The Coleman Screened Canopy Tent has double-thick fabric so you can be confident it will stand up to the elements year after year. Coleman has created the top contender of the best screenhouses for camping. The Coleman Instant Screenhouse protects you from the sun and bugs so you can enjoy the day with your loved ones. It has a double-thick fabric to keep you protected from the elements.
As one of the best pop up canopy tents on the market, the Clam Quick Set Escape measures 12’ x 12’ and has enough room for up to eight people. The tent provides 94 square feet of space, has a 7.5’ center height clearance, coleman chairs and can fit a standard size picnic table. The 210D poly-oxford tent offers 50+ UV guard protection, a mesh screen, and a water-resistant roof. It includes six tent stakes, tie down ropes, and a carrying bag.
Fiberglass poles, cheap mesh, and tarp-like flooring are connected by mid-grade zippers and inverted seams (instead of the superior seam-seal). The bag is also poor quality and will inevitably require ducktape after the first or second season. The stakes and guylines seem adequate for the tent, and the rainfly, though frustrating to set up, is made of polyester taffeta 75D. The tent took our team 14 minutes and 20 seconds to pitch fully — much longer than the majority of our other tents and with much more frustration. First, the cheap fiberglass poles get snagged when pushing them into the sleeves.
Despite the change in fabric, this REI shelter still weighs just 13 pounds, several pounds less than many others of this type. 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. In between trips, we turned a neighbor’s large, flat yard into an ad hoc camping-gazebo testing ground. We erected our shelters just in advance of a 24-hour rain and checked for leaking and rainy-day ambience midstorm.
During the last weekend of April, Heather and I returned to our beloved Joshua Tree National Park with the brand new Weathermaster in tow. While the price of this tent is low, so is the quality and overall design. It fell short in every category and scored among the worst in our entire lineup. This could perhaps provide good value if you are looking for a fair-weather tent for a bug-heavy area. But for most normal camping conditions, the value just isn’t there.
We also timed setup and breakdown times for each shelter, and we repeatedly zipped and unzipped doors and windows, looking for annoying snags. Since 2015, I’ve tested camping shelters and large car-camping tents on weekend trips involving more than a dozen families, and I have talked to dozens more about their tent travails. Over the years, I have evaluated gear for magazines including Wired, Popular Science, and National Geographic Adventure, where I was a senior editor.