We recently met up with Chris, Sales Rep for OZtrail Australia, down at the SOTA show in Canberra. TheSOTA show, or Snow and Outdoor Trade Association, is a 3 day exhibition for camping retailers. All the camping suppliers lay out their wares and best of all they erect all their tents and gazebos. So, we had a great time going in and out of every single tent in the OZtrail range and asking Chris lots and lots of questions.

My overall impression is that the OZtrail tents are well made and the company cares about the quality of the products they manufacture. I still don’t understand why they have quite so many variations in tents, but Chris said that it’s mainly because people prefer different layouts and end quality. I thought a tent was a tent, but apparently not. The main difference is the floor plan. For example, there are a stack of ‘family tents’, but all with slightly different floor plans. A tent might have 3 rooms but the rooms will be in a totally different configuration depending on the range. And each tent, again depending on the category, is made with different materials. The more expensive tents obviously use a thicker qualityPVC floor, for example. In this case if you buy the cheaper tents in the range then you get the cheaper fabrics. This is not necessarily a bad thing if you’re a weekend camper! But the old adage is true – you pay for what you get.

And, after speaking with Chris, it’s amazing how much there is to OZtrail tents that isn’t actually written down in the marketing materials. The basic specs are available on the web and OZtrail’s own website, but Chris was able to tell us so much more about the various features of each tent and gazebo that we hadn’t known previously.

We’re now working to convert all that we learned from Chris into more product information, detail photos and even some short videos for you.

Please excuse the quality of the videos! We thought it better to get some video, no matter the quality, than no video at all. It’s not the most impressive or professional production but our intent was to give you the best impression of the actual product and materials they’re made from. I hope this comes across.

If there’s ever anything you want to particularly know about an OZtrail tent, gazebo, sleeping bag, cookware, backpack, mattress or kitchen sink, please just ask. We know that the web is often confusing with all the information on offer. Our plan is to create a comprehensive catalog of all the OZtrail products, in our own words.