed, ultralight is something Hilleberg simply don’t do). And yes, lots of YouTubers hype up budget gear. I see I’m already being downvoted (and no doubt this comment will be downvoted too), and I knew I would be, by people who don’t like to hear even a totally reasonable discussion about the spectrum of gear out there (my post above has no hot takes, simply an overview of why the term four season is erroneously used on so many tents), which actually brings me to another thing I didn’t mention in my post: the strange phenomenon of gear allegiance. There’s definitely a tendency amongst some people, especially young men, to develop an inexplicable loyalty to brands of gear they own and use. And this applies across the spectrum - from budget all the way to high end (some of the people on the Hilleberg FB group are downright cult-like). And just as they will go and declare the gear to be “amazing” and claim it “held up to BRUTAL conditions” (always without evidence), they’ll also react very negatively to any perceived criticism of their chosen brand’s gear. YouTube has amplified hype to the point that it can be difficult to really discern facts from opinions, the latter of which are often not especially well-informed. For what it’s worth, I’ve been camping for 35 years, on three different continents (mostly campsites but in the past few years almost entirely wild camping), and have owned a full spectrum of everything. I’ve literally lost count of the number of tents, sleeping mats and sleeping bags I’ve owned (I got my own first tent when I was about 10!). As such, I feel I have a reasonably informed view of things. A lot of people commenting online about gear, especially recommending budget gear and claiming it's the best thing out there, have simply never used anything else, so they actually have no real basis for comparison. These are the people who will downvote this post and the one above without actually offering any kind of meaningful contribution to the actual discussion. This sort of weird loyalty to gear definitely skews things like online reviews.

As the other user mentioned, Fjallraven makes good tents, and you can find them secondhand at good prices. Also, Terra Nova make good tents, and they're not as expensive as Hilleberg. You can sometimes find Hillebergs at good prices on eBay. Personally I own a couple of Hillebergs and have found them totally worth the price tag. I see them as a long term investment. But I also understand why people don't want to spend that kind of money on a tent.

I own a hilleberg and it’s the most competent of the winter tents I tried out. Very suited to Scotland.  Their red label tents should be acceptable for what you are looking for.  I’d also be mindful of the fact that when camping in woodland l, there can be a lot of beaches ready to come clattering down on your fragile canopy, so make sure you risk asses the area before pitching. Weeks of storm damage can be be forced to fall,  by even the lightest wind in our climate.