5 things I wish I knew before I bought my first tent

if the idea of camping wasn't already intimidating enough and then you've got to learn about how each piece of gear works so in this video we're going to break down tents some of the very basic parts of a tent what they're called and what they do to make your night in the back country as safe and comfortable as possible we're just going to go ahead and start setting up the tent and kind of walk through some things about tents that i think were very confusing to me when i first bought tents and it's really important to know these things when you're buying a tent because then you're better educated so that way when you're looking for a good tent um to help you sort of build that shelter in the middle of nowhere you're gonna absolutely know that it's gonna be safe and comfortable for you while you're out there when you are shopping for your tent in the description of your tent oftentimes it will say that it comes with a footprint or sometimes it's called a ground cloth or sometimes it's called a ground sheet but it's a piece of fabric that goes underneath your tent and uh in most situations you don't necessarily need to buy it from the manufacturer because they're usually really expensive this is just a piece of um tyvek i bought this on amazon and it's really inexpensive and if you're first starting out um tent camping you're probably looking to save some money what i do is i just simply find my tent camping spot i lay this out on the ground and the whole point of this is uh just to stop abrasions from underneath your tent to stop moisture from coming up underneath your tent really just to protect the floor of your tent help it to last a lot longer okay so you want your footprint your ground cloth your ground sheet or whatever the manufacturer is going to call it to be just slightly smaller than the bottom of the tent and the reason for that is you don't want this sticking outside of the tent because then if it does rain water is going to get on top of the ground cloth and then get between the tent and it's going to sort of defeat the purpose and it's going to get water inside of your could get water inside of your tent depending on how well manufactured your tent is maybe you've heard the term bathtub floor when it comes to a tent um it's you'd think that's sort of self-explanatory but if you're new to tent camping that can be really confusing like what the heck is a bathtub floor am i gonna have to bring soap when i'm backpacking is that what you're gonna have to do but a bathtub floor is essentially uh where the tent has the floor that comes up around all sides of the tent like a bathtub so i don't know why they call it a bathtub floor other than it's more like a bucket is it more like a bucket but the benefit of a bathtub floor is uh so that water doesn't come into your tent so that the screen the net doesn't go down all the way to the ground and that's just the floor of the tent so it's most tense nowadays i don't know that i've even seen a tent lately that doesn't have a bathtub floor i'm sure they're out there if you're buying really inexpensive tents but most good manufacturers are gonna have a bathtub floor they are a benefit for sure and that's exactly what a bathtub floor is that's cool but like you didn't tell us where we could set up our tent oh funny you say that gordon because today's sponsor is an app called onyx backcountry that can tell us exactly where to set up our tent finding a place to hike and camp is often one of the most difficult things to do when you're backpacking or camping so that's where onyx backcountry an app for your phone comes in it informs you of waypoints water sources campsites the work is literally done for you they have over 7 000 verified trail contributors 500 000 recreation points super easy pinch to zoom 10 000 of what they call guidebook adventurers so if your big concern is getting lost on trail and not being able to find a campsite i highly encourage you to download onyx backcountry today you can click the link in the description below and add my coupon link my coupon code which is also in the link as well there are double wall tents and there are single wall tents and right away you're like tents have walls like is there a drywall in the tent is there drywall on the tent i hope not it's better i think that'd be a little too heavy don't buy a tent if it's made out of drywall this is uh the tent when it's set up this is actually the tent now if i don't throw what's called a rain fly over the top of the tent and we'll get to that in a second uh this is the first wall of the tent so if i left this just like this this would technically be a single wall tent because this is the first wall a double wall tent has two walls that's why they call it a double wall tent it's got the outside and the inside a single wall tent just has one wall it's made out of some type of a nylon usually and it's just one wall the benefit to a single wall tent is that it's lightweight it also in most situations doesn't require that you bring tent poles you can actually bring trekking poles to set up the tent which is a lot lighter weight in when you're when you're hiking out to wherever you're going if you're planning on backpacking double wall tent though is really beneficial for the biggest reason which is condensation so when you're inside of your tent and it's really cold outside the inside of your tent is probably going to be warmer with you inside of it which is going to create moisture on the inside of your tent but that moisture is going to get on this outer wall not the inner wall when you're inside of your tent and that's gonna stop the gear inside of your tent from getting wet now if you have a single wall tent chances are if it's colder on the outside of your tent and it's warm on the inside and that moisture develops it is gonna get on you it is gonna get on the inside of your tent it's going to start dripping down on you so that is a benefit of having a double wall tent versus a single wall tent and that's what they are let's talk about what a vestibule is vestibule is french we just learned that because we just looked it up and it means court entrance and it was taken from the 17th century when you're looking at a tent and you want to know what the heck is a vestibule this is a vestibule not all tents have them not all tens have most tents will have them and they're nice to have but it's really just uh in most tents and this tent specifically most tents are gonna have it where it's coming off of the door it's where the tent um is underneath here we've just talked about that the rain fly is over the top that will pull out into a spot that creates what's called a vestibule now why these are cool why they're important i think is you've now got an area that almost is like an awning it's almost a it's just a place for where you can put things underneath it uh like gear maybe your backpack your boots your shoes you can maybe sit inside of your tent and kind of put the vestibule out like this and if it's raining you can eat under the vestibule so you keep that food outside of your tent it's just an extra sort of outdoor living space for being able to do other things than sit inside of your tent or have gear inside of your tent another thing you're going to hear when you're shopping for tents or when you're looking at descriptions about tents or the tents that you're probably looking to buy is a term called guy lines and a guy line is simply just a line that is uh used to keep the tent in place taut like this here actually here's a guy line here this is just a line that comes off of the tent uh and goes out to a stake or some type of a spot that you're gonna tie off to keep the tent in place uh they can be tightened uh in most situations so that way your tent stays nice and taut and then sometimes like over here you're going to see loops on your tent like this and most tents that have loops like this are going to be coming with extra line or extra cordage or a guy line that's going to be able to be tied off onto this and then tied off onto something else and that's really to keep your tent just stable maybe there's high winds maybe you're up on a big ridge and you're worried about the tent kind of shaking and blowing and that's what those are for and one tip is you don't want to have guy lines too tight because if they are too tight it can actually rip the tent if there's too much weather so just keep that in mind and now you know what a guy line is so those are some of the biggest things that i had um you know really confusing thoughts on when i was buying a tent i didn't know what any of that stuff was i didn't know what it meant so hopefully now you at least have a general idea of what those things are as you're starting your adventure into camping backpacking or whatever you're doing and hopefully it helps you guys out if you found this beneficial make sure you hit the like button also subscribe for more and we'll see you guys on the next one

Channel: Dan Becker

Views: 346,604

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Id: Jnqmnu-XMWc

Length: 9min 36sec (576 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 03 2021