$50 Tent vs $600 Tent

hey y'all Dixie here today I want to compare my $600 backpacking tent to a $60 backpacking I've seen a lot of pretty cheap backpacking tents on Amazon and I always wondered are they actually any good or is it just some piece of junk that really isn't even worth the cheap price that they're sold for so I decided if I could find one that was less than three pounds that also had good reviews then I'd go ahead and give it a shot the river country products two-person tricking pull back Packingtown met that criteria and it was actually rated 4.4 stars out of five on Amazon you can get it on Amazon for less than $60 or 50 to 95 as what it's going for right now but on the river country products website it's on sale right now for forty nine ninety five one of the reasons I chose this one is like I said before it was under three pounds it was pretty cheap and it also set up similarly to my Z packs duplex in the way that it used trekking poles instead of designated tip poles if you're not familiar with my Z packs duplex which is also a two-person tent that I used on my PCT and CDT through hex it is a tent that is made out of Cuban fiber or Dyneema it is very lightweight coming in at just 21 ounces for the tent alone and without the stuff sack it's actually 20 points 7 ounces it's pretty well ventilated for a single wall tent it's got netting around the bathtub floor and if you're on the inside of the tent you'll notice that if condensation did collect which in single wall tents it is common for condensation to collect it can just run down the walls and through that netting around the bathtub floor that way it doesn't collect on the floor of the tent the bathtub floor is eight inches tall so you really don't have to be concerned with splash up from the rain even though there is that netting around the bathtub floor then there's a door on either side and both of those doors also have netting underneath the two vestibules I like the fact that it does have a door on either side it's pretty convenient if you're gonna backpack with somebody that way if you have to get up and go pee in the middle of the night you're not having to like bump into somebody trying to crawl out a door in front of you and you know just one door you can kind of unzip the door on your side and just tuck and roll out your side I was kind of intimidated by the looks of the duplex so when I first got it I was nervous it was gonna be really difficult to set up the first time was kind of a mess but after that I got the hang of it on like the second time and in no time I was a pro the dimensions of the duplex which is rather roomy is three point seven five feet wide seven and a half feet long and 4 feet high and if you do have a lot rain and you want a little more ventilation because again it is a single wall tint you can roll back one door of the vestibule and leave it open for a little aeration and then on the inside of the tent there are two little pockets that are conveniently located to where you can access the stuff inside the pockets if you're inside the tent or outside of the tent you just want to reach in the door real quick but in those little pockets you can put things like cell phones wallets I like to put the tent stuff sack in my steak bag that way it's easy to find in the morning and it's not all you know jumbled up with my gear and somehow got accidentally stuffed inside my pack and the Z packs duplex can be yours for five hundred and ninety nine dollars and this does not include trekking poles or Stakes those things are sold separately but while this is an expensive piece of gear it is very lightweight it is durable and it is a very well made product now let's talk about the river country products tent the trekker - I was pretty excited when I got this tent in I wanted to open it up and see what it looks like and you know kind of judge it from the start the first thing I noticed is that it was rather compact and the way it was folded up all nicely and everything I wondered if I'd be able to shove it back in the stuff sack and it actually fit the next thing I notice is that it seems to be made out of a pretty sturdy material it seemed well-made and the body of the tent is made out of a polyurethane coated polyester which is waterproof and then the bathtub floor it felt like a tarp it is also waterproof and is made from Oxford taffeta sounds so sophisticated so with this tent also like the duplex you do not need a ground cloth it is waterproof it is durable and I mean you can always have one just for the sake of safety but you don't have to worry about adding extra weight to the weight of the tent you know because you don't need it my least favorite thing that I noticed after I'm packing the tent is that it only has one door also there is no vestibule that might not seem like that big of a deal but if you are going to have two people in a two-person tent then it is nice to have the vestibule for some extra storage for gear you know your pack stuff like that also when you experience some rainy weather it's nice to be able to cook in your vestibule if you want to and be shielded from the rain but all in all the tent was pretty easy to set up with the instructions that came with it and one of the things that I noticed it was a little bit different than the duplex is where it sets up with the trekking poles on the front and the back you set the trekking poles up upside down so the point goes into like a little ring on the front and the back and it rests on the handles fairly quickly I noticed that this tent was not going to be as ventilated as the duplex because the wall of the tent connected directly to the bathtub of the tent and I knew that with some condensation especially because it was less ventilated it would probably roll down and end up in the bathtub on the floor but it is pretty well ventilated at the front of the tent there's a screen mesh door and then the waterproof door on the outside so it does have a double door so if it wasn't raining you could open the waterproof part and not have to worry about bugs getting in and stuff like that so in warmer weather that would be convenient because you could roll the waterproof doors back and not have to worry about mosquitoes coming in on you but if it is raining then that will have to be closed but I noticed that at the bottom of that waterproof door it didn't connect and zip to the tent so it was still kind of flopping open and waving in the wind also on the back side of the tent there are two little window vents if you will that kind of pull open and attach to the back stake to allow a little more ventilation in the back like fizzy packs duplex the river country tent is pretty roomy on the inside it's 7 feet long five feet wide and three and a half feet high so it's not quite as long or it doesn't have as much head space as the duplex but it is a little bit wider than the duplex and I felt like in a way that kind of made up for not having a vestibule I mean not exactly but the fact that there's a little more wits to work with so if you do have two people sleeping side by side there is little extra room to put packs or other gear next to one of the people in addition to getting this tent for around $50 you also get eight aluminum stakes and I thought that this was pretty nice because the stakes are only about three to three and a half ounces or so so they are lightweight aluminum stakes and it's not something that you know you're gonna get some big ol hunk in heavy stakes and then you have to pay more money to replace them so you end up putting more than around $50 into the tent now the stakes are something that you could upgrade later to save a little bit of weight but they are pretty good stakes for starting out the total weight of just the tent is 2 pounds 9 ounces but with the stuff sack and the stakes that come with it it's around 2 pounds 12 ounces the only negative thing that I could say upon my initial inspection of this tent is that there was a small flaw with the stitching on the inside of the tent I think that it's not really gonna affect the functionality or anything like that it's just cosmetic but other than that it seemed to be a very well-made tent good quality not something that is just made out of crappy products and kind of thrown together and to my surprise as I broke down the tent it actually does stuff well back into the stuff sack which in my mind is important because if it's a tent you have to fold up repeatedly the same way it can crease the tent and start to break it down in those creases so they suggest that with backpacking tents something that you're gonna use over and over like that that is good to just stuff it into the stuff sack that way it's creasing all the time in different areas I initially set up the tent on a nice sunny clear day and it seemed all fine and dandy like it would function well but I thought you know how would this thing perform in the rain so I decided well I'm gonna camp out in it one night in the rain and see how it does so I went out in the afternoon and I set it up and some of the things that I was concerned about when thinking about it getting rained on is that it's really not a pretty tent which I don't care as long as things function well so it's kind of saggy looking you know kind of reminds me of a dirty diaper a little bit and I thought with it sagging down like that I wonder if rain would collect in the top or if it would roll off well also as can about the lack of ventilation I figured yeah there's gonna be some condensation again that's normal for single wall tents but how much condensation am I gonna deal with him I gotta wake up completely flooded out and finally at the door I mentioned earlier the waterproof door is not anchored to the tent so I just wondered is the wind and rain gonna get in because that things kind of flopping around on the screen door for several hours it missed it on the tent and everything got good and wet the ground got real soggy and I went in at night and went to sleep it was a pretty windy night and so I thought that might help test the issue I was concerned about with the door and it was real misty real wet it rained and so it was a good test with the condensation so anyway I woke up this morning and there was condensation like I expected and had there been that mesh around the door like the z-pak duplex then the rain would have just run off the wall right through the screen mesh and onto the ground but instead it was kind of dripping down a little bit and onto the floor now I didn't experience anything like it raining from the heavens from the roof of the tent so it wasn't like I was completely soaked my sleeping bag which was on my sleeping pad was dry I think as long as you don't lay up against the wall of the tent where all that condensation is running down onto your sleeping bag you'll probably be good on the outside of the tent whereas concerns that water might collect and just kind of weigh down the tent it didn't do that at all it actually ran off very well it didn't get droopy it held up well in the wind so while the condensation was more apparent with the river country products tent than what I've experienced with my duplex I have heard of people with the duplex or the sole Plex pulling up a bit because again it's common with single Waltons with instructions that come with the river country tent there is an area there that says yes there can be some condensation during rain or in you know more damp climates so one of the things that they suggest that my help is getting some waterproof spray from Walmart or you know any gear shop and spraying the outside of the tent and the inside of the tent because they say it just kind of changes up how the water collects on wall of the tent but they do assure you that the tent is waterproof so you're not necessarily spraying outside because you know water is gonna get in and it's not waterproof I guess it's more or less like a preventive thing but apparently that can help some with condensation also there is another version of this tent it's the trekker 2.2 and they implemented some more vents on the side walls of the tent that kind of stake out so that would certainly help having that mesh there for condensation to run down but also to add more airflow into the tent to help prevent condensation in the first place the tent is 4 ounces heavier because they implemented those mesh events so you know you can decide if it's worth it to you to add a little bit more weight but that's gonna put your tent weight alone at 2 pounds 13 ounces it was windy and rainy while I was sleeping in the tent but I didn't get the monsoon that I really wanted to be able to test that double door because I didn't get those monsoon conditions I decided to simulate them myself with a hose PAP and I sprayed the door really well soaked it real good with some high-pressure water and on the inside no water got in there so I really don't think even in high winds and pretty heavy rain that that door flapped the way it kind of hangs open is going to cause any issues or pooling of water in the tent I also hit the top with some pretty good water to see how well it rolls off because you know while I was in the tent sleeping in the rain I couldn't really see that and it does be very well and did not collect on top where I was concerned about it's hanging overall I think the River Country products tent is a pretty good startup tent for somebody and you know if you want to save $550 and you don't mind not having the convenience of two doors and two vestibules you don't mind carrying 20 ounces extra of weight and if you're willing to work with the condensation / ventilation issues which I really don't think are that bad for it being a single wall tent then this is probably a good tent for you now I can't vouch for how well this would hold up on a 5 to 6 month through hack but even if you had to replace it every month for five to six months Trek you're still saving money versus buying the $600 tent but if any of y'all have used this tent or you have experienced with one similar to it so like sub three pounds and in the same price range please feel free to share that in the comments I know not everyone wants to go drop $600 on an ultra light tint especially if they're just getting into the world of backpacking and while we're on the topic of tints I just want to let y'all know that I will be doing a giveaway very soon so on this channel as a way of saying thank you to the subscribers and the folks in this community we do giveaways every 20,000 subscribers so this time it's gonna be a 10th and I'll probably give away this tip that I used in the video the river country products tent and also the choice of the two tents that I've used on my through hikes and one of those is a Z packs duplex so I won't be giving away the Krusty one that made it through 3000 miles of the CDT but a brand new one so if you don't want to miss out on that and you want to be a part of it make sure you're subscribed that is the only requirement to make sure you hit the little bell thank y'all so much for watching today and we will see y'all next time you

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 754,202

Rating: 4.8454137 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, Appalachian, Trail, PCT, CDT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic

Id: O_MZppWQouY

Length: 14min 27sec (867 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 20 2019