Weight 

REI’s Passage 2 Tent weighs five pounds and five ounces. Seattle-based Cascade Designs makes a two-person hammock that weighs two pounds even. That’s light.

Multiple Uses

Tents offer little more than sleeping space—the smallest aren’t even big enough to wrestle on a change of pants. Hammocks provide a daytime couch in a campsite.

Lingo

Some call hammock camping hanging. Which means you can wander the camp looking for other suspended beds and introduce yourself with “You hang? I hang.”

View

Tenters trek all the way to the wilderness only to immediately trap themselves in a nylon cave. Take in the stars and wake up to the sunrise.

Accessories

In the age of sailors and hippies, hammocks were little more than a stretch of canvas. Today Seattle-based Cascade Designs makes hammock rain flies, mosquito nets, and warmers.