Has anyone here used a hammock for camping?

I have a borrowed hammock that I'm thinking of using to cut costs on my bike tour but I'm wondering if anyone has personal experience to recommend for or against choosing it over a tent.

Never done it, but are you thinking about a real simple hammock, or a hammock/tent? If it's the former, you will have the weather to worry about, and in either case you will need to find camping grounds with trees that you can attach it onto, and where they would allow it (meaning you need to look up information on individual camping grounds in advance). I don't know how long a distance you are thinking of covering, but any way you can plan your days so that you can book youth hostels, capsule hotels, or small family-run hotels in advance?

I own a hammock/tent, and I have used it several times. It has a rainfly over the hammock, and mosquito netting between the rainfly and the hammock.

Yes, it works, it has no poles, and it takes up a lot less room in a backpack. It was actually more comfortable than sleeping on the ground in the spring, summer and fall. I would not recommend it during the winter. The main problem is finding a pair of trees to put the hammock between.

What I ended up doing is tying a loop around the tree, and then going up the tree to a branch to set the height. If you just put the rope several times around the tree, it would slowly slip down the tree. I ended up looking for stout trees that had a large branches about 2-3 meters off the ground.

In general, I had to also pack a tent and a ground pad, for the times when I could not find a suitable location. It became an extra thing in my backpack, that I could only use 30% of the time. I ended up pulling it out after one trip, and never putting it back. I'm not even sure where it is anymore.

I'm using a hammock/tent. I can't afford to stay at youth hostels etc all the time but I can use them some of the time so I won't carry a tent as a backup.

I've done a couple trial setups now and I'm learning all the bits that are missing and stuff I need to think of when scouting locations.

Did you end up doing it?

I just got a hammock with a tarp to put over it for the rain. I'm thinking to walk from city to city in October and set up out of sight of the road in between.

I saw a blog post of a couple women who did this. I'm rather excited as this would allow me to extend my trip into the autumn leaves time.

http://www.sierramadreresearch.com/madre-chronicles/smr-gear-review-ja... - the blog