One Person Tent

In a one-person tent the number that decides your night is not the floor area, it is the height. A 50cm shelter is one you lie down in and get out of to do anything; a 90cm one lets you sit up and change; 115cm and above starts to feel like a room. Every listing here gives all three dimensions in that order, because the complaint this category earns most often is that a tent felt like a coffin.

These are new, unbranded tents. Not ex-issue and not graded surplus, and we describe them from the maker's specification rather than from pitching them.

What is actually on this shelf

Heights run from 50cm to 115cm and widths from 70cm to 140cm, so these are not interchangeable products. One is a bivvy you lie in. Two are 70cm wide, which is one person and a pack and nothing else. One takes your own trekking poles and does not stand without them. One arrived with no specification at all, and its listing says so rather than inventing figures.

Hydrostatic head, and whose figure it is

Where a maker publishes a rating we print it and say it is theirs. Watch the gap between the two numbers: several of these tents rate the floor at two or three times the flysheet, and it is the flysheet figure that decides whether rain reaches you. A 1000mm fly over a 3000mm floor is a fair-weather tent with a good groundsheet. We do not test tents, so we will not tell you one held out a night at minus three degrees.

Ultralight has a cost, and it is space

The lightest shelter here is 700g and the heaviest 2.8kg. That difference buys headroom, a second layer, aluminium poles instead of fibreglass, or a vestibule for wet boots. Neither end is wrong. Decide which you are short of, weight or room, before you look at anything else.

Delivery and returns

UK delivery is free. Orders are processed within 3 to 5 business days and arrive within 10 to 20 business days. Returns or exchange within 30 days of delivery, unused and in original condition, approved before being sent back, with the refund issued within 7 days of acceptance. Return postage is paid by the customer.