How to Choose a Camping Tent – GearLab

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You will be able to make an informed decision about your camping tent, and that makes the choice much, much easier. So, without further ado, here we go:

Considerations

First and foremost, we want to narrow down the types of camping we’re going to do.

There are 4 basic tent styles: The lighter backpacking tents, the heavier and more robust camping tents, 4-season and specialty. They differ in weight and dimensions. We have a few tents that are able to be used as a backpacking tent or a shoulder season tent.

The five metrics include: Space and Comfort, Weather Resistance, Ease of Use, Durability, and Family Friendliness.

. As you browse the tents we have reviewed, you will notice that each one contains a section on how well they performed in each metric.

Space and Comfort

When it comes to camping, weight and packed size don’t matter. What matters is comfort.

We can look at the way space is broken down into different categories such as vestibules, pockets, clips, storage, height/headroom, and how many beds can go in a space.

Overall Use of Space

A more detailed explanation: in general, it means the space is all of the same size. But all equal-sized tents are not equal. They are not the same size, and their size may not be the same.

, how the angle of the walls can make a big tent feel small or a small tent feel large, how big the interior space is relative to the exterior space, etc. These things should be factored in with actual square footage to truly get a full picture of what your tent will feel like.

If possible, you should choose a tent that is above the number of people you are planning to bring.

Vestibule Space

The camp site is a lot cooler than your house. So it’s better to store your belongings in your vestibule. You can also keep your bag there and bring it to the site and use it when you are having a break. This makes it more accessible and you can find it again quicker.

Pockets, Clips, and Storage

It’s useful to have a spot to place your phone, wallet, watch, glasses, etc. It is also comfortable to have a place for them to be. For example, some tents give you a place in the tent to place them so you don’t have to worry about it being crushed under your sleeping bag.

Height/Headroom

Tents tend to have a limited amount of room. If you ever stay in tents with smaller sides, you may not be able to stand up fully.

Bed Space

The camping movement has grown a lot in recent years. This would include air mattresses. Also, it is best to get a tent that will fit two people.

We understand that comfort is in the eye of the beholder and that each person’s take on the importance or value of tent features is different. But that is why we try to tell the full story of each tent, the good, the bad, and the indifferent, so you can decide what matters most and choose a spacious and comfortable tent.

Weather Resistance

We tested each tent in different weather conditions. We had to check in details if it was waterproof, ventilated enough and also how windproof it was.

Regarding weather resistance, here are key elements to look for: hot and cold day options, rainfly coverage, how aerodynamic the tent is, stake and pole quality, and guylines.

Hot and Cold Day Options

The best tents are designed to handle a wide range of weather and camping conditions. Tents with large mesh ceilings, windows and vents will help you deal with warm weather. Tents with dark colors and rain flys can help you deal with cold weather. Sleeping mats and footprints can help keeping your body heat from escaping.

References:Tent: http://www.tents.com/tents/tents-1.htmlCamping: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CampingRain fly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_flyRain shelter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_shelterBig tent: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Big-TentLarger tent: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Larger-TentSleeping mat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_matIn an existing technique, a technique for mounting a device in such a way that not only the device can be readily handled but

Rain Fly

It’s crucial to make sure that you will have a fly built in to the tent or included. If the river starts to pour from the sky, you won’t want to be without one. Be sure to check the size of the fly (it should be bigger than the tent, itself) and the angles and awnings it creates. Sloped, aerodynamic shapes will encourage the water and wind to slide off the sides more easily instead of making puddles or slamming your walls around. It is important to always set up your tent with the rainfly ready to deploy quickly. Some tents will have straps allowing you to roll up the rainfly across the middle or on one side. Think about it this way: you are already too late if you have to put your rainfly on in the rain.

Ventilation

This is another key factor to consider. If you typically camp in warmer climates, the amount of airflow the tent allows can drastically affect the inside temperature. Large (mesh) windows and doors and well-placed vents all work in harmony (or should!) to help you only sweat it out over the grill. The tradeoff lies in storm resistance — more mesh, windows, and vents means more places for precipitation and wind to penetrate when things aren’t balmy and idyllic. However, the ironic part is that ventilation is also critical in a storm. Sitting in a hot box while it is cold and wet outside leads to precipitation and sometimes gets you just as wet as a hole in your tent. Good tents attack this by adding ventilation near the ground and in the ceilings. A well-ventilated tent will typically have guylines on the sides that help pull the rainfly away from the main tent body.

Poles and Stakes

Your tent design can determine a lot regarding its resistance to wind gusts. It’s good to have strong and durable poles. It’s also good to have a hub system. And many tents these days come with a hub system. Their added room is often worth the tradeoff. You also want to have sturdy stakes which won’t bend and are pleasantly rough on your foot, hand, or rock used to push them in.

Guylines

A tent has a rainfly covering it. The rainfly is usually a sail.

Ease of Use

It’s easy to set up a tent if you have all the ingredients. It stands to reason that if you were to buy a tent you wouldn’t want one that is complicated to pack or use. There’s also a lot to think about when setting up a tent. For example, you have to consider the rain and wind that will affect it.

Some tents go up smoothly and quickly without any frustrating issues, while others push your patience to the limits. And some force you to give up and get out the instructions. Though not always the case, we do find that tents with hubbed poles tend to be more complicated and confusing to set up. Typically a larger, 6-person will also take longer to pitch. Time isn’t always the determining factor in making something easy. Many of our 4-person tents went up in less than 8 minutes yet still caused frustration and backtracking. At the same time, an intuitive 6-person tent might take 12 minutes to pitch but can be frustration-free, thanks to color coding and sound manufacturing.

When buying a tent for camping, you need to take care to practice it before you go camping, and make sure you know all the elements that can go wrong.

Durability

Some tents are cheap. Some tents do their job for one season. If you know your camping region, you should look into whether they have the right product for your climate and your needs.

Things to consider are the materials used for the tent, fly, poles, and stakes. Above all, bad poles are the most damaging to a camping trip. Should your poles break beyond repair, there isn’t much you can do outside of sleeping in your car. If you decide to go with a tent with fiberglass poles, be sure to have a plan should one decide to give out. You can easily and cheaply replace some other things, like stakes and guylines, but if the main tent body is crap, you will be stuck patching it until you have to toss it. Look for tight, clean stitching and taped seams (or seam-sealed), robust reinforced zippers, and a well-designed rain fly. Most tents these days do not include a footprint — get one, or use a tarp. Your tent will thank you, and you will help avoid a hole in your floor. Also, consider the return policy of who you are purchasing from, so if something breaks right off the bat, you can get a replacement or your money back.

Family Friendliness

You should try to estimate the number of people sleeping in the yurt, how well it stores enough equipment for everyone, and if the yurt has a large enough vestibule inside the main area where you can clean muddy feet.

Do you need to consider what to do if a terrible storm hits, or does it happen very rarely, so you can ignore the problem. It could also be a big problem if the tent gets wet. You’ll be able to cook a meal, or be stuck in the vestibule for hours.

Ultimately, bigger, more feature-rich tents seem to fit the family bill better for those traveling with many different personalities. And don’t underestimate the value of a bigger vestibule — it does make the tent more usable for all.

Types of Tents

This is a review of camping tents . It’s a broad metric but typically designates a class of tent that is more spacious, fully featured, comfortable, durable, and not as focused on being lightweight or compact as backpacking and mountaineering tents. Some people might call them camping tents; others call them family tents. These tents are typically intended for established campgrounds with parking pads rarely more than a stone’s throw from where your tent will be. Still, there are many different styles, even within this metric. For reference, let’s discuss a few types:

Four-Season

A four-season tent is suitable for most winter conditions and also for spring, summer, and fall camping seasons. It has some burlier tents. However, it is not the tent you will think about for camping.

more expensive and far harder to pitch. That’s why most of the tents we tested in this metric will work well from mid-late spring through fall. When the snow starts falling, it’s time to put them away and start waxing your skis.

Double-Wall

Most tents we reviewed are double-wall tents. These are the tents that we think of when we think of a camping tent. This consists of an inner tent body (which has all windows and doors) and a rain fly (which has mesh windows) that lies on top of the main tent body to keep out light rain and wind. Because the two are separate, we can decide to just use the tent body or the tent and rain fly together.

These tents may be free-standing, either based on a tent or a tarpaulin. They may also rely on a stake to hold them up.

Camping tents are designed to be comfortable, enjoyable shelters, used in situations where camping is the whole point of the trip. Since they are not intended for backpacking, there is no need for compromises in materials or campground comfort to lighten the load in your backpack. That’s another reason to choose a traditional double-wall design. They are easier to ventilate and give you the freedom to pitch only the inner tent to keep bugs out and allow you to drift off to sleep while gazing at the Milky Way.

Single-Wall

A single-wall tent is typically used to climb mountains. It’s lighter and more compact than a robust double-wall tent, even though they are both meant for the same purpose. The tradeoff of single-wall tents is that they are hard to ventilate. But there’s an advantage too — single-wall tents can be more compact, meaning it’s easy to carry with the backpack.

Six-Person vs. Four-Person

We’ve included a selection of both larger “6-person” tents and smaller tents deemed “4-person”. The number stated on a tent is how many people can sleep in the tent in a sleeping bag, shoulder to shoulder. A good rule for camping is to go up two. If you are a family of four, a 6-person tent will be perfect. A 4-person tent will fit the bill nicely if you are a couple. Likewise, consider the amount of “stuff” you have and if you can put it in the vestibule or if it needs to be in the tent with you.

As a 4-person tent, the tent you love might not offer the same features as a 6-person tent. If you don’t want a 4-person tent instead, check the tent’s website. You sure can hope (or wish!) the manufacturer can provide you the option you want. It’s quite possible.

The air mattress you are looking at is a lot too big. Don’t get a tent that is bigger than the size of the air mattress you are considering.

Types of Camping

Camping

The tents in this review are best used for classic camping trips where you drive to within a few feet — or at least sight — of your destination. While you could

consider a few of the tents in this review as something to cram into a backpack for a good weekend trek with two or more mates (splitting up the carrying duties by handing off the components), you’re almost certainly going to want a backpacking tent if you’re planning to hike very far.

Family Camping

A good family camping-style tent should be solidly durable and well-made to withstand rough use. It should also be comfortable, versatile, and fun — a very subjective and fluid criterion — but you’ll know it when you find it.

There are a few universal truths for family camping: Durability: Kids and dogs are tough on tents. They poke holes in the fabric, barge in and out of zippers, and spill everything from your pantry to your medicine cabinet. The trip is not about the victory of pitching a super complicated tent; it is about being together in nature and spending time together. And lastly, it has to withstand the weather: Coming back to camp to find your tent 100 feet from where you left is bad. Coming back to camp to find your tent and everything in it soaking wet is worst of all.

Parents often take their kids camping, especially when they have become teenagers. But it is not about having good experience. It usually means that the parents usually have to stay in the camp with the kids. It usually means that they need to watch what the kids do.

Versatility can also be an important aspect to consider in purchasing a family camping tent. Unless your camping plans are set in stone, and as consistent as the tides (same campground, same spot, the same week, every year), your tent will need to handle a range of conditions.

Basecamping

Suppose you are lucky and you are going to be lucky on your traveling trip with backpacking gear. If you want to pack better, you should choose a larger tent. It needs to be made from strong material, and it needs to be sturdy.

Walk-In Campsites

Many campgrounds have walk-in sites where you park your car and walk a few hundred feet into the wilderness to a slightly more secluded, quieter, and pristine campsite. Many of the tents in this review are walk-in-worthy (especially the ones that come in backpack cases!), but you’ll want to pay more attention to the weight and size if your destination isn’t within shouting distance of the parking lot. The four-person options we tested are, for the most part, lighter than their six-person counterparts. Lighter tents will be easier to carry in, but so will tents with well-crafted carrying bags. We do our best to discuss the portability options for each tent we review.

Other Reasons to Camp with a Big Tent

Outdoor adventures like sea kayaking and river rafting (and dog-sledding and horseback riding) are a few other activities that may give you more packing freedom to bring a bigger and heavier tent. Keep in mind that double-walled tents can separate the fly from the tent body and poles to cram these components into kayak hatches, dry bags, or saddlebags.

Do You Need More Than One Tent?

If you are looking for an alternative backpacking tent, you can consider a tent with more room, and less strength. It’s usually cheaper, but it might not be as strong.

Are you looking for some camp food ideas? Check out theBest Camping Food article for our favorite meals and snacks!