I remember the first time I went camping. A bit of a late comer to the camping scene, I didn’t go on my first real camping trip until I was in college.

Our trip involved a 5 hour drive and by the time we got to the campsite it was getting dark and we still had to setup our tent.

I didn’t own a tent at the time and I had never set one up before but my friend had borrowed one from his parents. This thing was old and neither of us were experts in the setup of this thing. It took us about 45 minutes before we finally figured out how to put all the pieces together. I maintain that we would have had got that sucker setup a lot faster had we not been holding flashlights trying to find all the pieces, but nonetheless it took a while.

These days I have my own tent and it can be setup completely in less than 10 minutes (including inflating my air mattress to sleep on).

However, today I’m feeling like 10 minutes to setup a tent is an eternity. I just found a tent that can be setup in 2 seconds! Seriously, you take this thing, throw it in the air, and by the time it hits the the tent has deployed and is setup. All you need to do is anchor it to the ground. It’s called the “2 Seconds” tent and it’s made by Quechua.

They have several different models and colors to choose from. So if you’re looking for a freaking sweet tent and you want something that can get setup in a hurry (think of how nice that’d be if you have to setup in the rain) then this tent rocks.

Want one? They start at $83 and are available from Quechua.com

You can watch this tent in action in this video (I was mesmerized). The first one shows the throw and deploy technique. The second one is a home video that shows setup and how quickly it can be taken down (about 20 seconds)

Here’s a cool video I found on Youtube that gives you the lowdown on tents. It talks about price ranges and the different styles for tents. It’s just under 8 minutes long but has a bunch of cool info.

Yeah, the dude in the video has a British accent, but I’m willing to let that slide.

Thursday, June 28th marks the date of the fourth annual Great American Backyard Campout, an event created by the National Wildlife Federation to help encourage people to explore the outdoors, starting with their backyard.

If you’ve never tried camping before, then this is the perfect time to give it a try. You don’t even have to leave the confines of your own yard. Heck, even if you don’t have a tent, you could borrow one from a friend or just head outside and truly sleep under the stars. After all, if things go south and it starts raining, then you can head inside.

This can be a great way to get your kids outside of the house and away from their computers and video games.

If you’d like to join in the fun, you can simply pitch a tent out in the backyard or if you’d like to be more official, you can viit the NWF’s official website and join the over 22,000 people who’ve already registered to camp out in the backyard on June 28th. Their site also has has a whole bunch of activities, camping tips, recipes, games, songs, and more.