Often Raven - 8 Person 4 Season Inflatable Tunnel Tent Screen Room

The Often Raven is a black inflatable tunnel tent that sleeps six to eight and is rated for four seasons. It runs 490 cm end to end, 300 cm across and 200 cm at the arch, and it is really two rooms: a double-walled sleeping end with its own inner tent, and a front room whose panels you can shut, screen or leave clear. The frame is TPU air beams, so you inflate it instead of threading poles into sleeves.

4.9 Metres End to End

The Raven is 90 cm longer than the Sunday and sleeps two more people. At 300 cm across it holds that width from the door to the back wall, so the far corners are still somewhere you can put a stretcher. Two hundred centimetres at the arch covers standing up, getting dressed and pulling a jumper over your head without finding the roof. The 490 cm is the whole tent, front room included.

Shut It, Screen It, or See Through It

The front of the Raven is part of the tent rather than an awning pitched off it, and the panels decide what it is on any given night. Zip them closed and it is a sealed room: gear stays dry, wind stays out, and you have somewhere to stand that is not the bedroom. Open them to the mesh and it becomes a screened porch, air moving through it while the mosquitoes and midges stay on the other side, which in a Queensland summer is most of what you want from a tent. Leave the clear PVC in and you can sit through an afternoon of rain and still see what the weather is doing.

Over the entrance there is a tongue, a short extension of the fly that reaches out past the door. It throws the rain off the doorway when you unzip in wet weather and puts a bit more shade on the threshold.

A 4 Season Tent, Because the Panels Close

The Raven is rated for four seasons, and the front panels are a good part of the reason. Through summer you run them as mesh and let the air move. When the weather turns you zip them to solid, and the front stops being a porch and becomes a sealed room with the double-walled sleeping end behind it. Same tent, two jobs, six months apart. That is why it sits in the Commander line with our other technical four-season shelters, and not only in the Glamp Series.

A Second Tent Inside the First

The sleeping end is double-walled. A separate inner tent hangs inside the outer shell, which puts a layer of air between you and the fly, so condensation collects on the inside of the outer wall and runs down it instead of dripping onto your sleeping bag at four in the morning.

The inner has two doors, one at each end. Nobody climbs over anybody to get out at night, and with both open you get air moving through the length of the tunnel instead of sitting still in it. Wall pockets at mid-height take the torch, the phone and the glasses you would otherwise lose in the bedding.

Black Inside and Out

Outer shell black, inner tent black. Dark polyester lets less light through than a pale canopy, and two dark walls stacked let through less again, so the inside stays dim well after the sun is up. That is worth something if you camp with kids who wake at first light, or if you rolled in at midnight and want to sleep past six. In open summer sun the trade runs the other way, and that is what the mesh panels and the two doors are for.

PU3000+ on a 210T Weave

The outer is 210T polyester coated to PU3000+, a hydrostatic head of at least 3,000 mm — twice the 1,500 mm the industry commonly cites as the minimum for camping fabric to be called waterproof. It holds up under a wet week rather than a passing shower. The T is thread count, the number of threads per square inch, so a 210T weave packs in more threads than the 190T on the Sunday and closes the gaps between them tighter.

Underneath runs a 120 g/m² PE groundsheet that handles gravel, shell grit and dry scrub without a separate footprint. The beams are TPU rather than PVC: lighter for the same wall strength, and still flexible on a cold morning instead of stiffening at the folds.

Raven, Sunday or Bunker?

Three shelters in the Glamp Series, built for different trips:

• Often Raven — black tunnel, sleeps 6-8, 490 × 300 × 200 cm, 210T at PU3000+, rated four seasons, double-wall sleeping end with two doors, and a front room that closes, screens or goes clear. The long one and the dark one. Groups, bugs, cold snaps, long stays.
• Often Sunday — tunnel, sleeps 6, 400 × 300 × 210 cm, 190T at PU3000, 12.2 kg packed, pitches in about four minutes. Its canopy is open on three sides, a shaded outdoor room rather than one you can shut. Families, wet weather, carrying it from the car on your own.
• Often Bunker — hexagonal dome, sleeps 6-8, 210 cm tall, 15D silver-coated Oxford at UPF50+ and PU2000. Exposed beach sites, open ground, hard sun.

All three sit in our ground inflatable tents range.

Specifications

• Capacity: 6-8 persons
• Season: 4-season
• Dimensions: 490 × 300 × 200 cm, front room included
• Layout: double-wall sleeping end with separate inner tent and two doors, plus an enclosed front room
• Front panels: solid, mesh or clear PVC, plus a rain tongue over the entrance
• Tent fabric: 210T polyester, PU3000+ (3,000 mm HH or better)
• Floor: 120 g/m² PE groundsheet
• Frame: TPU air beams
• Warranty: 2 years

Set it up with our Chill & Rest sleeping range, camp chairs and tables, and tent accessories for heavy-duty pegs, sand anchors and electric pumps.

Free shipping on orders over $150. Covered by Australian Consumer Law statutory guarantees.