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A valley in Wales, somewhere along one of the great seashores of Britain or elsewhere, wherever you go camping with your family, the family tent you will buy should feel homely. With the possibility of hot sunlight, rainfall, wind or insects, it's your protection from these elements.

Some of the best family tents have features and designs that are mutual between them. Wether you are putting up on a summer campsite or at the seashore, this guide should aid you choose which family tent suits your family's needs..

The requirements for a large family tent is that it requires to be used for various uses and more often than not they are designed for sheltered camping sites, but you can go anywhere like the coast as long the weather is not too bad. Great family tents should have more then one sleeping rooms for all the family and sewn-in (or zipped) integral groundsheets to improve comfort and feel more home from home.To make sure that you have that homely feel in the tent you choose, it should have a sawn in or zipped integral groundsheet to improve the comfort levels and have several sleeping units. Remember that these will be heavier and biggerlargergreater so make surecertain that your car can fit your tent of choice.

Living Space

One of the important issues of any family tent is the living space. It needs to provide sufficient space for your family's dressing, cooking stuff and any other bits 'n' bobs in it at the same time, be it accommodate a truck load of toys or just enough food to last the weekend.The accommodation layout of the family tent is very important. It may be that you take a lot of the childrens' play toys, the things you need for cooking, family clothes and other things you need to get by for the time you are away.

The one thing I personally would recommend to look outwatch out for is the internal built-in storage space. The more storage space for your things, the more room space you'll have to move about in your tent. Many tents have mesh pockets and gear lofts to balance those lightweight extras.Gear lofts for all the extra things that come in handy and the mesh air pockets come as standard with the better family tents.

Obviously your comfort and enjoyment are very important, but is the tent of choiceyou are looking to buy big enough for you to sleep comfortably, the legs not curled up with the legs fully streched out? Do you have a need for standing upright in the tent or sit in the tent? At those bad weather days you want to fit chairs and a table inside for the family to sit around?When the weather turns nasty would you like to be able to put up a table and some chairs for family entertainment? You may even want to be able to stand up tall in your tent of choice?

Those are essential issues to to remember when you are looking to buy a family tent that fits the family's requirements.So when you are in the process of buying the best family tent for your family's needs then these are some of the factors to think about.

There are four essential types of pole configuration, most flexi pole tents will fall in one of these categories corresponding to the number of nodes it has. Depending on the tent you buy it will have a number of nodes or none at all. There are 4 primary categories of pole configurations, which determines the amount of nodes the family tent has. A node is the point where the tents poles cross.

* Tunnel (0 nodes)
* Dome (1 node)

Tunnel Tents

Tunnel tents are in generalgenerallyin the main the quickest to pitch and they are the most spacious type of tent for their weight. Tunnel tents also allow for more head room than nearly any other tents, with their maximum internal height running right down the center of the tent. For a maximum height that covers the whole of the lenght of tent then the tunnel family tents are the advisable choice.

Tunnel tents however are less stable and must be fully guyedput up out regardlessirrespectiveno matter of conditions. This makes them less suitable for very hard or very soft ground. It is advisable to set up tunnel tents either tail or nose into the wind. To increase stability some of these tents have internal bracing straps or extra poles running along the sides of the tent. Determine where the wind comes from and then set up the tunnel tent with either the rear end or front into the wind. Various good large family tunnel tents have more poles on the side of the tent or thightening straps inside the tent to improve the stability levels.

Dome Tents

Dome tents are a good compromise between stability, pitching time and weight. Although not as light for their size or as quick to pitch as a tunnels they are more stable.They generally have better stability then tunnel tents but it takes longer to pitch and are heavier for their size.

Dome tents however tend to have less overall height, their tallest point being located only at one point in the middle.The greatest height is only available in the center of the tent, which doesn't give them as much room to walk around. The lack of head room is usually worked around by adding additional poles to create porches or bedrooms. These add-ons are effectively single pole tunnels and have the same advantages and draw backs.Extra units and porch type spaces are produced by the using more poles which compensates a little for the general lack of height throughout the tent. They appear the same in appearance as the main tent, are made with one single pole and have similar negatives and positives.

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