spectastic

Thus far, I've only used bivy sacks, which are really great, because they take 1 minute to (un)pack, and are relatively light compared to tents. However, they seem to be good for mostly colder and bug free environments. I took the bivy out twice to go camping in south texas during summer time, and both times, the bugs had me for dinner, and I didn't get very good sleep. So I want to give hammocks a try. They're also very easy to setup, and are more versatile. If there are no trees, you can typically use one like a bivy sack on the ground.

Over the last couple of days, I've been doing some searching, looking only at hammocks with bug nets, and have found the grand trunk skeeter beater pro, and the hennessy explorer hammocks. They're currently my top 2 because they rank highly in these parameters (ranked for most important to least important, but still important)

1. large enough to give me a good night sleep. I'm 6'1
2. lightweight (<3 lbs)
3. cheap (relatively, would really like to spend <$200)
4. includes rainfly (I don't expect to use this very much, but it's still nice to have, would have to purchase a separate rainfly if going with skeeter beater)

I've tried looking at other hammocks, but they're either expensive or heavy. Perhaps there's a couple I'm missing out on. Can the hammock campers suggest other options that are potentially better based upon those 4 things I've listed?

mtnbud

A buddy of mine uses the Hennessy. An advantage of the Hennessy is it's asymmetrical which makes it easier to get a flat sleeping surface. A disadvantage is the design limits which underquilts that will work. Hennessy's are well thought out and the company will support you.

I bought an innexpensive camping hammock off of Amazon and it has worked fine for me. I started out using my sleeping pad underneath me and transitioned to an underquilt. The advantage of using a sleeping pad is you can still set up your hammock on the ground if there are no trees. You will need some type of insulation underneath you no matter how you set up.

I try to avoid camping when it rains, but do find camping in the rain way easier and more comfortable with a well set up hammock than a tent.

I find hammocks way more comfortable than sleeping on the ground. There is a learning curve and you will find dozens of reasons to buy accessories which will increase the intial cost of your hammock.

BTW: If you do decide to try an inexpensive hammock, make sure it's a double size and not a single. Carefully check the dimensions. I'm 5'11". My double sized hammock is plenty long, but my son's single size hammock is barely long enough for me. A different buddy of mine bought a single sized camping hammock on a flash deal for a whopping $15 and finds it to be too small when he's using a sleeping bag and pad in it.

spectastic

yes, I'm aware of the asymmetrical thing. but I'm more concerned about the actual size of the hammock. when i look at the dimensions of the hennessy expedition hammock that's rated for people up to 6', it's size is larger than any of the other cheaper hammocks out there. and I also saw that people who are bigger like me are typically more satisfied with the hennessy explorer, which is even bigger. So is your cheaper hammock big enough for you to be comfortable?

one thing i've learned is that sleep shouldn't be skimped on, so I really want to get this right.

ggoytia1

I have a old Clark's and a blackbird war bonnet.
They both work great but I favor the blackbird as it's material is a wee bit cooler especially during our Texas summers. You can lay flat with both these and are cheap when you consider how much a hotel will run you.
They weigh next to nothing, one thing I will look recommend is keep a bag for your clothes and shoes to avoid getting the inside dirty and keep critters away. Also hang them and spray them heavy with Permethrin. Let em dry and knock em again with a second coat. Bugs won't like you much.

ggoytia1

Look up hammock camping by Shug. On YouTube lots of info

chrisx

My Hennessy hyper light was good for 2 or 3 night trips, but bad for a week or 10 days. Summer time is hammock time, I use a tent in the winter.
Good choice in the jungles of Guatemala

PedalingWalrus

Once you bring in #3 I can't help you :-) but I do second the suggestion to watch Shug videos.

FYI - Year round, I use hammock camping setup more often than a tent setup.

mtnbud

Agreed - Sleep is very important. I sleep real well in my hammock. Better than I do in a tent. There is a learning curve to using and sleeping in one. If you decide to buy one and have the ability to to set one up at home to practice, I'd recommend doing so. My friend with the Hennessy has trouble sleeping anyway and says he sleeps the same as if he was at home. He has done a lot of experimenting with his set up to get the hang of using it, but says he'd never go back to a tent.

Here's a link to the hammock I bought. It's no longer available. It is plenty long. I don't like the double tabs for suspending the mosquito net. It's does make for lots of space underneath the netting. I made some spreader bars for the the tabs on the netting. It takes time to put in and the spreader bars and they touch the sides of the rainfly. If I had to do it again, I'd look for a hammock with a single row of loops on the mosquito netting.

Here's the one I bought for my son which is on the small side for me. Listed at 105" long.

There's lots of choices on Amazon. Some of them do have the single row of tabs on the mosquito netting. I'm cautious to recommend one I haven't personally seen. You take a risk when you buy an unknown brand, but it worked for me.

I started with this tarp and bought this one for cold and rainy weather. I also picked up this UQ and this one for my son's hammock. Both UQs work fine for the price point, but limit the ability to sleep diagonally. Using a sleeping pad is probably a better mode in case you ever have to sleep on the ground. I find using my UQ and some down quilts I bought at Costco for a top quilt is my most comfortable and convenient method for sleeping.

Rob_E

When planning on what you need to buy for hammock camping, set aside some money for insulation. Even in what seems like warm temps, a hammock can get chilly overnight because there's basically no insulation between you and the air underneath. Even if you use a sleeping bag, your weight squishes it flat under you, and you end up with no bottom insulation. Last weekend lows in lower 60s, my brother made fun of me for bothering to set up my lightweight underquilt... then got up at 3am to do the same.

Hennessy has a made-to-fit, under insulation which is pretty effective. It's also cheaper than an underquilt, usually, although I'd say it doesn't pack as small. But it's also less versatile. You can pretty much only use it with model of hammock you bought it for. If you ever change hammocks, you're starting over with the insulation, too.

Some people put a regular, inflatable or foam, insulating pad in their hammock. I find that this takes a lot of the comfort of the hammock away, and I shy away from that, but it's also nice to have if you have to go to ground.

The tarp that came with my Hennessy was serviceable, but barely. But then I also will spend multiple days at a campsite, so a tarp that just covers the hammock will only keep my dry or shaded if I'm in the hammock. I now have much larger tarp that I can comfortably spend time under and that doesn't have to be pitched right on top of the hammock in bad weather. It's also lighter than the Hennessy stock tarp, but probably packs to about the same size. I believe if you order direct from Hennessy you can trade up for a more full-coverage tarp for a little more money. That might be worth considering.

One thing that I absolutely did not care for on my Hennessy was their prescribed method of attaching it to the trees. After my first weekend in the hammock, I went searching for alternatives and found them. I changed out my hammock suspension system twice during the time I had it.

Hennessy is great, and it's a great value, and a great, one-stop-shop for your hammock camping needs. But you end up locked into their system, with a tarp and an insulation system made specifically to fit their hammock and no other. Also in terms of price, consider the base price, but then also consider the price with a larger tarp and the price of an aftermarket suspension system, if you think you might go that way.

My current hammock is a Warbonnet Blackbird XLC. It's much roomier than my Hennessy. At 5' 10', I can't speak to what it would feel like for you, but it seems much, much roomier than the Hennessy Expedition I started with. I was fine in the Expedition, too, but I'm definitely happier with more room.

I don't think you'd be unhappy with a Hennessy, but if it were me, having already spent some time in a Hennessy, I would say to shift your budget towards a nice hammock, and cut costs elsewhere, where it will be easier to upgrade later. When I lost my Hennessy, I had to replace all my hammock gear at once, so I bought the XLC, then bought a relatively cheap sleeping pad to slide between the layers of the XLC while I saved up for an underquilt, and got a cheap mummy bag while I saved up for an overquilt. I did splurge on my large, SuperFly tarp, but that's another area where I could have found something serviceable and cheap, and upgraded later.

Good luck, and I hope you enjoy it. I bought my Hennessy eight years ago, and I don't think I've camped on the ground since then.

Rob_E

I'm sure this is somewhere else in my post history, but my first night I climbed into my hammock and thought, "This pretty comfy, but I'm still not sure I'll fall---" Woke up several hours later. I've never been this comfortable in a tent.

Leebo

At 6'4" I use an eno double nest, bug net with a sil nylon tarp, works well, just need to get the center ridge line set up right. Summer only, I also use a thin foam pad under the bag, good for a little insulation and bugs. Practice first, set up is important. Sometime my feet are higher than my head, and be sure to lay diagonal. I replaces the end clip with real a carabiner and then have 2 decending rings at the end, got some thin lightweight straps with one fixed loop at the end. The loop goes around the tree, and the other end tightens up in the rings with a safety knot. Check out hammock forums too.

fietsbob

Patent pending is a support frame for a camping hammock to let you use in in places like the Nullarbor .

spectastic

did some more searching, and it appears that between hennessy and blackbird, more people prefer the black bird, even though the HH explorer and the WB XLC are pretty much the same dimensions.

phughes

I have the Blackbird. I am ver happy with it. It is very well made, and exceptionally comfortable. I sleep very well in it, but better than in a tent. You may wish to visit https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/forum.php as well. I cannot recommend the Blackbird strongly enough though, I am happy I bought it. I do not wish for anything else.

chrisx

https://www.hammockforums.net/forum/content.php

spectastic

^ yes, I made an account with them yesterday. I still can't post anything because the admin still needs to approve me.

fantom1 

1) Lightweight
2) Functional/quality
3) Price

Choose two.

Also, keep in mind that once you have all the required stuff for a hammock they come out around the same weight as a tent. For the annoyance of trying to find trees in some places, and having a place to hunker down in inclimate weather, I prefer a tent. They are just way more versatile.

PedalingWalrus

best advice here was to watch Shug's how to videos. It can not be emphasized enough. He literally breaks it down one by one and proves it with practical trip results.

spectastic

did some more searching. it looks like I might just go with the skeeter beeter, and buy my own set of suspensions for it for another $30 or so, and use my air pad under it for cool weather, if it comes down to that. it's a few oz heavier than the more expensive stuff, but it supposedly has enough room to keep me comfortable.

chrisx

unless
It is hot out. With no insulation at all, the hammock can weigh less than a tent and sleeping pad. Above 60 perhaps.
A few places in the world have lots of trees and few flat spots.
The hammock forces you to have rounded shoulders. Which = less air in your lungs. That is why I like my hammock for a few days on the Washington coast, but not for a long journey. Sailors have back problems after sleeping in a hammock for months and years.

srestrepo

Another vote for the warbinnet blackbird. I bought it when I was 365 pounds at 5'10. Now I'm 255 and 5'10. I LOVE that hammock. My biggest compliment to it is how well I can sleep on my side, something that isn't so easy to do with the specific air mattress I own in my tent albeit still doable. I will say initial investment for me was substantial. I bought the hammock, an adjustable ridgeline, the tree straps, a caternary cut silnylom tarp, a quilt for inside the hammock and an two underquilts for varying temperatures. I didn't get all this stuff at once but just pointing it out that it is a very impressive system with lots of options.

tspoon

Lying on an angle to get a flat sleep is possible with almost any hammock, not just the Hennessey brand. The asymmetric part of their hammock is actually in the cut of the fly, as fair as I'm aware, and is a method of cutting weight by not having a fly to cover where not needed, if you lay on the angle. I've used two of their older model hammocks, they certainly are a good product, but I found the fly too small when it does rain, or if you want (for whatever reason) to lay on the opposite angle than the fly covers.

You could rectify that, if you found it a problem, by purchasing a third party fly with greater coverage, there are some good, and quite light, options available.

robow

I agree, I like the WB Blackbird hands down over the HH that I first purchased.

spectastic

well, i got a thread going on the hammock forum. the 3 i listed were the warbonnet eldorado, skeeter beeter, and hennessy explorer. everyone is basically telling me to go with the eldorado, which is the same as the blackbird, except cheaper and simpler.

they also suggest two more brands which are apparently just as good, the dream hammocks and dutch hammocks.

mtnbud

Very clever.