If your pilgrimage will see you sleeping under the sky, or in semi-open church porches, you will need to bring shelter with you. Warm and dry sleep is good sleep. Take shelter.
This sort of gear can be expensive, but a b&b/hotel costs £80+ per night, so carrying your own home quickly becomes a bargain in comparison. And way more fun. Though heavier.
Tents
Shelter comes in a variety of forms. The most obvious is a tent. Tents are a very diverse range of structures, and can cost from £20 to £1500. The advantage of tents is that they (often) come with mosquito net and floor, and offer 360 degree privacy, allowing a ‘hideaway’ of sorts. And they are usually very good at shedding weather. A tent can be best if you are walking in a group, or with children or animals, in exposed and harsh conditions. A tent can feel like home when you sleep in a strange place. And they give you space and privacy to get dressed without contortions in the morning, or read a book at night.
Be careful of the false bargain of ultra-cheap tents, they may well fail when wind and rain come a-knocking. Even if they survive the elements, you’ll always doubt their strength. To sleep soundly in a thin nylon house, it helps to feel confident in your tent.
Structurally, you have the choice of single skin vs double skin tents. What this means, is how much condensation do you want to feel when you touch the sides? In the UK, we have a damp climate, so single skin tents can suffer from condensation build-up. Choosing where you pitch can affect this greatly. Sleeping beside water makes for a damp atmosphere. Wind flow helps. As does built-in ventilation.
Size-wise, you can choose between 1 or 2/3/4 person tents. If you are solo pilgrim, I would still recommend a 2-person tent, as it provides that much more living space when you are stuck inside during bad weather, without an extremely large weight cost.
If you are in a pair, I advise a 3-person tent. A significant advantage of sharing a tent is that you halve the weight carried. However, be sure you are happy to share an intimately close space with your fellow pilgrim, as every tummy rumble and dream-groan will be a shared song, and body smells and morning grumps will be unavoidable.
Disadvantage of Tents
Tents are often far more visible than those inside might hope. Inside a tent you can often enjoy the ostrich-like illusion of invisibility. Tents tend to promote paranoia. This means that the noise of a beetle passing nearby can sound like a human marauder about to pounce. So be sure your tent is not lurid bright colours (unless you are only sleeping in campsites) as this will make you feel less creep-up-on-able.
Another disadvantage of (most) tents is that they weigh a lot, and (usually) require pegging into the ground to stand up, limiting their use. If you are taking Sanctuary at a sensitive place, pegs in the ground can be inappropriate.
Notes on Tents
Please note - this is all generalisation. Some tents are basically tarps, and some have multiple open doors. Also, some bivys are heavier than tents. It’s a mixed up marketplace…
What is usually true is that all this gear is expensive, so first of all, look to what you already have available. Ask friends and family if you can borrow something. Look to eBay for secondhand. Whatever you have, practice setting it up in a park or garden first. Consider re-proofing it - with fabsil for tents, and with a wash-in nikwax for bivys. And seam seal tarps if they need it.
There are many resources online reviewing tents, tarps and bivys. Outdoor Gear Lab are a good place to start. Backpackinglight are the most technically advanced reviewers. Both these sites are for US kit, but the language and tech they discuss applies to UK products too. America has a far bigger market, and consequently a much better small and mid-sized scene for backpacking kit manufacturers. There are more people making independent livings from it there, rather than being simply gear salespeople as the UK’s smaller scene seems to necessitate.
For this reason I would say that if you want the best pilgrimage shelter in the world, look to the USA. Mountain Laurel Designs make phenomenally good tarps and bivys. But they are pricey, and there is extra import tax on top. The best tents are also from USA, made byZ-Packsand TarpTent. Also, Hyperlite Mountain Gear.
In the UK, Alpkit offer a good range of tents. And some of the best European tents are made by Hilleberg. Another UK shelter manufacturer of note is Terra Nova.
Bivy Bags (bivvi/bivi/bivouac)
The main alternative to a tent is a bivy bag and tarp. A bivy (bivvi/bivi/bivouac) is a sleeping bag cover (usually waterproof, sometimes with mosquito netting built in). And a tarp is a sheet of waterproof material you can rig into a roof (and/or floor & walls). This modular approach to shelter can offer more varieties of use. Sleeping in a bivy can also allow a sense of greater immersion in the environment.
A bivy bag works by protecting your sleeping bag and mat without covering a large space around you. This means bivys can be far lighter than a tent, and much lower profile. They do not need poles (though some use poles to lift the bivy fabric off your head). Some bivys also include a mosquito net.
The nature of a bivy’s fabric is closer to a waterproof jacket than a tent fabric, so you will not get wet if your sleeping bag is in contact with the fabric. This is a serious advantage over tents, for if a tent pole breaks and the fabric comes in contact with you or your sleeping bag, instant wetness arises. To ruin a bivy bag, you have to work harder!
In terms of waterproofness, bivys generally work well, even in direct rain. But it is an odd sensation to actually feel the rhythm and pressure of falling rain against your body while you try to sleep. Also, in terms of functionality, a bivy is not ideal in direct rain, because if you need to get up when it’s raining, opening the bivy will expose the interior of your shelter to the falling wet. You can mitigate this with an umbrella, but it’s fiddly.
As such, unless you are a hardcore lightweight pilgrim, a bivy works best in foul weather when accompanied by a tarp. This allows you to make a small (or larger) dry bubble around your bivy, so you can get in and out of bed without water ingress. A tarp also provides a dry space outside your bivy for boots/bag etc, and for cooking supper/breakfast.
When choosing a bivy bag, condensation is a consideration. Because bivys rely on ‘breathability’ within a nylon bag (like waterproof jackets), there will be more water vapour produced by the body than can be expelled through the fabric. This is especially true if you are breathing directly inside the bivy, if you fully ‘zip-up’. This can lead to waking up with a sheen of damp over your sleeping bag, which is a problem in the long term if you have a down sleeping bag (down hates water). And it’s never much fun to feel your intimate safe-space bedroom getting wet every night.
To solve this, choose a bivy with ventilation, which can solve the condensation problem. Also, choose one made of materials that offer increased ‘breathability’. Some bivys are simply plastic bags, and not breathable at all. Goretex and eVent are good for vapour permability (breathability). But ventilation is more important than fabric choice. Best of all, never fully zip up, and always keep your nose and mouth outside the bivy, to prevent build-up of mositure. In anything other than perfect weather, this requires using a tarp.
A bivy in semi-decent weather allows you to fall asleep watching the stars, feeling like you are part of the environment. Bivying gives a sense of closer belonging to the land. In uncertain weather, I like to set up a tarp, but only scoot under it when rain falls.
A bivy works also when you are cave sleeping, or in an open-sided church porch, or anywhere there is a risk of blowing rain but you cannot put up a pegged tarp or tent.
The best (lightest/most breathable/best designed) bivy bags are from the USA - from Mountain Laurel Designs.
Alpkit also offer a good range of well-priced UK designed bivy bags. The Hunka XL is a great option. If you want a bivy with a hoop and built-in mosquito netting and ventilation (to allow full closure) the Elanis a decent choice.
If you want a really cheap option, look to military surplus. The British Army goretex bivy bag is reliable and bomb-resistant. They also perform brilliantly in terms of condensation. But these bivys are big (designed to keep your rifle inside), and heavy. And they only come with a draw-cord head opening, so no mosquito net or weather sealing with ventilation. Also be sure to get one that is not too old! New is better than used, and will only cost about £10 more. And always wash a surplus bivy in Nikwax to help it keep you dry for longer.
Tarps
A tarp can be sufficient without a bivy, if it is set up well. But imo they go together really well to form a complete pilgrimage shelter system.
A tarp is one of the most simple yet flexible pieces of pilgriamge shelter equipment. A tarp requires some cord and pegs. And you’ll need to learn how to set it up. There are umpteen videos on YT to help you. Andrew Skurka has some top tips to offer.
When using a tarp, start with the simple A-Frame. It works. Be aware that when using a tarp, you need to take the weather into account - especially wind. Be sure to keep the open side of your shelter facing away from wind, which will chill you and may later carry rain. You’ll only need to get this wrong a couple of times before you learn better.
You can use fixed points in the landscape to set up your tarp. Trees work, as well as drainpipes, fences and walls. If you carry a staff, you can use this as a fixed points too.
You can buy tarps made of polyester, sil-nylon, and dyneema. The price difference can be staggering. Dyneemais the lightest and most waterproof with the least stretch. But it’s also the noisiest in heavy rain. Sil-nylon is cheap and light enough. You can buy ponchos that double as tarps, which work quite well, though they are generally limited in size and space. I’ve gone a whole winter with one of these my only roof. You only need to tie up the hood hole each night. And you’ll still want another waterproof jacket, otherwise you get soaked while setting up.
Tarp Accessories
For a tarp to funciton, you’ll need some pegs and cord. Avoid ultralight titanium mini pegs, and ‘shepherd’ style ones, as they don’t offer the grip you need. Feeling uncertain about the security of your pitch does not lead to a good night’s sleep.
Y-shaped pegs - made from 7075 aluminium - are the best cheap option. For cord, use 1.5-2.5mm nylon. Ultra-thin cord can be more trouble than it’s worth.
You can always whittle your own pegs, but they’ll be probably less secure, and often more hassle.
