Vango - F10 Xenon UL 2 Plus

Ok, so both of those get decent reviews, and lots of people use them for wild camping. But here's the thing - neither of them are big, and you've talked about *backpacking*. I *really* would not fancy tents like that for two people and all their gear, with cooking and getting changed, for a 3/4/5 day backpacking trip. Look at a tunnel tent with an extended vestibule - something like the Vango Xenon UL 2+, Naturehike Oppalus2, Nordisk Oppland2. Tunnel tents have a down side, which is that they can be a bit more fussy about where they are pitched in relation to wind direction if it's being a bit blowy - but they offer *vast* amounts of room for their weight.

The Vango Xenon UL range is pretty good - it's a tunnel tent with two versions: one with a third pole and huge vestibule and the other with a small, but still practical vestibule and two poles. *Personally* I take the view that you can never have too much room, and that the weight penalty - a few hundred grams - is worth it. If you *know* that you'll never be sharing your tent, and you *know* that your trips are always going to be quickies then you'd be ok with the 2, but sharing, in prolonged bad weather, for more than one night, I'd go for the 2+...

I think *personally* I'd look hard at the Xenon UL2+ (the stretched tunnel tent) if I wanted the space to store all my gear and cook and eat under cover, and the Radon UL 2 if I was more interested in it's ability to cope with changes of wind direction. I've seen the Xenon 2+ at about £220 on sale at Uttings....

I have always found vango to be good value for money tents. I have had 3 over the years for various purposes (7man family tent, 3 man comfortable weekend camping and a 2 man lightweight “backpacking”) Never let me down, just my opinion, I’m by no means a hardcore camper or expert on the matter

Years ago I had a really nice Vango tent that someone fell on top of and damaged. Sent it to Vango for repair and they lost it so they just sent me a new tent instead. I didn't pick the new tent, and it turned out to be less than ideal. It was a 2 man with a *huge* vestibule that was much larger than the sleeping area - so like this. The vestibule was a pain. It turned what was quite a small (inner) tent into a much larger package - heavier to carry, larger to store, slower to erect, and much harder to dry indoors. I got no real benefit at all from the vestibule: anything stored in it would be soaked by condensation/dew, and using stoves inside small tents is not something I'm up for (particularly since I use an ancient petrol stove). When it rained, it was nice to have a larger intermediate area to remove wet clothing before entering the inner tent, but overall I would much rather have had either a smaller vestibule, or an inner tent that extended much further into it. In short, unless you need a large vestibule for a bike or something, I'd buy a tent with a proportionally much larger sleeping area and much smaller vestibule. Probably the reason this is on sale is that no one who isn't cycling would consider buying it, and anyone who is cycling will probably be spending more on something more suited.

I posted this in a similar question earlier, but as it seems to be about the tent in question...... I recently purchased the OEX Bandicoot 2, but unfortunately, I had to return it due to a manufacturing defect in one of the pole hubs. The design features a small round metal ring with three holes tapped into it, and in my case, the machining was so poor that the thread simply wouldn’t hold. After the return, I decided to go with the Vango F10 instead, which, in my opinion, has a superior hub system. While examining other hub threadings, I noticed they all had quite a bit of room for improvement in terms of tolerance. This raised concerns for me; if a hub were to fail while on the trail, there wouldn’t be a realistic way to fix it. I was genuinely disappointed because the Bandicoot appeared to be a great option at a competitive price point. Perhaps my experience was an isolated incident, but it certainly made me hesitant about the brand and its design.

I'm assuming you're UK? Something by Vango or berghaus from GoOutdoors will do you fine. No reason to spend money if you don't need it (I killed a Vango tent in 3 weeks last year though so if it's more than an emergency tent then you may want to) Warning - last year camping in the black forest was near impossible without booking. I crossed it twice and it was slammed everywhere. The Vosges in contrast was lovely. Nice and quiet by school holiday standards so I'd head there first.