Best Kathmandu Tents
Kathmandu Retreat 360
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Great and amazing – Excellent tent for big family and camping on the weekend. We like it and proven made with quality materials.
Kathmandu Mono v2
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A great swag with only a couple of downsides – I've used this swag on several occasions in cold weather only (between 0-8 Celsius), both wet and dry nights. I suspect it would be brilliant in… Read more
summer as it is exceptionally light and mostly a fine mesh. The light construction also means you should be careful where you peg it out, can imagine a puncture happening in the floor fairly easily.
Waterproofing: The fly keeps most of the water off, however it does tend to pool below the pole at the foot of the swag as this sits lower down. It's hard to stretch the fly in such a way that you can stop it, but the pooling is minimal and can be dislodged by lifting your foot against it every so often. The bucket/tub floor works great though, no had it on soft muddy ground with rain all night and nothing got in.
Ventilation: With the fly on, you'll need the little mesh awnings in it open at all times, prone to condensation otherwise. Can be a bit stifling if you don't have a bit of breeze, you can't open the door of the fly at all without rain getting in. Without the fly, it's basically just a mosquito net with a tarp floor, amazing ventilation for warm weather.
Size & Setup: It's very compact, packs down smaller than a sleeping bag, and only has 1 pole for each end which both slot into sleeves. Can get it up in under 3 minutes once you know the process. Fly sheet is an easy install, 3 velcro tabs secure it to each pole, then just peg it out around the sides next to the swag pegs.
Storage: Interior is just a couple of small organising pockets for wallet/phone/sunscreen/etc, nothing fancy. The vestibule created by the fly fits a 65L hiking pack and boots, not much more.
Kathmandu Northstar so-so – two people? not really. ok in a pinch but as a snow tent the problems are 1:no room for gear in tent 2:vestbule too small for cooking 3:so many… Read more
pegs needed your mate will be dead from hypothermia by the time its up
as a 1 man tent it is not bad, $300 new.
buy a exped orion if you do serious altitude or weather. cheap, strong small, too many pegs
Disappointing. Difficult setup and pack down – NB: Would regard myself as an advanced-level camper/hiker/outdoors person. Have always had good experiences with Kathmandu products in the past. Saw… Read more
one of these at the beach and thought it looked good and was a good idea. Bought as an online clearance special a couple of days before heading away on a trip. Website said was available in store but then wasn't when actually went to check out, so had to wait a couple of weeks for it to come in.
No instructions included in the package. Zero instructions available online after much searching.
Found quite tricky to set up. Took about 10 minutes of mucking around on the front lawn to work it out. Several pole sockets and so on were disconnected (recommend maybe some tape as a shim to stop them from sliding off). Poles appeared to be all tangled up. The item appeared to have maybe been packed away from old floorstock and done incorrectly.
Removable side wall is a good idea once you work out there are toggle loops on the inside of the structure.
Very light once set up and does not screw into the ground like a "cabana"-style umbrella, would need sandbags filling immediately, or even before popping the frame. Supplied pegs (8-off) are less than useless and will require carrying a separate bag of sand pegs, or sand bags, if wanting to use the guy ropes at all, which would be necessary in any level of even moderate wind.
Noted that the centre pole extension falls out easily if you're not careful. And can fall inside the main pole if you let it slide too quickly so that the knob on the end falls off (recommend gluing or taping the knob in place as would be very easy to lose in sand).
Packing down really tricky. Easy to collapse structure but very hard to get to fit into the bag due to poly floor not rolling easily (recommend looking at replacing with webbing or mesh). Eventually got it on about the third attempt, by spiralling the floor and pulling the bag up an inch or so at a time in quarter turns while sitting on a chair. Would be virtually impossible in any sort of wind, or on sand. Especially in full sun on a hot day at the beach. Some velcro straps like for rolling an umbrella might help. or some lengths of shock cord, maybe ocky straps. The supplied ribbons in the packaging will be lost in minutes and tricky to use.
Having detailed instructions and/or a video to show how it should be done might have helped, but might not either. Generally a good looking but poorly engineered and executed design. Disappointing overall, especially for a premium brand like Kathmandu. Definitely not a 'premium' product or anywhere near worth the $280 sticker price, or even the $95 paid for it. Will probably not get much use. Much more awkward and difficult than our $47 cabana/umbrella from k-mart. Would be surprised to see this continue to be stocked in future.