Golite Shangri-La 3 and Nest Review
By Dave Roberts 
Posted in Outdoor ArticlesTent, camping gear review, golite, shiny shiny, tent review, tents, wild camping
Golite Shangri-La 3 and Nest Review
The Golite Shangri-la tent is seriously cool. It doesn’t conform to your boring hoop, tunnel or ridge shape but instead takes on the tipi shape that makes you certain to stand out. Stand out further and buy the bamboo yellow instead of the usual green. Initially called the hex as it has six sides, the Golite Shangri-la 3 is designed to accommodate three people. However, forget that notion as the central pole divides the tent into two and makes it difficult for three people to share the space fairly. However, for two it is exceptionally spacious and as a luxury tent for one the space you have is seriously obscene. The extra space though could come in useful for family camping, as two kids could easily fit one side of the pole and an adult the other. Or go for the Shangri-la 5 – that’s even larger!
The tent can pitch in two ways. You can pitch the outer only, or inner as well. Technically speaking, i should be reviewing two items here. The Golite Shangri-la is the outer and the inner is the Shangri-la 3 Nest. The first time you set the nest out on the ground, you’d better make sure you’ve got a decent pitch as the footprint of the tent is huge. Pinning the six corners out, you then take the pole inside to support it and simply attach the fly over. It really is that simple. If you want to pitch just the outer, then you can use the pole to measure out the pegs first. With a bit of practice, you can get the outer up in a matter of minutes. An optional groundsheet is available, but is only 300g lighter than the nest it replaces.
Of course, I’ve not yet mentioned the weight. You may think that I’ve built up the positive aspects of size and the ease of pitching, only to bring it down when mentioning weight. Alas no. Make no bones about it, this tent is no svelte beauty but a rather curvier one and you do pay a little for the extra space. The Nest is only 835g and the fly with poles and pegs an extra 1130g, making it about right for a spacious 2 man tent.
So far I’ve admittedly been rather two dimensional in my review and it’s important to realise that the third dimension to the tent is even more impressive. The tent has about 160cm of headroom, meaning you can easily stand up inside to get dressed; if not fully upright (obviously you can if you’re shorter than 160cm).
Where the tent does fail is with the utter lack of a porch. You have barely any space between the fly and inner to store wet gear, and the water bottles I kept there were essentially outside. This would have spoilt an otherwise excellent tent as no porch usually means you can’t cook inside in poor weather, and let’s face it, that’s typical operating conditions in Snowdonia. Fortunately, you can pull back the front of the nest and create a very spacious porch area for cooking. If you’re camping solo, you may be able to rig it up that way, less so if there are two of you. Alternatively, don’t get the official nest at all, get an Oookworks Oooknest that sleeps one, and cuts 300g off your total weight. The mesh inner of the nest may prove cool as well, and they produce a ripstop inner if that worries you.
The Shangrila is meant to be an all year round shelter, with the shape resisting strong winds and the angle shedding snow easily. There are plenty of guying points all around, and while it may be noisy, it has certainly felt sturdy enough in some stiff winds this summer. This will replace an ageing Terra Nova Voyager at about the same weight, but with a lot more space inside.
This is an ideal shelter for anyone looking for a little more space and headroom, while being willing to overlook and work around the deficient porch. This is an ideal tent for family bratpacking in the hills, a mothership for a group of campers who would otherwise be in their one man tents or anyone looking to stretch out, stand up and stand out a little.
Summary: An alternative to the usual tents with massess of space inside, reasonably lightweight but lacking a porch. Acres of space in here! It’s a tipi, that’s got to be cool.
Dave Roberts
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Nice write up! Worth mentioning that if you use trekking poles you can ditch the supplied pole and reduce the weight of the shelter from 1130g to around 750g
Hi Sean,Can you do that without buying extensions to the poles as that’s a significant reduction.
E.g. http://www.backpackinglight.co.uk/product443.asp?PageID=106
Could have done with them last night as I was carrying both the supplied pole and a pair of Lekis that like to come on walks with me, but never participate much.
hi how dose it pitch on uneven ground ?
You really do need a large pitch for this tent. If you look at this image – https://plus.google.com/u/0/109845127541116611199/posts – then you get an idea of the pitch needed. This was a nice, wide and flat spot and the tent pitched wonderfully on it.
If you have no option but to pitch on uneven ground then you can adjust all the pegging posts out to suit as well as use the guying points. So I always take a load of pegs and some spare guyline just in case.
nice one Dave i had an inking it may sit well on bad ground, i am in the middle of making a hex type tent am just trying to make it right the first time, yes you have gusted i fiddle and tinker and make things, well some one has to.
Would love to see the result. I’m a bit naff at making things. We tried making some tarps, but even just making a rectangle went a bit off. I’d be happy to post some pics of how you put it together if you want?
no problem Dave, i made a tarp last year, the hardiest thing was getting all the lugs in the right place, after all it’s a wast of time if you can not use it. i think i spent 5 / 6 weeks with pen & paper looking at pic’s & youtube flicks wab sites and revues, just to get a usable tarp with usable options . i will sort you some pic’s out .