Experience the great outdoors intimately with a well-crafted camping tent. Each tent for sale in this selection offers the durability to protect you from the elements and ensure a great trip. They come in a variety of styles, from traditional cabin and dome tents to fun kids’ tents decorated with their favorite characters. Whatever the environment, these tents provide a comfortable place to come back to after an exciting day.
Many of our picks use grommet attachments, which are more secure and simple to repair than key attachments if anything should break. We also wanted self-standing tents, which can stay up on their own. Even so, you should, ideally, stake down each corner securely; in some crowded campgrounds, however, finding a flat spot with soil soft enough to do that can be difficult. A tent that requires staking to stand up—especially a larger, six-person tent—is unwieldy, and it’ll be impossible to set up on a hard surface such as blacktop or on raised wooden tent decks. Trailspace’s community of gear reviewers has field-tested and rated the top warm weather tents. Since 1898, OL has been a leading authority in testing and reviewing hunting gear, fishing tackle, guns and shooting equipment, and much more.
And this tent is easy to set up and pack down, especially considering its size. (It comes with a carrying bag equipped with duffle-style handles.) You’re unlikely to find a similar-sized tent that matches the Wawona’s quality and features for less money—most comparable tents we tested cost much more. As with most six-person tents, the Wawona 6’s footprint is sold separately. This Ozark Trail 10-Person Dark Rest Instant Cabin Tent will help you have a fulfilling camping trip by accommodating the whole crew and making everyone feel comfortable.
The Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3 Tent is the best car-camping tent choice for couples. It has everything you need for three-season camping, with the bonus of being light enough to double as an occasional backpacking tent. Although it’s designed to accommodate three people—hence the “3” in its name—we found that at 42.5 square feet, the tent is more comfortable for two, plus gear and maybe a medium-size dog.
The geodesic structure of the Base Camp tents is built to withstand wind and rain. It has two main that thread through sleeves, stretching between the four corners of the tent. Generally, we like clip-on designs better, since those are easier to put together, but in the case of the Base Camp models, the sleeves add extra tension and stability throughout the tent fabric. There are also two poles that arch over each doorway and down the sides of the tent to add extra shape and support; these attach to the tent body with clips. The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule.
To find out, I called in five of the best 10-person tents and set them up side by side for a rainy Memorial Day weekend. Our only quibble with the Mineral King 3 is that it comes with only six stakes. (Our runner-up pick comes with eight.) Six is enough to secure the tent and fly but not to fully secure the tent’s extra lines in very windy conditions. This shouldn’t be an issue in most situations, but if you’re headed into a particularly windy place or simply want some backup, we suggest picking up four extra tent stakes at your local outdoor shop or online. These inexpensive stakes are comparable to the ones that accompany the Mineral King 3; these slightly more expensive stakes will serve you well in any car-camping terrain. The Mineral King 3’s fly attaches intuitively with plastic buckles and has well-placed guy tabs.
Though the Wireless’s fly kept water out of the tent’s interior, it took longer to fully dry once the rain stopped than some others we tested. It uses a 1200mm waterproof coating on 68 denier fabric, which didn’t seem to bead as well as higher-rated fabrics, such as those on the The North Face Wawona 6 or the REI Co-op Base Camp 6 (each of those have 1500mm coatings). If you don’t have time to let the fly dry before you pack the Wireless in its duffle, we recommend laying it out when you get home so it doesn’t mildew in storage. Despite having the smallest capacity of the tents we tested—42.5 square feet—the Mineral King 3 easily fits two people with a full-size mattress, or two sleeping pads, and gear. Two large vestibules add nearly 40 square feet combined—that is, 18.75 square feet on either side. A full rain cover, two vestibules, and an extra-sturdy pole structure make this the best choice for couples who want to get outside in any weather.
Whether your family is growing or you’re simply looking for space to spread out, it’s becoming increasingly common to opt for a 10-person tent. These tents provide ample space for groups of four or more while still coming in at surprisingly affordable price points. But how hard is it to set up these tents, and do they offer the same level of protection?
Every detail was exactly the same, just in a different colorway. It was a familiar scenario for anyone who has been camping in the Pacific Northwest. Reservations were made for a Memorial Day weekend group site months ago, but as the actual long weekend got closer, the forecast started to look bleak. The North Face Wawona 4, which we used to list in our Other Good Tents section, has been redesigned; it’s now made of polyester, not nylon. Weighing just 7 pounds, the tent is light enough to double for backpacking trips, especially if you divide the pieces among hikers. We were surprised at first to see the Mineral King 3 come out on top because it was the smallest tent in our test group.
The Wireless 6’s drawbacks have mainly to do with material quality. These can be as strong, or even more so, than aluminum poles (especially cheap ones), but they’re always bulkier, heavier, and not as nice to handle. However, the Wireless 6’s poles were the best fiberglass ones we tested—they left no splinters, unlike those on the Camp Creek 6 or the Copper Canyon LX 6. For this guide, we focused on tents that suit the most common terrains you’re ozark trail shower tent likely to encounter when car-camping—grassy lawns or clearings, beaches, dirt campsites, and basic platforms—in spring, summer, and fall. We’re not looking at tents designed for such specialized activities as mountaineering, backpacking, or winter camping, though some of our recommendations have cross-over potential. An avid hiker, camper, and long-haul road-tripper, Claire Wilcox has slept in (and occasionally improvised) tents in 11 states.