How to choose the best tent for camping or trekking?

If you plan to go hiking for several days and carry your tent in your backpack, the best best choice will be a bivouac or trekking tent. They are light and compact.
You can easily slip them into your backpack or hang them on the straps.
Perfect for a few days’ bivouacking, practical to pitch and dismantle, they are generally around two kilos lighter for a two person tent.
Several models are available: light, ultra-light, for use in warm temperatures or stormy weather...
Depending on the number of trekkers, you can find models from one to four people.
These tents (usually) only offer sleeping space and a very small space to store belongings.

As usual, the best camping tent is the one that best meets your needs and is long-lasting.
Of course, the best tents are also those designed with quality materials laboratory-tested against bad weather, such as the tents from our Quechua brand.
What's more, at Decathlon, our designers, engineers and product managers are also campers and fans of the great outdoors in general.

Different camping tent models are available to you: your choice will then be made according to the number of people and the type of structure. But you can also pay attention to the configuration of the rooms (with or without an entrance hatch for shoes, rooms separated by a central living room that will act as living space when it rains, etc.), especially if you are looking for a family tent.

Do you want to camp without compromising on your usual home comfort? 
With some tents you will have more space than in some of the micro-apartments in our beloved big cities and their housing markets.
If you really want to have space, look for tents with 3 or more bedrooms. A
s well as having separate bedrooms, these comfortable family tents will look great (yes, I was an estate agent in another life) with inflatable furniture that is easy to transport and set up. 
Find out more about comfort camping in our dedicated article.

You already know this one! The 2 Seconds pitches in the blink of an eye.
Its folding system is also quick to save you time, even when dismantling your camp (because over the decades and from user feedback, we had the good idea to simplify the folding so that you don't have to spend hours trying "to make eights" with the poles under the gaze of your loved ones...).

Advantage: very quick set-up with its pop-up structure.
Disadvantage: its lack of compactness due to its cylindrical format for older generations.
The new 2 Second Easy tents are much more compact, still very easy to set up and even easier to take down.

Check out our tips for pitching and folding away your 2Seconds EASY tent.

For camping enthusiasts, the pole structure is really part of the imagination around outings in the middle of nature!

The tent is pitched by inserting poles into the flysheet. 
Colour coding makes it easier to do this and it’s no longer possible to make a mistake.
This solution takes a little more time than an inflatable tent, but pitching the poles provides the opportunity to share a first convivial moment on your camp site (you may have mixed memories if pitching this kind of tent was done under family tension in rainy weather. It's never too late to give pole tents a second chance...😉).
This type of tent is ideal for a trek.

Advantages: this type of model has a better compactness and lightness ratio. It's also affordable.
Disadvantage : the tent pole can take a little longer to set up than an inflatable tent.
It’s therefore a model that will test your skills and your patience a little more.

With inflatable beams instead of poles, a few pumps, and voila! The inflation and deflation of these tents is extremely fast.

These tents can only be inflated with a double-action hand pump, as an electric pump is too strong and can damage the bladders.
A little hint to help you with the name of Quechua inflatable tents: Arpenaz tents are pole tents while AirSeconds tents are inflatable tents.

Advantages: in addition to being easy to assemble, they offer larger living space. And their dismantling is almost instantaneous..

Disadvantage: they take up more space than other tent models.

Find even more tips for pitching and folding away your tent.

The waterproofness of your tent as well as its resistance to the wind are essential for a great night's sleep!

At Quechua, all of our tents are designed to resist against bad weather conditions.

Because good tent design is about more than just good looks and practical pitching, our tents undergo a set of wind tunnel tests to ensure that they can withstand winds of 40km/hr to 90km/hr.
They also go "under a shower" to make sure that no drops of water are left in the tent after 3 hours under 200 litres/hour/sqm of water to ensure that they are waterproof.

Please note: the primary source of moisture inside your tent is condensation. In order to avoid getting wet when you wake up, we recommend that you always choose a tent with a double flysheet and that you ventilate it well.

You can also find all our tips on how to properly look after your tent.

If you regularly go camping or bivouacking, it’s worth investing in a tent that will last for many years and that you can even lend to your family or kids when they go camping for the first time without you. 
It’s also always useful to have a small 2 Seconds tent at home, for an impromptu camping trip or a last minute festival.

If, on the other hand, you want to try out a new way of camping, or a new model of tent because you feel that your current tent is reaching the end of its life, renting is a good solution! 
At Decathlon, we offer rental of camping equipment including tents (currently only available in France and Belgium). 
And if you're really starting from scratch, we've even put together a trekking pack with everything you need to put your adventurous spirit to the test.