Dometic Inflatable Tent Review: What You Need To Know Before Buying
I tried an inflatable camping tent, and I’ll never go back to the way I used to camp.
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If you’re new to camping, the idea of setting up a pile of fabric and poles in the middle of nowhere might be enough to put you off the whole idea.
And even if you are a regular camper, putting up a tent with the family in tow is a mission that often ends badly no matter how happy everyone is to be on holiday.
Review: Dometic Santorini 2x4 Inflatable Tent
This tent uses inflatable air frames rather than tent poles and to be honest, I was sceptical at first. How is a tent held up by air going to protect me when a storm rolls around?
And what happens if it gets a puncture? All I could picture was the same overnight deflation I often experience with an air mattress. Claustrophobia activated.
But after using this tent on a rainy camping trip in the hinterland of Byron Bay, in northern NSW, I’ve gone from Team Tent Pole to Team Air Frame.
Setting up the tent was almost too easy. I am not an instructions manual kind of gal – preferring to forge ahead and then sheepishly report back to the booklet when I find myself at a dead end. But there were no dead ends here.
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I pegged the tent into the ground around the edges, then used an electric air pump to inflate the frames at three points, all found easily on one side of the tent. The entire set up took less than ten minutes, leaving plenty of time to huddle under the wide tent awning with a drink in hand, as the sky opened up with rain.
The tent has a back ventilation panel that lets light and air in, without any rain or moisture getting inside. The poly-cotton weathershield and bug-proof mesh panels meant the tent was nice and cool, and regulated the temperature as well as reducing condensation. An easy-to-use internal and external zipper on the screen made getting in and out easy, and kept my little nature home secure from any critters crawling in. (Excluding the unwanted insects that rode in on my shoes or clothing, of course.)
After a night of rain, I checked the inside walls and corners of the tent for leakages and moisture, but found nothing. This was a huge tick, as no camper likes to be woken in the middle of a stormy night with freezing water dripping into their little home.
My inflatable tent held up steady for three days, despite my very unsteady expectations. I was proven wrong and glad about it, because it would have been a very unpleasant holiday otherwise. (However, there is a repair kit included in the tent should an air frame get a puncture.)
Packing the Santorini tent down was easy, with the whole thing in the bag in less than seven minutes. First, we took the tent pegs out, then one by one, unscrewed the caps on the inflatable beams. They popped down with a ‘poof’ in less than a second, and the tent was folded up in no time, thanks to the folding lines. Who knew the camping pack-up day didn’t have to be so exhausting it made you forget you holidayed at all.
This writer was a guest on Dometic Outdoor’s Into the Wild camping experience in Byron Bay.
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