No camp is complete without some kind of shelter. You'll find a wide variety of tents available at almost any outdoor retailer and even more for sale online, but that doesn't mean that just any tent will do the job. According to REI, you can expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $500 as of May 2010 for a two-person tent and more for a larger tent. Buying carefully means you'll only have to make this major investment once.
Price, Space and Weight
Sit down and put price, space and weight in your order of preference. If getting a good price on a tent is most important to you, put it at the top of your list and be prepared to either wait a long time for a bargain or settle for something with less room, or perhaps heavier, than you'd otherwise prefer. If having ample space--which usually translates to comfort--is more important, be prepared to spend more. You can also sacrifice weight, carrying a heavier tent in order to get a good buy with a lot of interior space. Finally, if having a light tent is the most important thing to you, you can sacrifice either space or price--more likely a bit of both--to get the lightest tent possible. You might even want to ignore traditional tents in favor of a bivy sack or ultralight tarp in order to shave as much weight off your gear as possible.
Practice
Take the tent out of the tent bag and assemble it before leaving the store. If you have to read the manual to figure out how to put the tent together, that's a warning sign. You'll get better at putting it up with practice, but if the setup isn't intuitive at all the tent you're looking at might be a little too complicated for use in the field. Imagine what putting the tent up will be like in the conditions you're most likely to encounter. You may have to contend with rain, snow, wind or putting the tent up with gloves on. Even better, bring your gloves into the store with you and try putting the tent up with them on. You'll find out very quickly whether putting the tent up outside is a reasonable proposition or not.
Conditions
Make sure the tent you're choosing fits the conditions you're most likely to encounter. If you expect to camp in winter, a three-season tent won't do the job. You need an extended or three-plus season tent if you live in a particularly moderate climate, or a four-season, mountaineering or expedition tent. Not all tents are freestanding; some must be staked out to stay upright, and even some freestanding tents must be guyed out to nearby objects in order to perform well in adverse conditions. Take stock of these details as you're pricing tents and trying them out in the store.
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