Well last year after deciding to buy a tent, I had to have the biggest and most luxurious I could find, and invested in a Montanna 6, we had problems so we have been sent a new 2007 model, which we have used once.
Its a fab tent but totally impracticle as it fills our boot, and is soooo heavy, the idea was for me to pack the car on a sunny Friday evening and then be on our way when DH came home from work, however I can't even get the tent down the two flights of stairs to the car!
Sooo I have brought a quechua 4.2 which I can put up and take down on my own, and is in a tiny bag, the only downside is that there is no SIG eeeek!!
I will be trying it out on Monday for the week without DH - I could very well be home by Tuesday lol.
Soooo do I keep my Montanna on the off chance that we will maybe go for a week sometime, but we will need to purchase a towbar and trailer first, or should I sell it?
Sorry for rambling on, I do get rather carried away
We did exactly same as you. Only the 2 of us but we wanted loads of space too. So we purchased a campus seattle 6 person with sig. It didnt look as big in the indoor display area at our local tent / caravan supplier.
Once we got it home and put it up in garden we then realised how large it was.
So we never used it and brought a 4 person montana instead. The new unused tent has taken up room in our house for about 16 months.
We kept saying maybe we would use it on longer trips but we have now decided to ley it go to a good home.
We have advertised ours on here and locally so someone will get a bargain!
We will put money towards more camping stuff,lol as we are now hooked!
------------- For sale Never Used Large 6 berth tent.
Well we thought we would buy a smaller tent for weekends as we have the hartford XL which we love but it does take a while to put up and is a bit of a squeeze with all the rest of the stuff to get in the car. So decided on the vango oregon 600 which came in a nice suitcase size bag, perfect, but it leaked badly when we were away in the Lake District so its been replaced but we have chosen another. The problem is its massive so we have ended up with two big tents but love them both cause I do like space and i see from your profile you have a wee baby, so if I were you I would keep it because you are going to need all the space as he/she gets bigger. The monty is a lovely tent, and its an excuse for a bigger car LOL
If I were you I would sell it. I don't think you will ever be completely happy with it. If the Queucha plan doesn't work you won't want to go back to the Montana 6. So at least you'll have some money to put towards a different tent.
We've just got a Khyam Indiana 8TC - huge and heavy, I've had the same prob as you so have decided to split ours down into 3 separate bags - poles, inners & footprint, fly & pegs. That way I can lift all the individual bits and it should be easier to pack the car as the shape is more flexible. Now I've just got to make the bags!!!!
That is a good idea. Would you make the separate bags from waterproof material (like old kagools maybe). If there is no reason for the bags to be waterproof you could use towels, then they could have an extra function once the tent is unpacked. I can bearly lift my 6 berth, so making it more protable would be useful. Let us know how it works out - you could have yourself a new business there.
We have the same problem. We bought a Sunncamp Olympic a couple of years ago. We have used it for a weekend away and also two weeks in France last year. It is too big for just three of us as my older kids don't want to camp any more. We bought a lovely caravan this year and so have this tent just sitting in the garage. They don't seem to fetch anything on Ebay so a bit reluctant to just give away because of the price. However, don't want it blocking up my garage either!!!! Far too heavy for me to lift but a great tent for a larger family. Brilliant in France last year and no leaks despite the horrendous storms it had to suffer.
Keep it stored in its "proper" bag for safety but put it in 3 big bin bags for transporting or builders rubble sacks,take spares for coming home & it will keep any wet stuff separate. We also have 2 bags for the different pegs & a box for the deltas. Fill the boot first then spread the tent components in last as these will be needed first & you dont want all your gear lying in a field while you put up a tent in one of our English seasonal showers we seem to be having.
Great idea to decant larger heavier tent components into smaller bags, but just be careful that you don't do what I did a couple of weekends ago & arrive at your campsite minus the bag containing the tentpoles!. I got out of the car - delighted that it wasn't raining, lifted the huge bag out of the boot (impressed that the sessions at the gym had obviously improved my strength because it didn't feel quite so heavy) & suddenly my heart sank into my stomach.....when I realised that the tentpole bag was still in the garage. Even worse I rembered moving it out of the way - thinking it was the gazebo, to reach the tent bag! Luckily a frantic phone call to my sister, who was joining us later found that she hadn't left home yet & could do a detour to pick up the poles - or I would have had to do a 140mile round trip on friday evening traffic on the M40 to go & get them!. However, having got all of the other paraphenalia out of the car & set up, my Mum & I decided to relax with a drink, which seemed rather a good idea at the time, but by the time the tent poles arrived 2 hours later - we'd made our way through 2 bottles of cava - which made putting up a 6 berth tunnel tent rather a challenge!
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: To sell or to keep?
