The 6 Best Canopy Tents of 2023 Tested by GearLab

When stowed in its carrying case, it could easily be confused with a winter travel bag carrying snow skis. Its packed size is more the 6 feet, making it difficult to fit into an average-sized car. But if you’ve got a big enough rig, this is a dream canopy tent to add to your campsite. For web orders returned in store, please take the item in original packaging, along with invoice to any

Camping World retail locations for a refund or exchange. Refunds

are issued to the original form of payment; some exclusions may apply.

We even carried or rolled each tent 100 feet to see how much suffering it took to move them from point A to B. We also hosed the tents down to see if the material is water-resistant and strong enough for an afternoon coleman cooler thunderstorm. The results are the unbiased and exhaustive review presented here. The Caravan Canopy V-Series bridges the gap between quality and budget-friendly better than any canopy we’ve examined.

Others, like the Sun Ninja, are lighter because they employ less expensive materials. So it is important to distinguish that not all lightweight and portable products are also high quality. Our notes on this shelter are mostly positive — there isn’t much we don’t like about the Escape. In addition to costing you a few extra clams, this product doesn’t pack up very small.

The Eureka Tagalong is lightweight with stellar components, so if you want to be a bit more mobile with your canopy, this is one of our favorites. And if you can step into the next price bracket, the Eurmax Standard 10×10 is hands-down our top choice. The added cost coleman camping chair will buy you stronger materials and a structure that you won’t have to worry about falling apart for many years to come — if at all. This side wall is made with UV Guard™ material that provides UPF 50+ sun protection and shields your guests from wind and rain.

This product’s excellent wheel system is mostly made of plastic, and we wish it were constructed primarily of metal. Additionally, it packs up large and is heavy, making it difficult to find room for it in the trunk of just any car. It’s also more challenging to lift into and out of a vehicle alone, and although quite solid, the E-Z Up can be a little wobbly at full height. These caveats aside, this is still our number one when heading out to the playing field. If you’d rather have your shelter geared more toward camping, we’ve also reviewed the best camping tents and top backpacking tents on the market.

It springs into place with just the pull of a single chord, similar to opening an umbrella but in reverse. This makes it simple for one person to produce an instant sunshade in seconds. Simply fill the four attached anchor bags with sand or smooth rocks, stretch the canopy into an X-shape, and prop it up with the provided tent poles. We found this setup process easy because it didn’t require a lot of moving parts or analytical thinking.

However, a little extra care is key if you want your Caravan to last. To uncover the best canopy tent, we use comprehensive test metrics and cover all manner of use cases and essential details. We also took a close look at the quality of each canopy tent in our craftsmanship metric, as well as measuring each tent when packed up to provide details on portability. We weighted each metric according to its importance before grading and ranking each shelter, side by side, on a scale of 1-10. Below, we discuss the metrics we used to score each model and highlight impressive models in each performance area. The Caravan V-Series scores a bit lower and also isn’t as beefy as more expensive models, but feels roomy and is easy to move around thanks to a lower weight.