Outdoor Tents

I'D GUESS that 99 percent of tents are outdoor tents, after all the prime purpose of a tent is to provide its occupants with shelter from inclement weather. That's what camping is all about, whether it be for recreation or purely for survival.

The rest are camping tents of one sort or another. Simple or complicated. They are all cloth or synthetic shelters supported by trees, tent poles and guys, or spread over a frame of metal or fiberglass poles.

Early tents were sewn in simple designs, such as tarpaulins (camp tarps), pup tents or A-tents. A better design are the squared, box-shaped tents (wall tents) with a sloping roof to prevent rain from pooling on top. There are also or pyramid or teepee shaped shelters. But with computer aided design of the 21st century, more efficient designs like dome and tunnel tents have proved to be lighter and compact to carry, yet spacious on the inside.

The old fashioned square-ish tent, made out of cotton canvas material, could 'breathe' naturally. There was enough space between the threads of the cloth to allow moisture in the air to escape outside. Modern tents made of nylon and other synthetic stuff can be too watertight for the moisture vapor to escape, so better ventilation must be designed in.

Most of these modern cloth tents also have insect netting on the doors and are engineered to promote a comfortable air flow inside. The camping tent can be adjusted to allow warm air to escape in hot weather, while in cold weather, the air flow can be restricted to minimize condensation inside the tent while still keeping some heat within.

The best tent systems have an outer shell or fly sheet to keep out the weather. A breathable inner tent attaches on the inside, and that keeps annoying insects like gnats and mosquitoes from getting at you while you sleep. In some parts of the world, such insect screens can help save you from malaria or other insect-borne diseases.

All modern tents have a waterproof tent floor built in to them. This makes the ancient ground sheet redundant. However an optional ground cloth spread inside your tent can catch the mud off your shoes and other debris that falls off your clothing. Then, when it's time to break camp, your ground cloth gets taken outside and the dirt shaken out. The tent can be rolled up nice and clean, and be packed away without the need to sweep it out first.

Incidentally, the only tent I can think of which isn't an outdoor tent, would be a photographer's light tent. It's a system of white cloth or other diffusers, built to surround an object with light from the top, all sides and sometimes below as well. It lets you take a photo with no shadows showing at all. It's pretty specialized stuff, and I know about it purely because photography was my first trade and profession.