{"id":3260,"date":"2014-06-11T09:16:38","date_gmt":"2014-06-11T13:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/?p=3260"},"modified":"2014-06-11T13:42:04","modified_gmt":"2014-06-11T17:42:04","slug":"best-affordable-tent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/2014\/06\/11\/best-affordable-tent\/","title":{"rendered":"Marmot Titan\/Limelight Series: Best (Affordable) Tent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"marmot-limelight-3p\"<\/a>I do a lot of fly-out camping, both from a backpack and a car. \u00a0When you’re flying to Yellowstone with a tent, especially if you also plan to backpack it in, weight is a premium. \u00a0Unfortunately, a lot of the so-called “backpacker’s” tents are extremely expensive, and also often come with “special features” like inflatable ridges which are prone to failure and which have well-nigh irreplaceable parts.<\/p>\n

There’s a lot to be said for simplicity. \u00a0At the end of a long day on the road or trail or in the air, when you reach your campsite in the dark, sometimes you just want to be able to throw the tent up as quick as possible. \u00a0For example, I once camped on the north side of Grand Teton National Park; we didn’t set camp until 9:30PM and it was about 25 degrees outside and falling fast. \u00a0I needed to get in my bag and get some Zs, not worry about how to stick tent poles together. Thanks to my simple tent I was able to get in the dry and out of the wind in a hurry while my buddies were still getting organized.<\/p>\n

I use a Marmot Titan 3P tent for all my two and three man camping. \u00a0For comfort purposes, adding another person-rating (so a 3P for two men) makes sense. \u00a0Most tents are sized for “sardine style” foot-to-head sleeping configurations. \u00a0The 3P is about perfect for two adults and a child or a dog, but I wouldn’t want to sleep three in it very often. \u00a0My older two\u00a0man Kelty Zen is downright intimate; not always the best thing when you’re bedding down\"f_88636_1.1\" with a 6’4″ fishing buddy.<\/p>\n

The Marmot Titan 3P has an interchangeable layout and footprint with the newer Limelight 3P. \u00a0I prefer the Titan because it had an all-mesh top for maximum aeration and star-gazing. \u00a0Try to find one on closeout if you can. \u00a0Marmot, if you’re reading this, you need to go back to the all-mesh configuration for the Limelight series. \u00a0It was better. \u00a0If privacy is what you want, you can always set up the\u00a0opaque rain fly.<\/p>\n

Here’s an example of what you DON’T want:<\/p>\n

\"6029b96c-cc53-4ba4-8361-20798bba2694\"REI makes perfectly good tents (in fact I am pretty sure all tents in this class are ultimately made by the same Far East manufacturers), but look at that pole configuration! \u00a0What exactly does that design accomplish other than looking cool on a display floor? \u00a0Would you want to put that together in the dark with shaking, freezing hands? \u00a0What if you bent a pole?!<\/p>\n

Stick with simplicity. \u00a0It’s cheaper, more reliable, easier to use, and easier to replace. \u00a0One word of caution: if you buy a Titan 3P on closeout like I did (or any tent for that matter), make sure you get the footprint\/ground sheet. \u00a0You need it, and having a ground sheet that is perfectly sized to your tent is a big help. \u00a0With Marmot’s design the ground sheet clips right into the grommets which support the tent poles. \u00a0Those grommets are on little tabs which flare out from each corner and which have slots for tent stakes. \u00a0With only two poles\u00a0your tent will be freestanding, with no need to stake out to stand up (important in rocky soil). \u00a0Only two poles are needed to attach both the ground fly and the rain fly as well. \u00a0Add one more short pole\u00a0across the top of the tent to spread the rain fly and keep a little separation so you don’t get a shower in the morning from internal condensation. \u00a0Overall set up time (solo) is only about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n

One more tip. \u00a0When you put the tent away, don’t just stuff it in your bag. \u00a0Instead, fold the ground fly, rain fly, and tent body into nice long strips of fabric. \u00a0Stack those strips on top of each other, then put the pole bag on one end and roll the whole bundle up like a burrito. \u00a0It’s much more organized, easier on the tent fabric, and best of all it drops right into the tent bag with no need to stuff.<\/p>\n

Rating (Marmot Titan 3P\/Limelight 3P): <\/strong>\u00a05 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

Purchase:\u00a0<\/strong>From Marmot.com ($279) or on frequent closeout for ~$149.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do a lot of fly-out camping, both from a backpack and a car. \u00a0When you’re flying to Yellowstone with a tent, especially if you also plan to backpack it in, weight is a premium. \u00a0Unfortunately, a lot of the so-called “backpacker’s” tents are extremely expensive, and also often come …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gear-reviews","column","onecol","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/files\/2014\/06\/marmot-limelight-3p.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3260"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3273,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3260\/revisions\/3273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itinerantangler.com\/blog\/podcasts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}