New here and new to camping with my family! we recently bought a Vango Winslow ii 500 tent, myself and my wife used it last weekend and we really enjoyed everything about the tent.
We plan on going away again next month but we plan on taking our kids with us this time. Now my question is for people to have this tent or very similar bedroom space... what does your sleeping setup consist of? we used a double airbed for ourselves and we are thinking the kids may have to share one of these too as im pretty sure camp beds wont fit or individual airbeds
You left out some rather essential info! How many kids and how old? I'm guessing two, and youngish pre-teenage.
General 'rule' of camping, for practical purposes, reduce the claimed berths of a 'all in one tent' or bedrooms by 1 for adult or older teenager use. The claimed berth figure is generally only for sleeping space at floor level with no allowance for baggage or standing space, and you'd be like sardines. Smaller kids obviously fit better.
As for camp beds/cots, nearly every tent has sloping walls, that means that by the time you have got 40 or 50cm off the floor at bed height the available wall to wall dimensions are much reduced and the bed, and likely occupants as well, will be in contact with the walls, walls flap/move in most tents with the slightest breeze, so you get a disturbed sleep.
Air beds are great (IMHO, others disagree), but modern PVC ones tend to be horribly unreliable, and often leak at best a little so they need re-inflating before every use, or catastrophically so they collapse during the night! One thing friends kids have demonstrated is they do not cope well with littleuns bouncing/standing on them as kids tend to do, so be prepared to be a draconian parent and spoil 'fun'! Often the internal bracing fails and they 'expand' into more of a blimp than a bed and are impossible to lie on!
People extol the virtues of SIMS (self inflating mats) over airbeds, but seem to overlook that to all intense and purposes it's just a thin foam filled airbed, and they too do spring leaks too! TBF, they have less seams, no internal bracing to fail, and do seem more reliable than airbeds.
Something that may work for you/kids is a camping bunk bed, it exacerbates the fitting in the tent/bedroom size issue, but perhaps worth looking at the numbers to see if it's an option, it does free up valuable floor space.
BTW, I've got a 5 berth 2/3 split bedroom tent bit bigger than yours, and me and my Border Collie dog can fill it, that dog can sprawl and use more floor than me, and I'm far from small!
Thank you for the detailed answer, yes i have a 11yr and a 6yr old.
I have crossed paths on the camping bunk bed and must admit for us it does seem viable,
I have not looked into much detail on SIMS but this i will!
This is a 5 person 2 bedroom tent with a living area leading up to the main door.
If you have 2 kids you get the larger bed room, if you have 3 kids they get it.
As a couple you are happy with your double airbed and whatever bedding you used. You haven't said whether you used single/double sleeping bags or a double duvet.
I suggest you give each kid a sleeping mat (closed cell foam sleeping mat) or if they want improved technology and comfort a SIM (self inflating mat). They will also need a sleeping bag each. A one season sleeping bag is cheaper but only practical for summer use a more expensive 3 season bag will cope with anything except frost and snow.
Take your kids to the camping shop and let them choose their own sleeping bags so they have different personal colours. Don't buy tiny infant sleeping bags as sleeping bags will last until the kids reach adulthood.
If each kid has their own sleeping bag and mat then they will be set up for when they go camping with groups and friends away from the family, or simply sleep on the floor when visiting your friends.
I would also suggest that each kid has their own bag in which they keep their own clothes and stuff while camping. When you arrive at camp and have put up the tent you can simply drop off personal bedding and bags into the appropriate rooms. Add a working torch to each personal bag.
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Topic: Vango Winslow ii 500 newbies
