*A bit of background*
Still undoubtedly a mere novice, my camping career only started earlier this summer. My OH and I have always enjoyed weekends and holidays away, both in the UK and overseas. However, with money getting ever-tighter, it seemed absolutely frivolous to be spending £££ on weekends to expensive hotels. At the same time, I didn't want to give up my little breaks. I mean, it's not all about work, work, work... Am I right?

Enter our solution... camping.

Once the idea popped into our minds, it was hard to shrug off. We very quickly warmed to the idea and decided to buy the kit we needed to go for a weekend away.

*What's out there?*
As a product researching nut, I did tons of research online to see what tent I should invest in. There is a very popular site called www.ukcampsite.co.uk. It's probably the best site out there for campers/caravanners, etc. After trawling through this site and also looking at different tents both off and online, we settled on the Vango Venture 500.

We bought the Vango Venture 500 online from Go Outdoors for about £70-£80. It was on a special offer at the time (it's still on offer at time of writing this review, although it has gone up in price). I think the RRP is £120. So, I think we got a very good deal indeed.

There are plenty of recommendations out there for this tent. The reviews are all generally very positive, saying that it was a very high quality tent for the price - easy to pitch, roomy with enough headroom to stand up in. Vango is a reputable brand.

When the tent arrived, we had a go at doing a testing pitch. The tent is a dome design with a large porch and bedroom that can fit a double bed. The bedroom can also be divided into two spaces using an optional divider sheet.

*Key features*
To summarise the features, with this tent you get:

Vango Lifetime Guarantee
Fire Retardant
Waterproofed on inside- Protex 2000 (2000mm HH) polyester fly
Seam taped fly
Flysheet first pitching - also reinforced on the main pressure points where tent pegs hold tent down
Mesh ventilation on inner tent
Bathtub inner groundsheet
External continuous pole sleeves
Colour coded poles
Pre-angled poles
Front and side entry
Flysheet vents. 'Crystal Clear' windows

*What's the tent like up?*
Once the tent was up, I was very surprised on both the good quality - and the size. This is supposed to be a 5 berth tent, but there's only two of us, so we have plenty of room, which is great. I don't think I'd actually like to share this tent with 4 other campers, but I'm not really the 'rough and ready' type of camper. I like my space!

*The tent in use*
We have a double blow up bed and 'bedroom' space in the large roomy bedroom. I like to put down bright picnic rugs for carpeting and set up a lovely chill out space. Comfy duvets, plenty of cushions, and so on.... You can actually get very cosy!
We use the porch as the main living space for during the day, if we're not out and about, that is. The 'crystal clear' windows are very useful to peer out of - as are the array of zips/flaps, that allow you to open up the tent and roll up the 'doors', and so on. The design of the tent flaps/windows means that it is flexible for you to use in different light/weather.

I'm not sure how many seasons this tent is supposed to be used in, but I think it'd probably be best to use this tent in late spring, summer and early autumn at most. The main reason is that, due to the height of it (190cm at highest point), it can flap about a fair bit in the wind - as our experience has shown.

So far, we've used it on 3 camping trips and it's served us well so far. We've had a couple of minor rips, mainly due to freak gusts of wind on our first camping trip. Nothing, though, that makes the tent unusable.

*My rating and why*
I give this tent 5/5. All in all, for the price, I'm extremely satisfied with the tent and would not hesitate to recommend for a first time or even a more experienced camper looking for a really good quality tent for under £100.