It happens again and again. I’ll be cruising some forum or another, and in the camping section there’ll be a new thread titled, “Recommendation for a good tent?”

Oh boy! Buddy, you’ve come to the right place, I’ll think. I’ve been testing and reviewing tents for three decades (and using them for a lot longer); I own, at last count, 16 of them, and I can induce that Dear God, get me away from this lunatic look of panic in the eyes of any conversation partner at a party with talk of thread counts, aluminum alloys, and the stunning superiority of silicone fly treatment over polyurethane. “Wait!” I grab her arm as she sidles away. “Did you know that ‘denier’ refers to the weight in grams of nine thousand meters of a single filament of the fabric?” “Really? How nice. Oh golly!” (Glances at watch.) “I just remembered I have an appointment for an appendectomy! Bye!”

Where was I? Right: So I click on the thread, and the first line is something like: “I need a tent for motorcycle travel—what’s good for under $100?”

My shoulders sag, I look at the ceiling and close my eyes. Sigh . . .

Think about this for a moment. When you are traveling and camping, your tent is your home—your last line of defense against rain, wind, cold, and bugs after a long day driving or riding. You can survive with a cheap sleeping bag and a good tent, but if your $39.95 Costco dome tent leaks in a shower, or collapses in a breeze, the best sleeping bag in the world will not keep you comfortable—or, in marginal conditions, even safe. Sleeping well is critical to maintaining health on the road, and alertness while riding or driving. So, how can I put this diplomatically? It’s stupid to economize on your tent.

I learned this lesson early on—like, when I was 10 or 11. Desperate to own a “tent,” I spent—what, $2.99 at the time?—on one of those ghastly plastic ‘tube tents’ to carry in my military surplus rucksack. A single breezy night at Seven Falls north of Tucson, with my German shepherd, convinced me—and the dog—of the hilarity of the concept of sleeping inside an open-ended trash bag. It was a lesson that morphed into an appreciation for the value of good equipment of all kinds—a philosophy that was reinforced during my years as a sea kayaking guide, when I accumulated a cheap-tent repair kit of heroic proportions for those clients who refused to believe a tent should cost more than lunch.

So what goes into making a high-quality tent, and how do you shop smartly to make sure you’re getting one?

While there is some overlap, tents really need to be divided into ‘backpacking’ designs and larger ‘family’ models. Weight is critical on the former, so material choices need to be more sophisticated than on the latter, where a few pounds makes little difference. I’m going to concentrate on lightweight tents here, so let’s look at markers for a tent that will keep you safe and comfortable no matter what the conditions. Note that these parameters will change for family tents; they are not universal. (Much of the following information, and more, is in the Vehicle-dependent Expedition Guide, fourth edition.)