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I SPENT A SLEEPLESS night many years ago squashed between two very large Americans in a one-person pup tent on a 5,000-metre Himalayan mountain slope. Another time, I passed the wee hours in an Ontario campground sloshing water out of my tent while my traumatized three-year-old daughter howled about her soggy sleeping bag and the thunderstorm that was crashing around us. And, on a Lake Superior canoe trip, I huddled miserably from midnight till dusk in a cranny of boulders and logs after a windstorm toppled my tent.

So I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that the secret to happy camping is all in the tent. Here is what to look for in what the industry calls “base camp” tents — that is, tents for four or more people suitable for car or canoe camping or other situations when low weight isn’t a major requirement.

MOST MODERN TENTS are free-standing, supported by frames of strong, flexible aluminum or fibreglass poles threaded through sleeves on the tent’s outer wall or attached to the tent fabric using plastic clips. The pole ends are stuck into grommets at each corner of the tent so that once the poles and clips are in place, the tent stays erect and uniformly taut. If it isn’t, then either the tent is poorly made or it hasn’t been pitched properly. On that note, a tent should be painless to set up — you don’t want any hassles when it’s windy or raining. Any self-respecting campingsupply shop should let you set up the tent before you buy it.

Get a tent made of nylon or polyester, which is light, strong, fast-drying and, when the seams are treated with sealer, waterproof. The floor should be thick and heavily waterproofed, since it gets the most wear. Look for a “boat” floor, in which the seam between the floor and the sides is well above ground level, double-sewn and waterproofed.

The canopy walls are usually made of taffeta or ripstop, a lighter-weight nylon internally reinforced by a grid of stronger threads. Often, the wall panels are a combination of ripstop and mosquito netting to improve ventilation and allow you to dispense with the tent fly and stargaze on clear nights.

The fly, a sort of second skin stretched over the main tent, is of key importance. Since a tent’s primary function is to protect you from adverse weather, the fly is the first line of defence against rain and wind, and in cooler temperatures, it helps keep heat inside the tent. When clipped and guyed in place, the fly should be taut all over — like the tent itself — with no slack spots on the underside touching the tent body. At least seven centimetres should separate the fly and the tent to maintain ventilation and allow condensation to slide down the underside of the fly to the ground instead of dripping through the mosquito netting and onto you and your sleeping bag.

Two doors are better than one because they can be opened on hot days to let breezes waft through the tent. Ensure that all zippers run smoothly and don’t catch on slack material, which can drive you crazy when you try to unzip the tent in the dark. Most doors have two layers: one of mosquito netting and one of ripstop for privacy.

Many tents have small nylon or polyester flys that project like beaks a short distance over the doors, but these can expose the doors to rain and let in leaks. I prefer tents with at least one vestibule, a part of the fly that extends to the ground beyond one or both of the tent doors to create an enclosed protected area for boots, pets or gear. Some brands sell detachable vestibules, which can dramatically increase storage or sleeping space.

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