There are a lot of customers saying the pole didn’t last long for the Coleman tents instant 8. The bad news is that there are no replacement parts, so if it breaks you’ll have to get a refund or an exchange. A good tent allows you to fully enjoy the outdoors, without having to spend 2 hours trying to set up the tent, only to give up & end up sleeping in your car; it sucks. It has a nice mesh roof, mesh walls in the first room, and small windows in the second room, making for great ventilation overall. Crafted from robust 18/8 stainless steel with a sleek powder coating finish, this tumbler stands the test of time, resisting scratches, rust, and the mingling of flavors.
There’s also electrical cord access on this tent, at the middle of the tent. From the inside, you can seal it shut completely with Velcro, it’s quite tight and shouldn’t let in any bugs. But one thing I did like is that I could still fit a small lantern up on the lantern loop, even with the gear loft in place. There’s also 1 lantern loop right at the very top center of this tent, and another four more loops around it for the provided gear loft (which also has s-hooks in each corner for hanging up). And as for the quality of the mesh, here’s a close-up of what it looks like, it’s just regular mosquito netting.
It will comfortably fit two queen air beds or up to 11 campers in sleeping bags on the floor. Keep yourself organized and connected with the included two storage pockets, gear loft and electrical cord access. If the Mineral King 3 is out of stock, or if you’d like a slightly larger tent, we recommend the Marmot Tungsten ozark trail instant cabin 4. The Tungsten 4 shares many of the Mineral King 3’s best features, and provides 10 square feet of additional living space as well as excellent weather protection—as long as you set it up properly. Like our top pick, the Tungsten 4 is a sturdy, two-door dome-style tent that can be deployed in about 5 minutes.
To mimic heavier rain and to test the tent’s ability to withstand soggy ground conditions, we also soaked our tents with a garden hose. A few weeks later, we brought the front-runners to a platform in an area that had higher elevation, near the Waianae Mountain Range, and camped out overnight in intermittent but consistent rainfall. Its fly extends into a huge front vestibule that can store large items like bikes, or even accommodate a table and chairs. Adults over 6 feet tall will be able to walk upright inside this tent—which has almost-vertical walls that can easily accommodate beds, cribs, and cots—as well as in the vestibule. I highly recommend investing in a slightly better tent for the long term, I can recommend way better dark rest tents or instant camping tents. I’ll link to them here when they’re ready, so that you can find something better for yourself.
Like our couples’ tent pick, the Wireless 6 is a dome-shaped tent with a tried and true two-pole design. It has an interior footprint of 87 square feet, which sleeps four adults on single pads, or two adults and two or three children, and can accommodate a crib. That wasn’t the tallest we encountered—the Eureka Copper Canyon LX 6 and the Alps Mountaineering Camp Creek 6 each topped out at 7 feet—but it’s enough space for most adults to maneuver standing up. The tent comes with a full rain fly that adds two vestibules for storage (each 14 square feet), totaling 115 square feet of livable space—which is fairly generous yet still practical for most campsites. And this tent is easy to set up and pack down, especially considering its size. As with most six-person tents, the Wawona 6’s footprint is sold separately.
But with car camping—the industry term for what most people consider just camping—you’ll likely be parking next to your campsite and unloading. If you won’t be carrying your tent more than a couple hundred feet, more space means more comfort (as well as more room for your stuff). This dome-style tent has nearly vertical walls, high ceilings, and a single vestibule the size of an actual mudroom.
This can get frustrating if people in the other rooms are using lights. Each room is large enough for a queen mattress, so ozark trail canopy tent you can make things super comfy. We love these better than simple divider curtains because they are completely closed off.
With that being said, Ozark Trail does a good job of seam-sealing their tents from the factory in most cases, and with a little help, these budget-shelters can keep you dry when unexpected rain hits. Take time to treat the entire tent with a DWR coating like Nikwax (not just the rainfly) and never leave the house without a tent repair kit in case disaster strikes. The interior uses a blackout material to give you a lightless experience, and mesh windows protect you from the nasties getting into the tent while increasing the circulation of oxygen.
We found that company representatives are reluctant to estimate the lifespan of their tents. When pushed, most of the reps we talked to estimated five to 10 years, though the actual lifespan will vary widely depending on care and frequency of use (for more advice, read REI’s excellent tips). In conducting research for this ozark trail instant cabin guide, we heard multiple tales of careful campers who had been using the same tent for 15 years or more. The Wawona 6’s side-walls are high and straight, but the structure stays very stable in wind thanks to a final pole that wraps around the front and sides—and thanks to the absence of any acute angles in the poles.
We also appreciated the shepherd’s hook stakes that come with the tent. Most of the tents we tested came with basic L-shaped stakes, which tended to spin around in the soil and slip a line. One night during testing, for example, clouds loomed in the distance with clear skies overhead.