Vaude Base Dome

I bought the Vaude Base Dome tent 8 years ago, so it is the original Mk1. It was a lot of money even then at £450, but from all the tents I looked at this was a comfortable family size tent that looked like it would last a few years without too many problems. Even the tent pegs are designed to take a good hammering lol.

It is quite light with its aircraft aluminium poles, which come with a repair tube in case you happen to break one. Easy to erect in normally less than ten minutes, even in the dark! Comfortably sleeps four adults in the rooms, plus two in the vestibule area if you put down a ground sheet in there. Also, the standing room in the vestibule is very good, and it is OK in the rooms when getting changed.

This tent has had a battering over the years and it still looks like new. It gets used at least 10 times each year, making about 80 times in total, and it is still good for another 80 at least. I have only needed to give it a good clean once when it got really covered in mud, so into the washing machine it went, in three parts. It came out like a new one, and it still has a fresh smell about it with no musty odours like some tents tend to get.

It did go out of shape once, but that was because I didn't get the tension right, but it was easily sorted. The most damage I could cause to it was to bend one tent peg which got wedged in some very stoney ground and I had to dig it out with a claw hammer, plus, I snapped an elastic loop trying to shift the said tent peg!

The first time I used this tent it chucked it down. The whole camping party squeezed into my tent, 6 kids and 5 adults telling jokes and Ghost stories.

Although £450 sounds a lot for a tent, I've more than had my monies worth already, with years of use left in it. A mate of mine has spent over a grand on different tents in the same time I've had this one, yet after a year or so they are broken or too smelly to use.

The Vaude Base Dome is a top tent that I would recommend to anyone.