In addition to costing you a few extra clams, this product doesn’t pack up very small. When stowed in its carrying case, it could easily be confused with a winter travel bag carrying snow skis. Its packed size is more than six feet, making it difficult to fit into ozark trail instant cabin an average-sized car. But if you’ve got a big enough rig, this is a dream canopy tent to add to your campsite. 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.
Most of our testers found the REI Co-op Skyward Chair to be one of the least comfortable chairs in our testing pool. People who did like it tended to have smaller body types, so if you find that other camping chairs are too big for you, the Skyward might be a good fit. At a little over 7 pounds, it’s also the lightest traditional chair we tested—but it had the lowest weight capacity (250 pounds).
Five large-weight bags attach and can be filled with sand to keep everything in place. Overall, this is a fun beach accessory that is great for guarding gear and valuables and offering periodic shelter from the sun. The Caravan Canopy V-Series bridges the gap between quality and budget-friendly better than any canopy we’ve examined. This basic, 10×10 cathedral tent blocks the sun almost as well as more expensive models, and it is sturdy enough to handle the wallops that come with average outdoor adventures. This model is much lighter than its beefier peers, but it still incorporates a steel frame that is sturdy enough to handle a few moderate wind gusts. We found the Caravan perfect for trips to the lake, activities in the park, or backyard barbeques, ideally in calmer weather.
Renetto licenses its patent to a company called Kelsyus, which makes cheaper versions of the chair. There are also chairs that are hybrids between categories, such as the Nemo Stargaze Reclining Camp Chair, which comes highly rated and recommended. The Chair One has a 600-denier polyester and mesh seat and aluminum legs, which are linked with shock cord (like what you’d find inside high-end tent poles).
Several REI reviewers who bought both the tent and the fly for rain protection note that the fly has only two walls, leaving much of the tent exposed. The add-on fly for our runner-up pick, the L.L.Bean Woodlands Screen House, offers four-walled protection, though it’s also more than twice as expensive. A lower roof makes this shelter feel notably smaller than our top pick, but it’s also durably made and ready to pair with a superior rain fly (sold separately). The REI Co-op chair’s polyester seat material feels both more forgiving and more durable than the thinner material on many other kids’ chairs. Compared with cheaper chairs of its kind (like those from Walmart), the REI Co-op chair functions better and will last much longer.
These include sidewalls, weight bags, and a host of other great add-ons that can really increase the use and versatility of the canopy tent. Perhaps our two favorites are camping tent additions that connect to the frame of the shelter and leverage the stability of the 10×10 frame to support a camping tent structure. It has the most comfortable and supportive seat shape of any chair we tested. The Dual Lock chair has a firmer backrest and seat bottom than the competition.
The Screen House is far more portable but less rugged than the Clam, and it also offers a fully enclosed system that keeps bugs at bay. The L.L.Bean Woodlands Screen House has a much more consistently glowing history of online reviews than does the REI tent. Getting our hands dirty with one of the best sun shelters on the market. Digging our toes in the sand under one of the best full-overhead coverage beach tents on the market. There’s a cupholder on the right arm and a built-in cooler on the left that can hold a six-pack of drinks (or more, if you…
But the L.L.Bean tent’s peak ceiling height of 6 feet 6 inches is half a foot lower than that of the REI tent, making it feel notably darker and less spacious. It typically costs more (in fact, the price has risen substantially—more than $150—since we first tested it) and lacks the convenient strap-equipped carrying bag we like. 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.
The included carrying bag does not have wheels to aid in transportation, but at only 29 lbs. We don’t find that to be a noteworthy drawback as the nylon handles and shoulder strap work just fine in carrying the tent. ozark trail instant cabin For many owners we’ve talked to, it’s been an essential chair for watching sporting events or any other time you’ll be in the direct sun for hours, like cookouts, picnics, birthday parties, and field trips.