As the weather is improving we're starting to plan our first trip of the year. It's going to be something a little different from the usual as we're going on a lads and dads weekend camping trip. So there'll be two dads with our seven year olds in tow. That's not our only change either. As it's a different type of camping we'll taking different gear to try out too, including two tents from Vango.

We usually camp in our trailer tent and the other dad on the trip has a big family tent (an Outwell Montana 6) with an extension and all the trimmings.

For this trip though we're both going in 4 berth Vango tents. One is the best selling Orchy 400 and the other is the new Calisto 400.

I've just got the tents out of the boxes and the thing that first struck me was how small and light they are. The Orchy pack (the green one) is slightly smaller than the Calisto (the black one) but both are far smaller than our old 8-berth family tunnel tent (an Outwell Sun Valley 8).

The Calisto (with steel poles) weighs about the same as the poles in our old tent and the Orchy (with it's fibre glass poles) weighs even less.

This has given me a whole new outlook on the trip. We can probably get all the stuff in the car, no need for a trailer (I know a lot of people do this all the time but for us it's quite a revelation). So this lads and dads camping trip is going to be a test for minimal weekend camping.