Built for British wild camping, this one-man tent is one of our new favourite for solo missions — from summer trails to winter snow. Here’s why.

Terra Nova Southern Cross 1

Ideal for: 4-season wildcamping, thru-hiking and backpacking

Not suitable for: Fastpacking, bikepacking

The Southern Cross 1 from Terra Nova is a robust, four-season solo tent built to handle everything from summer trailheads to wintry ridgelines. Weighing just 1.77 kg, it’s light enough for multi-day hikes but tough enough for wild weather — making it a smart pick for anyone who wants one tent to do it all. Its fast-pitch exoskeleton design, full sit-up height, and generous porch space make it genuinely livable, and its price — while premium — is now more affordable thanks to frequent discounts. For anyone serious about wild camping in the UK, this is a standout piece of kit.

Terra Nova Southern Cross 1 tent review

If you’ve spent any time backpacking or wild camping in the UK, you’ve almost certainly heard of Terra Nova. This Derbyshire-based brand has been building some of the lightest, strongest expedition tents on the market since the 1980s. From fast-and-light solo shelters to full-on polar expedition domes, Terra Nova kit is trusted by serious mountaineers, racers, and everyday British campers alike.

**Come camping with us**

Join our guided wild camping adventures across the UK — the perfect way to try your first wild camp, pick up new skills, and try top gear included as standard. Ready for your next big adventure?
**Find out more**

The Southern Cross 1 tent is a proper four-season solo tent. Designed to hold firm in the worst British weather — high winds, snow flurries, driving rain — it pairs a freestanding exoskeleton pole structure with a full-fabric inner and decent ventilation. That combo makes it not only quick to pitch, but also well-balanced between warmth, breathability, and strength. It weighs in at 1.77 kg, packs surprisingly small, and has an RRP of £700 — though right now, you can pick one up direct from Terra Nova for £420, or elsewhere online for around £450–£500.

It sits above lighter Terra Nova models like the Laser Compact 1 (1.1 kg) and the Starlite 1, which focus more on packability and summer missions. Compared to the Helm Compact 1 — a similarly sized tent priced around £300 — the Southern Cross 1 is more premium and more bombproof. It’s a rival to the likes of the Hilleberg Akto and Soulo, but at a significantly lower price point. Pound for pound, it’s our top pick for serious UK solo campers looking for year-round dependability.

How we tested the Terra Nova Southern Cross 1

We’ve put the Southern Cross 1 through a proper British mix of terrain, seasons and weather — and it’s come up trumps every time. On summer trail running and race photography shoots along the South West Coast, it was the ideal companion at the end of long, sweaty days. We were travelling light — camera kit, a change of clothes, and not much else — so the tent’s small pack size and rapid pitch meant we could get shelter sorted fast, no faff, before collapsing with a flask and our photos.

In the Brecon Beacons, we saw the more typical side of UK wild camping: wet gear, claggy hills, and changeable skies. Here the Southern Cross 1 proved its worth again. Even with a full-size bed mat, spare clothes and camera kit in tow, it carried comfortably and pitched easily — and being able to sit up inside made a massive difference when it came to organising gear and drying off. Despite hours of drizzle, we stayed dry and comfortable throughout.

Then came Dartmoor. Winter, snow, and that biting kind of cold you feel in your teeth. We camped high on the northern flank, and woke up to frost and a dusting of snow — but the tent held strong. The inner felt surprisingly warm and the structure stayed rock solid through the night. We didn’t venture out just to stress-test the tent, but it handled those harsh conditions exactly how you’d hope. Across all these trips, the Southern Cross 1 consistently offered what you want most: speed, strength and reliability when you need it most.

Living with the Southern Cross 1: The features

This tent just works — and that starts the second you go to pitch it. The exoskeleton design means the poles sit outside the inner, which is brilliant for bad weather. You peg out the corners, slot the poles into their external sleeves, clip everything together, and within minutes you’ve got a free-standing structure that already feels bombproof. Even in high winds or torrential rain, we never found ourselves fumbling. There are no fiddly sleeves, no separate fly to drape over a sagging inner — just a solid, standalone shelter that goes up fast and stays put.

And once it’s up, it feels like a tent you can trust. The structure is low-slung and tight, but not cramped — helped massively by the multiple guy points that give it proper tension and support. On exposed ground in Wales, we tightened the guylines and let the wind have at it, and the tent barely budged. The geometry holds firm and sheds gusts easily, without any annoying flap or wobble that keeps you awake at 2am wondering if your shelter’s about to take flight.

Step inside, and you immediately notice the sit-up height. At around 5’9”, most users will be able to get upright without craning — a genuine luxury in a one-person tent, especially when you’re stuck inside for hours. It made a big difference on our Brecon Beacons trip: we could cook, change, and faff with gear comfortably without feeling folded in half. That space is matched by a porch that, while not cavernous, is big enough for your boots and a Jetboil. We cooked in there several times with the door cracked and the vent flaps open, and felt perfectly safe doing so.

Speaking of vents, the Southern Cross 1 has two of them — one at each end — secured by velcro and built to stay open even when the weather turns. This makes a huge difference in managing condensation. On a snowy Dartmoor night, we still woke to dry inner walls and a warm interior. The full-fabric inner plays its part too, trapping warmth and blocking out drafts without stifling you in warmer months. It’s a fine balance, and this tent gets it right.

Then there are the clever little touches you only notice when you’ve used it a few times. The peg bag and pole bag come Velcroed together — a simple design feature that eliminates the classic moment of panic when you realise you’ve left your pegs behind a mile back. And packing it down is painless: once you’ve removed the poles and pegs, the inner and outer stuff easily into the main sack, which compresses nicely and slides into most rucksack cavities without taking over your pack.

It’s not just functional — it’s thoughtful. And when you’re tired, wet, and out in the wilds, that kind of design makes a real difference.

Performance in the British outdoors

We threw everything at this tent: wet autumn clag, coastal gales, and full-on Dartmoor snowfall. At no point did it let us down. Whether we were pitching on boggy ground in the Brecon Beacons or setting up on a rocky shelf along the coast path, it proved reliable, sturdy, and surprisingly warm.

During a sub-zero trip above the North Teign on Dartmoor, we bedded down in freezing fog and woke up to a white flysheet and frost-covered grass. Inside, though, the tent was still holding onto heat — no icy breeze under the fly, no damp sleeping bag, and barely any frost ingress. That full-fabric inner and close-to-the-ground flysheet combo worked exactly as intended, keeping the worst of the cold out while still allowing a bit of airflow through the twin vents.

In Wales, it was the rain that took centre stage. Drizzle, mizzle, downpours — the full Welsh menu. But even after a full day of rain and a night of sideways moisture, we stayed dry inside with no sagging and no pooling. The flysheet’s tension held firm, and the porch space kept wet kit from migrating into the sleeping area.

What impressed us most, though, was how well the tent handled the transitions — the in-between days where you go from warm sun to 30mph gusts in under an hour. That’s where a lot of tents fail, but the Southern Cross 1 took it all in stride. Even in summer conditions, it remained breathable enough that we didn’t get that dreaded clingfilm effect you sometimes get in all-season shelters. The airflow was just enough to stop us waking up damp without turning the interior into a wind tunnel.

It’s these real-world details — the warm night in a snowstorm, the dry sleep in the drizzle, the lack of flap when the gusts roll in — that make this tent such a solid choice for UK adventurers. It’s not just tough on paper; it’s genuinely built for British conditions. And from what we’ve seen, it thrives in them.

Scarpa Spin Planet trail running FAQs

Built well and constructed with rugged intent, the Scarpa Spin Planet holds up well to trails and general use, though the sole may wear faster on tarmac than some harder compounds.
Good traction across most UK terrain — hardpack, forest trails, rocky slopes — though less impressive in thick mud. The Spin Planet offers stability over slippage, which we’ll always appreciate.
These aren’t winter-specific but paired with decent socks, they’re fine for most UK conditions outside of snow season. The Spin Planet excels in mild to warm weather.
Very. The recycled mesh upper in the Spin Planet offers great airflow, and it dries quickly too — perfect for damp days or river crossings.
At £150, the Scarpa Spin Planet feels fair for what you’re getting: sustainable materials, all-day comfort, and genuine crossover performance.

Terra Nova Southern Cross 1 review: Our verdict

All things considered, the Terra Nova Southern Cross 1 is a standout solo tent for British adventurers who need gear they can trust year-round. It’s not the lightest one-man shelter out there, and it’s not the cheapest either — but it offers something far more valuable: reliability. Proper, no-questions-asked reliability in real UK conditions.

This Terra Nova Southern Cross review makes one thing clear: this is one of the best four-season tents for the UK that we’ve tested. It’s purpose-built for changeable British weather and holds up in serious conditions without compromise. Whether you’re deep into the wilds of Wales or just looking for more resilience on your next wild camp, the Terra Nova Southern Cross tent is one of our go-tos for solo shelter — trusted, proven and built for the job.