But REI thought of this, and thus, the Kingdom has a couple of small zippers in the ceiling of the tent to allow you to reach up and through from inside the tent to attach these hooks. There are tent sites right next to the dunes. (We can’t deny loving the look of classic canvas on tents from Kodiak and Springbar, though.). A difference in floor quality, however, will likely become obvious fairly quickly as you use and abuse the tent. The feature we missed most with the Instant Cabin, though, was the Copper Canyon 6’s mesh roof. “When you camp with kids, you camp with a lot of gear,” Olsson, author of The Down and Dirty Guide to Camping With Kids, said in an interview. Sometimes there is a sweet spot where high quality meets exceptional value. ), With the rain fly on and zipped shut, the Base Camp feels like a castle and performs like one against the elements. In spring 2017, we put up our three new contenders in the same neighbor’s yard and left them there for a couple of weeks, during which time we had the chance to see how they responded to two smaller rainstorms. As for the Base Camp 6, the vestibule area covered by its front fly and rear fly decreased from nearly 65 square feet on the original model we tested to 44 square feet in the 2018 model. Some of the reinforced crisscross pole structure atop the Kingdom 6. It’s like going from buying Patagonia’s H2No jacket to Patagonia’s Gore-Tex jacket. The tent also has just a single ventilation port, but the fully exposed sides allow for plenty of air movement beneath the rain fly. Whereas cabin-style tents maximize ceiling height by sacrificing some structural integrity, dome tents are better for inclement weather. For the family tents, we observed the difficulty and duration of the setup process for each one, and we asked each family, during and after each trip, for feedback on the experience of sleeping in their tent and on specific qualities they liked and disliked. When pushed, most of those we talked to estimated five to 10 years, though the actual lifespan will vary widely depending on care and frequency of use (for more advice, read REI’s excellent tips). At the giddy-with-glee end of the spectrum is the Caddis Rapid, which is designed to go up in under a minute and can easily be done by one person. When you click on links to buy products we may earn money to support. Sir Edmund Hillary. The North Face Wawona takes the crown for best overall family camping tent due to its high-quality materials, comfort, and special features.. The boxy tent is similar in style to our top pick, the Eureka Copper Canyon LX 6, but it falls short of that tent in several ways. Everyone loses the instructions.). To compare tent fabrics, you also need to know their overall rip strength. The Eureka Copper Canyon LX 4 is an affordable godsend for taller folks that are tired of constantly having to crouch inside a tent. In short, a lower price doesn't always equate to a better value, nor does a higher price necessarily mean a worse value. The North Face Wawona 6 impresses in nearly all of our testing metrics. If car camping is a feasible—and responsible—way to get yourself and your loved ones outdoors right now, you’ll need a comfortable place to sleep. Welcome home. Update on Product. The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule. It is big and boxy, but as long as you plan on lugging your tent only a couple hundred feet, you don’t need something that’s ultralight and high-tech. We decided to test and review some of the most popular and best family camping tents. The tent was frustrating to set up, especially for one person, since it took 33 minutes to wrestle the main tent body into standing up and another 14 minutes or so to get the fly on right. His garage is full of more stuff than you can imagine, and he's biting at the bit to get his barely toddling young twins out on their first extended camping adventure. INCLUDES, with reviews: * … Before and after these weekend trips, we turned a neighbor’s large, flat yard into a tent testing ground. None of them leaked. To evaluate the small tents in real-world situations, we took them first to Greggs Hideout, on the Arizona side of Lake Mead. With a 6-foot-2-inch center height, this tent’s roof is almost 10 inches lower than the Eureka’s. The poles themselves are quite sturdy but lack the modernization found in other tent poles. The classic-style stuff sack carry case of the Limestone 4. 6 reviews with an average rating of 4.25 out of 5 stars. Big Agnes Big House 6: Although we liked the look and feel of this brightly colored tent, the vestibule is a separate, $140 purchase, making the full package significantly more expensive than our family tent picks. With pre-attached, telescoping poles, all you have to do is remove the tent from its carry case, flip out the pole joints (they invert to get into the case), and telescope the four legs out until they click into place. With a redesigned structure that adds a factor of stability (now five full, beefy poles reach to lock this to the ground and provide support) and a rainfly that will hold off anything less than a full tropical storm, we felt safe and sound versus the precipitation. Kit lived in the 2013 version of the larger Base Camp 6 for seven months, and it stayed up the entire time—with the tent poles under constant tension—that is, until two of the poles snapped within a week of each other. REI Co-op Kingdom 6 Tent: We quickly identified the REI Kingdom 6, which is typically about $500, as one of the most popular tents in this category. The best-selling Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent has a footprint similar to that of our top-pick tent, but it feels significantly smaller because of its dome-style design. Rodney Hsueh, a longtime employee at the REI store in Arcadia, California, told us he always recommended the Base Camp 6 over the Kingdom 6 for campers who were headed for windy locales. Beachgoers need windows, air circulation, and shelter from the sun. The Copper Canyon LX 6 is the least-expensive option in a line that also includes Eureka’s similar Jade Canyon 6 and the newer Desert Canyon 6 (which has extra interior pockets and a rain fly that you can pitch on its own to function as a separate shade structure). The Wawona is the best of the best when it comes to comfort, ease of set up, weather resistance, and portability. Growing up in the wide-open spaces of Maine, I went camping every summer with my kith and kin. Hocking Hills State Park offers a small primitive campground separate from the main electric campground, and nearby Lake Hope State Park has more than 140 non-electric sites as well as a primitive group camping area. Kalee bought the Copper Canyon tent for her own use in 2010 or 2011, around the time her first son was born. The #1 Camping App . Here, we also faced an onslaught of no-see-ums (or biting gnats). In our tests, an experienced camper took only about six minutes on the first try to set up the tent body alone and stake it out. The Kelty Grand Mesa 4 is the best car-camping tent choice for couples, especially for those who tend to camp during the summer, in the backcountry, or in the desert. The couple who volunteered to try out the tent—along with their 6-year-old twins—struggled for well over half an hour to get it up, eventually attracting the attention of other campers, who came to their rescue. (And should you live in a not-so-dry climate, this tent comes with a full rain fly. But is bigger always better? The only other tent in this review with a backpack case is the Kingdom 6 (yet another reason it's at the top of the heap). Not only has it been redesigned to make it even sturdier, but it retains its delightful interior height, burly stakes, pockets galore, tons of mesh for great views, and the option to divide the interior into two rooms. The separate fly uses a third, shorter pole to form protective peaks over the single door and back window. Unlike the Eureka Jade Canyon 6, which we also tested, the Copper Canyon has heavy poles made of fiberglass and steel. Weather Protection. The cheaper tents in our review did indeed tend to score lower in this category. Meanwhile, the aluminum poles on the Jade Canyon 6 and on the more-expensive North Face tent were bent and permanently damaged by the same winds. When it came to price, our informal surveys found that most couples considered between $150 and $300 to be a reasonable amount to pay for a four-person tent. Cabela’s West Wind 6-Person Dome Tent: We didn’t include this tent in our original spring 2016 testing because it has a slightly smaller footprint, a lower peak height (6 feet 3 inches), and a more complicated design than many other six-person models. The base is a square: Two identical fiberglass poles feed through sleeves on the tent roof to form an X. Pegs at the corners of the tent slip into the ends of the poles, and then the dome-shaped tent pops up (video). But it also suffers more durability complaints and … So I've slept in this tent every night since my state (Georgia) has been Sheltered in Place by our governor. Learn more. During our in-field tests, we paid careful attention to the transport, construction, and handy features of each tent, among other key metrics. Our only quibble with this tent is that it has only one door, which sometimes means waking your partner if you’re trying to find a snack or you need to leave the tent in the middle of the night. Because the Kingdom 6 is especially tall from the outside, attaching the clips to the poles at the highest points would be impossible without a step-ladder or a basketball player in your group. And several have features that are far from essential, such as protruding storage “garages” for keeping gear out of sight, gear hammocks that let you hang stuff from the ceiling, reflective roof panels to increase lantern light, hanging iPad sleeves, and built-in doormats. They do the same thing.”. Car camping is having a moment.Rooftop tents have been around for years, of course—but RTTs have become particularly popular in the topsy-turvy year that is … When he was younger, he worked for five years on oil rigs as an NDT (non-destructive testing) inspector, testing metal and welds for signs of corrosion, rust, and whatever other breakdowns and chaos might happen to the steel in the ocean. Weighing just 6 pounds 13 ounces, the Grand Mesa 4 is light enough to use as a backpacking tent in its own right, too. And because the pockets are a bit oversized, you don't need to be an expert in origami to get everything back inside for the hike out. The rain fly now extends up and out over the front door; it’s still not a true vestibule, but the little canopy is an improvement over the old fly, which provided no protection for the doorway. These tents all have vertical ( or potentially ruin ) your happy camper experience if... 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