I will often load a large cooler up at the beginning of the week and leave it on my Pontoon packed with drinks and ice. If you have a boat and bring kids or friends on the water, you know that once you leave the dock the requests for drinks start rolling in fast and furious. Sure, you can load a cooler out each morning packed with fresh ice, but it is just so much easier to cut down all that work with a cooler than can keep ice for days on end. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions.
During the winter and early spring of 2017, we added four more canopy tents to our testing lineup. In addition to the models from REI and L.L.Bean, which became our new top picks, we tested the Coleman 15 × 13 Instant Screenhouse and the Wenzel Sun Valley Screen House. Fellow campers and sun-baked spectators consistently gravitated toward the REI shelter over the L.L.Bean. Though the two tents have the same footprint, the REI’s roof is 6 inches taller; we found that the higher ceiling made the REI shelter feel significantly roomier inside. The REI Co-op Screen House Shelter is an intuitively designed, easy-to-erect picnic tent that offers protection from sun, bugs, and mild rain showers. Though the boxy design is basic, in our tests we found that this camping shelter offered the best combination of functionality, durability, and affordability of all the tents we tried.
Any $75 canopy tent from a big-box store—we’re talking about the common square canopy with four spindly metal legs—can provide shade during midday. But when you’re camping or eating outdoors, you’ll likely want protection from insects, as well. That’s why we focused on collapsible camping shelters with mesh walls to keep bugs at bay. It’s made with reinforced polyester and heavyweight no-see-um mesh, and it comes with the strongest stakes we’ve seen on any tent.
The coolers remained in the same location for the duration of the 6 day test, only being opened to snap daily progress pictures. The Pelican also features a different pull handle than the Yeti and Ozark coolers as well. As far as color options go, you can purchase this in one of two colors, Greystone which is the one featured in this article and a lighter grey. The constant color feature among the two are the orange rimmed wheels which I don’t love but, it is not a deal breaker. The coolers in competition were the Ozark Trail 45QT Rolling Thermocooler, The Pelican 45QW Elite Wheeled Cooler, and the Yeti Tundra Haul.
Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time). The L.L.Bean Woodlands Screen House has a much more consistently glowing history of online reviews than does the REI tent. While the previous version of this tent used beachy-feeling aqua and orange, the current version is ozark trail canopy a drab olive green more typical of other tents. This doesn’t affect the functionality, but the brighter colors were something we previously praised. The Screen House Shelter packs into a reasonably roomy drawstring bag with a strap that makes the canopy tent much easier to transport than tents, like the L.L.Bean, that lack a strap.