Vango Odyssey Inflatable Family Tunnel Tent, Epsom Green, Airbeam SC [Amazon Exclusive]

Product Information

For real additional comfort to the Ultim you need to be looking at a 15cm SIM such as the Outdoor Revolution Skyfall or similar. In summary, this Vango Airbeam Odyssey Air 500 Villa Tent is beautifully designed, tall, and pleasant with its numerous large solid windows.

This metric is always the equalizer, as many tents make sacrifices in their pursuit of comfort, durability or weather resistance. You might want to know that they have the version of this tent with classic (fiberglass) poles and with all the same remaining features. Both camping mats and camping SIMs can also be used on top of a camp bed or ‘cot’ (as the Americans say) for more of a bed-like experience.

Inflated size for the Ultim is 200 x 136 x 8cm which is enough for most people under 6ft 6 inches in height.

The Lismore 600XL is a 6-man poled tent with an integrated awning that provides additional living space. The Decathlon Quechua Luxury SIM is an 8cm thick self inflating mattress which has an excellent R-rating of 8. We also handed the tent over to some newer campers, who had no trouble getting the tent up and running. It is hard to stress how important the R-rating is for an enjoyable night of camping, even in fairly mild UK weather.The inner tent has its own extra floor, so you have two floors in this area, both are sewn-in and sealed. So a high R-Value means that the heat that your body generates and escapes through your sleeping bag onto one side of the mat will not get through to the ground.

For cotton tent canvases or mixed material tent canvases it's best to use patches that can be ironed on. If only we could find a pair of interlocking single SIMs which can function together as an effective double. Packed size is very small indeed (38 x 15 cm) because the deflated armrests can be folded in and the whole SIM rolled up tightly.This Vango Airbeam tent really excelled in our first three tests, proving that airbeam tents can not only beat our traditional pole tents for Ease Of Set-Up (something they always excel at), but also Weather Resistance and Comfort too. Only slight negatives are the difficulty of packing it away - we couldn't get it back in the bag, but the comfort on offer more than outweighs this concern.

Fully-inflated dimensions are 201 x 132 x 10cm and so it can cater for somebody up to 6ft 7 in height. We definitely recommend it if packing space is not an issue for you or if you tend to feel the ground in your hips. I lay down on it for a few minutes to ‘test it out’ and found myself dropping off surprisingly rapidly – that wasn’t the plan, but it’s testament to the cushioning on offer.The Vango Airbeam 500 is an inflatable tent that has its Flysheet and inner pitch together making it simple for pitching and packing. They also claim that the fabric satisfies ISO5912 standards regarding requirements on safety, performance, and rain resistance. The Vango Groundsheet Protector is designed to protect the tent groundsheet from stones, thorns or other items which may cause damage.