Crua Combo Family

Firstly, the Crua tent. Great tent. Quality materials and well put together. Stitching seems sound. Overall, quite durable. It's also lightweight, and fairly compact when rolled up in its bag, I sometimes use it as a standalone item and don't always use the culla with it, on these occasions it's quite spacious for a smallish tent. A bonus for me as I have only ever used it when travelling on my motorbike. It goes up quite quickly and is easily done by one person. I have swapped out the supplied pegs for longer, spiral style storm pegs as I use the tent all year round in variable weather conditions and I'm not a fan of re-pegging the tent in a storm at night - do it right first time, saves a lot of unnecessary hassle. The only improvements I would suggest are a tailored footprint groundsheet - not because the integral groundsheet is porous in any way, but because I prefer to use one. It keeps the underside of the tent cleaner and drier for packing away. Once back home cleaning / drying the footprint is much simpler than dealing with a muddy tent. The other improvement I could suggest would be to do away with the toggles and loops for holding back the tent flaps, these can be a tight fit, and difficult to manipulate in the cold and dark. Not too sure what an effective alternative would be though, perhaps a simple strap that ties up. One pull and it's undone.
I also use the reversible fly sheet, effective in the cold and the heat.

As for the Culla inner tent; oh boy, it's a modern marvel. So warm and toasty once inside in the winter months, plus I have decent sleeping bag and self inflating mattress - recently upgraded to the Crua sleep system, I'm not sure the airbeam construction is absolutely necessary, but it works so well. I use a battery powered compressor as it's much less bulky for travelling with on a motorbike, and I can pre-set the inflation pressure. And it's dark inside, lovely. No more bright light at stupid o'clock in the morning! Ideal.
Some suggestions for improvements (product development!) Some hooks on the bottom corners and roof to facilitate centring the culla inside the tent before the airbeams are inflated. Some storage nets inside the culla would be handy - the tent has them, but they're not accessible from inside the culla , and some more hooks inside too for hanging lights from for example, because you need lights, the blackout properties are quite effective, especially appreciated when I'm working away from home and I sllep all day and work all night. Ditto the toggle setup for the tent.
The only drawback to the culla is its bulk. It's quite a sizeable beast on the back of a motorbike, not especially heavy, just bulky, I understand the latest version addresses this though. Now, if Crua were to send me one to review....
I have a large roll bag that accommodates the culla, but is not as waterproof as I had hoped. It would be good if Crua could manufacture something appropriate like a waterproof storage bag.

Everyone in our Troop is jealous of our Crua Combo when we are doing our cold weather camping. The caccoon keeps us warm even when temperatures drop below freezing and the snow is coming down. My son is under 100 lbs and even with his small size he can stay warm all night long with no one else in the tent with him.

worked great in -25F. Piled snow around it for more insulation. I brought a roll of duct tape and sealed the vents off. otherwise it would have been a fail. I also ran a candle lantern all night as a small heater. Dont know the inside temp, but in the morning I could not see my breath. They were slow to deliver, but the people emailing me back were nice. The tent stakes were aluminum. great for backpacking but they are brittle garbage in the cold. take steel ones with you.

Very happy with my order

Only thing you need to have is a mallet/hammer for the stakes. The size is awesome; fit 4 full sized people comfortably. During the day you can push your gear to the side and stand up. No condensation; it’s well ventilated even with the fly on. The height is amazing and stays up well (15 kt winds, gusting higher, no issues).

Only thing I wish it had was a reflective fly.

Let me start by saying that I love this tent. It is a refreshing change and a novel concept to be able to walk into a tent without crouching down and stand up inside that tent. It really is mind-blowing the amount of space inside. It is very deceptive just looking at the picture. It is even larger than it looks once you are standing inside it. It is a bit on the larger side for backpacking but I have used it while backpacking.. so it is quite doable. What you lose in compact size and weight you gain in comfort and features. Like I said... it is very innovative and worth the trade-off in my opinion. Out of the three tents that I own right now this one is my favorite.

I bought this for my husband and son who love to camp in the winter and they absolutely love this tent combo. They went camping in 18-20 degree weather in the mountains of western Maryland and they where nice and warm in the cocoon. Set up was easy and only took them about 15 minutes or so for both tent and cocoon. Crua outdoors is a great company with amazing customer service.

I was excited to get this as I will be going on a 4-night float trip down the Smith River in Montana in late April 2022. Weather could be below freezing or above 80F! With the Culla, I will be ready for the below freezing. I also ordered the reflective flysheet for an added layer of warmth or cooling. I have only set it up once in my living room for the first time, but super easy to set up for one person, even though it wasn’t staked out at the corners. Neighbor even came over and checked it. He said the Culla made it seem like he wasn’t even in a normal tent. With a low-height cot it is probably more of a two-person tent but that is fairly normal on any tent sizing. Extremely satisfied with the purchase so far!

My only con so far is the zipper and tent stakes paracord should have had the ends melted to prevent fraying but a quick touch with a lighter took care of that.

Will try to post an update after my trip!

Had to write a review after taking this tent (XTent Combo Maxx) out for a couple of nights during the recent big winter storm here in Western New York. Winds gusted over 45 mph (70+ kph), air temps dropped to 4F (-15C), wind chills way below that and 24" (61cm) of snow to boot. I set up the xtent in the field behind the house for grins really, just to see how it would do - didn't really expect much since I've always thought of it as a 3-season setup. Ended up having no issues whatsoever for two straight nights. Just buckle everything down tight and it's really no problem. Slept super comfortably in a 15F bag. Pretty amazing.

This past summer, my wife and I purchased a Crua Combo Maxx. Thanksgiving weekend, we took our two dogs camping in the Pocono Mountains. We had practiced setting up and taking down our tent several times in advance in our backyard during the summer. This also served to get the dogs comfortable with being inside the tent. The Pocono Mountain trip would be the first significant use of our tent in cold weather.

During our trip, the days were around 40°F and the nights were as cold as 20°F. The four of us stayed very warm and comfortable all night long in our insulated tent. It was truly a shock when we left the tent in the morning and appreciated just how cold it was outside. Twice on our trip we experienced some light snow storms. Even during strong wind and light snow, we were extremely cozy in our Crua Combo Maxx.

Thank you for designing and manufacturing such a well built product. We truly enjoyed our camping experience Thanksgiving weekend and are looking forward to our next camping trip.