1st time tent camping --- need equipment help, please!

[Alsabrook]

Up until now, my only "glamping" experience has been in a motorhome and it has left me woefully unprepared for tent camping. I love being outdoors and I'm sure I'll love tent camping, but I want to make sure we start off on the right foot.

We'll be camping out at a 3 day motorcycle rally at the end of October and there are very nice bathroom facilities and food vendors so we won't have to worry about those two things this time. We'd like to go ahead and buy our tent this week so we'll have a couple opportunities to set it up in the back yard before the real deal. It'll just be the two of us, but we have a very large air mattress and all of my photography equipment so I'd like to go with a fairly large tent -- maybe a 6 person? My husband is 6'2" so we were leaning towards one of the instant cabin tents so he can stand up straight inside.

Other than a tent, what are some other must haves that we need to get? I'd like to keep the basic budget under $500 if possible. We already have our air mattress so that won't be coming out of the budget.

Thanks in advance from a total newbie!

[MacGyver]

Re: 1st time tent camping --- need equipment help, please!

I imagine you'll get as many recommendations as you do responses to your post. A $500 budget is a good chunk of change and leaves you pretty much wide open as to what kind of tent you'll wind up with. I'll put in my 2¢ and say that just about any high end 6+ person dome tent would work for you. That'll give you the height and the room for your mattress and gear. I wouldn't, however, go with any "instant setup" kind of tent. The hinges or knuckles on instant frame tents aren't easily fixed in the field in the event of a failure.

I say to go with a dome tent because cabin tents typically have a lot of long poles and don't pack down all that small - something you'll need to deal with when on a bike.