Meet my little yellow tent

Posted on by Julie

It’s occurred to me that I’ve taken a one-man tent to Iceland five times now and I’ve never introduced you!

A small yellow tent, with a pole stretching from end to end rather than side to side. It has eight ludicrously long orange guylines stretched out. The grass is green and there's a perfect snow-capped mountain range behind it.

Meet my one-man tent! It’s a Blacks Octane 1 and while it wasn’t the budgetiest of budget one-man tents, it’s probably the second or third budgetiest. If I’d realised I’d still be carting it around Iceland nine years later I might have invested a little more in it but it’s done its job pretty well so far and I see no reason why it shouldn’t continue to.

It’s exactly the same tent as the Berghaus Peak 3.1, just rebadged and it’s extremely similar to the OEX Bobcat 1, which has had a bit of a facelift and isn’t identical but most importantly, is the only one of the three still on sale in this day and age.

Why did I choose the Octane 1? Well, I had two requirements. It needed to be small enough to put in a bag that I can then put on a plane, and it needed to not be wildly expensive, given that the reason I was camping in the first place was to save money on ludicrously expensive hotels and guesthouses. I toured the outdoors shops of Salisbury and this was pretty much the only one that met those criteria.

I had the option of yellow or khaki green and I reasoned that as I was camping alone in the Highlands of Iceland, I’d like to be visible. I didn’t really realise at the time that of course I’d be on proper campsites, not least because that’s the only legal – and safe – way to camp in Iceland. All the same, I’m not sorry I went for yellow. It’s more characterful and it means I wake up every morning convinced it’s a beautiful day. Yellow canvas turns even the rainiest of days into a tropical heatwave. And yes, I know it’s not canvas.

Bright yellow light glowing through the inside of a small yellow tent. I'm clearly lying flat in the bottom to get a perspective that makes it look so tall.

It came with four yellow guys. I had heard horror stories about windstorms and added extra guys. They’re a ludicrous length and I put two on every attachment. Twelve ropes on a one-man tent was just a bit too absurd so I removed its originals – I have no idea where they went. See the photo below for how not-absurd a mere eight over-long guys looked! I’ve also added a set of nine-inch pin-style pegs. It came with precisely the right number of c-shaped pegs and I didn’t trust them. In hindsight, I should have gone for shorter ones – getting pegs that length into Icelandic ground without a mallet is… difficult.

My little yellow tent at Landmannalaugar, its many orange over-long guylines anchored by rocks, as are the pegs around the edge of the tent.

I can get this tent up by myself in about five minutes. I don’t put all eight guys in, just one for each point, and I only bother with the front one if it’s windy because it gets in my way when I’m going in or out. That makes eleven pegs in total. If I’m using it regularly, like I do in Iceland, a new campsite every night, I’ll leave the inner clipped into place and that really speeds things up.

Yes, in this video I did put the front guy in but that’s a rare occasion. It was tinder-dry but it was also breezy.

But what’s it like to sleep in?

Umm… it’s cosy. It’s a one-man tent. I try to take minimal luggage in with me. Usually I’ve hired a car and I leave everything in there overnight except a drybag of overnight essentials – phone, wallet, camera (because I feel like they’re safer with me than in the car), book, notebook, snacks, clothes for the morning etc. How did I live with this tent, a 100l duffle bag and a bus passport in 2013?? Where did that bag go at night??

A patch of grass surrounded by the rocks I was anchoring my tent with. Next to it is a black 100l duffle bag and a 45l backpack. The two together are barely any smaller than the space the tent occupied.
That patch of grass is where the tent was. See the size of the bags compared to the size of the tent’s footprint?

It does have a porch. It’s not huge but there’s room for a pair of boots, a carton of apple juice and the plate I didn’t bother washing up before bed. If you have a spare groundsheet or don’t mind a soggy bottom, you can fit a small-to-medium backpack out there. But a 100l bag? Did I really get that into my porch? Well, I must have done because I would never have left it outside unsupervised overnight.

The porch of my tent. The front door is unzipped leaving a triangle of fabric sheltering a triangle of space between outer and inner. My boots, guidebook and enamel mug are sitting more or less in that spot, although as the door's open, they're really sitting in the sun.

It has its flaws. Because it’s so small, your sleeping bag will end up touching the sides. I woke up with it drenched every morning on my most recent trip, be it from condensation (it’s not the most breathable tent ever), rain, heavy dew or a mix of the three. The door is a slightly awkward shape to get out of. And the bathtub groundsheet built into the inner means you have to take care not to trip. You’re supposed to peg it down with a flat-topped peg but honestly, I don’t bother anymore.

A green sleeping bag laid out in the tiny yellow tent. The foot of the bag is touching the end of the tent and although it's up against the door side, there's only about six inches to spare on the other side.

I’m not 100% a fan of the shape but my only other options are coffin-shaped or having a hoop that lifts it above my chest which results in an extremely low ceiling right above my nose. Of the three, I dislike the shape of my own tent the least. It does look a bit weird but I think it’s probably the best way to pretend a one-man tent is a tiny bit spacious. Obviously I can’t stand up but I can sit reasonably comfortably.

Me sitting in my tent with my legs outside. There's room for me to sit with a few inches to spare. The tent is pitched in my back garden.

Some technical details? Officially it weighs 1.7kg but I’ve added some more pegs, which takes it up to about 2kg and it rolls into a bundle about 50cm long. That was my other criteria – it needed to pack down as small as possible because I needed to be able to get all my camping stuff in the aforementioned duffle bag to take it on a plane. I know there are lighter tents that pack down smaller – hello Terra Nova Laser! – but this one was the best for the price I was willing to pay. I also like that I can get it back in its bag first time every time. My four-man has never been back in its bag since the day I first opened it because I don’t have the folding and rolling skills the packing machine does. But the Octane 1 – no problem!

If I was a proper professional blogger, this is the point where I’d sign off with an affiliate link to buy this tent yourself but it’s not available anymore because I bought it more than nine years ago, so I’ll give you a non-affiliate link to its closest current equivalent, the aforementioned OEX Bobcat 1. Enjoy!