With the addition of a new camper, we had to buy a new tent. This time, though, we looked at the experience of our “four man” tent and realized that tent sizes (i.e., the number of people that can sleep in it) assume that the campers are crammed in head to toe with nothing else in the tent. The thought of the four of us in our four man tent was horrifying, so we bought a six man tent.

We’re not into roughing it with a two-year-old, and we knew we would need quite a bit of room for storage, including toys for two. We shopped around, bought a tent, put it up, decided we hated it (and saw a small small hole in the canopy), took it back, shopped some more, and finally bought a tent online.

The result: utter comfort. Enough room for everything, a protected storage area, and plenty of space for toys.

Having room when we slept made every other part of the trip more enjoyable because it really became a home away from home, with similar daily routines. Of course there’s the eating and the sleeping, but with the creek just a few feet away, daily laundry trips make the rituals complete. Oh, of course we didn’t wash anything in the creek for real. The excellent campground facilities made that really unnecessary. But for a quick rinse, say from accidents…