VangoOdyssey Tent

First let me give you a bit of background, I'm from the US and have been camping for years and years. My typical setup is a backpack and a 2 man tent but with age and the inclusion of my sister and her family, my solo camp just doesn't work. With that said, my sister and I set off to find the perfect tent for us all to share when camping. This would work as our base camp and we could do hikes or overnights from where ever we'd set up the main tent. We started looking in all of the local sports stores and when I say local, I mean I'm driving an hour and half both ways to check out tent options. We considered Ozark Trail tents due to the layouts and room options but neither of us care for Wal-Mart and upon reading reviews, found they were prone to collapse in wind. Since we're planning various beach camping trips where wind is always an issue and the threat of hurricanes is real, Ozark Trail tents just couldn't be an option. First we found the Coleman Prairie Breeze, a nice enough tent but still not with the room needed to give a teenage young man and a preteen young lady their own personal space and still leave room for the rest of us to eat, drink, be merry and rest. So that one was returned and we got the Tenaya Lake Fast Pitch, again another Coleman tent of similar size but with "closet" space for all of the stuff that one carries when car camping. This was supposed to be a quick, easy tent to set up and take down but let me assure you, it wasn't. Of all the tents either of us have had, it was by far the worst and showed seam stress during the first pitching. Ok, so return another tent and start searching again. What we figured out is that they simply don't make or sell tents in the States that meet our demands so we started researching and found that it seems folks in the UK know how to properly camp! We struggled with the idea of buying overseas, first and foremost, we didn't know the brands or the reliability of the products, we knew we were going to get eaten alive by the shipping costs and if something was wrong, well... how the heck are we going to return it or get it repaired? With all these concerns, we were truly leery of making this purchase but at almost midnight after yet another long day of tent hunting, we finally decided to take the plunge and placed our order for the Vango Odyssey 800. To my surprise, the rush shipping costs were less than the normal dispatch fees and even coming from across the pond, our new tent showed up at my door days before other items that I'd ordered from just the other side of the US. The entire cost of the tent and shipping fees after the conversion to US Dollars was actually only $20.00 more than the tent we'd just returned. The tent was well packaged and in good shape when we opened it up. To our surprise, the set up was extremely easy! We had it standing on the first try in less than 20 minutes with just the two of us working on it. The guide lines took about the same amount of time to stretch into place and stake all around, but after that, the job was done. Even with as many fast pitch and one man tents as I've set up, I couldn't help but be impressed with the ease of which we were able to have a dry, stable living space in just moments. The quality of this tent far exceeds American made tents, something I truly hate admitting to but it's the truth. The tent is simply made better, with more thought put into it, heftier stakes, stronger poles and a denser fabric. Yes, it's heavy, nearly 50 lbs (sorry, US weights here) but it does, in fact, fit back into that huge bag that it came in. It's about the same weight as a feed sack so even though bulky, I can still manage to carry it alone. Truth be told though, we each grab a handle and lug it together to where ever we're planning to pitch camp. This is a car camping tent, don't think that you can break it up into pieces and pack a bit in each person's pack in order to hike it in some where... it would be a haul. That said though, this is a wonderfully stable tent, well ventilated, versatile and with room to spare. The hanging bedrooms are a completely novel idea to us since nothing that we found in the USA has anything even remotely similar but these things are awesome! The kids can go on to bed while the adults enjoy the common space in the middle well into the evening and with the double walls, cold night air simply doesn't come in and the bright, early morning sun doesn't glare at you through the flimsy tent material of our other tents. I actually slept late in this tent and I don't even do that in my own bedroom. Truly, I can't say enough about this tent or the company that makes it. Vango, you've earned some customers, Amazon.co.uk, you've impressed us. We are truly thankful for this experience and utterly delighted with our new tent.

This was a great price for such a large tent. Quality was excellent.Only downside is that as this is a tent purely for Amazon there are no additions available, I had checked this with Vango but thought all in all it was worth the cost.Really pleased and is definitely a step up from our last tent, so much more useable/flexible space.

Bought this for our first camping trip. I wanted a 2 bedroom one so my partner and myself could have some space from the kids! It was so easy to put up, nothing was missing and I did notice the instructions are on fabric and sewn onto the carry bag so they won't get blown away in the wind. There were two signatures on it so it's obviously been checked to make sure it's all there. It took two of us about 30 minutes to put up first time including all the pegs and guy ropes, next time will be much quicker now we know what we're doing.The stitching is strong and held up when kids were running in and out constantly. It rained heavy one night and it was very dry inside. The vents were nicely placed to let air run through and don't let water in if it rains.My only criticism was the packing. It was slightly breezy which kept blowing air into the tent while we were folding. When rolling it from one end to the other, obviously the air would be pushed through but there's no way of it escaping at the end, so I had to try and dig through to open a vent in the middle to get all the air out. Next time I'll try to find an easier way or maybe make sure an end vent is positioned better when I roll it. Apart from that, it went back in the bag without much struggle with plenty of room left in it for a bad roll.Nice tent, look forward to using it more often!

I bought this tent in the autumn sales last year and finally used it last week - a weeks camping in Scotland including some heavy wind and rain.Overall it is an excellent tent. Very spacious (for a family of 5 - for 8 people it would be quite snug), easy to put up and not too hard to take down (esp as the bag is suitably oversized). Great to have ground-sheet built in (much easier than our old tent!), pods easy to attach, and thoroughly rain-proof.Couldn't quite give it 5 stars as the quality isn't quite top-notch e.g. the material round the zip on one of the pods has already got a small tear. Also, slightly strangely, there is only a fly-sheet on one of the main doors which is a definite minus when camping n Scotland!

We had planned on buying a tent in the winter sales but when this one came up in the Prime Day sales (at circa £250) we decided to bite the bullet and bought it. We have just used it for the first time in Ireland and Wales so thought i would share our experience.We practiced putting it up in the garden before we went away. After watching a couple of videos online, it didn't take long to put it up even with the very excited kids (2 and 4) jumping in and out of it before we were finished!So off we went on holiday. The tent is very spacious for the four of us which made the experience even better. There are pockets inside the accommodation sections where books, car keys, torches etc can be stored. There are plenty of rings to hang things from like lights and clothing which were also useful.The best thing - it kept us dry. After a 24 hour deluge of rain whilst in Wales, there wasn't a sign of a leak or any water ingress. Even though it sounded it like it at times during the night, after a look around, not a sign of a puddle or anything. Mightily impressed!The only downside is that it doesn't have a cover over the entrance so little wet feet coming in and out can cause so water to come in but I understand that there are awnings that can be bought which could sort this.All in all, a very good purchase and would recommend it