You can place there a portable toilet, or use it for storage, or just as a change room. The privacy shelters in the list below are ordered by weight from heavier to lighter. If you’re running a script or application, please register or sign in with your developer credentials here.
The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule. Overall, these poles—all of them aluminum—contribute to a particularly sturdy structure, with or without the rain fly. During our testing, our Base Camp shrugged off both a rainstorm ozark trail shower tent and a desert windstorm as if they were nothing. Despite losing some headroom in comparison with the Kelty Wireless 6 and The North Face Wawona 6, both of which measure six-foot-four in height, the Base Camp 6 offers a substantial six-foot-two.
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. A senior staff writer at Wirecutter, Kit Dillon has written about everything from backpacks and cooking gear to luggage and road-tripping. All metal parts are made of steel and the fabric is polyester. They do not give a waterproof rating but you have a fly and the walls are the same material.
On sunny days and clear nights, take off the fly and enjoy the sky through the tent’s clear mesh canopy. Some testers, though, thought the tent was stuffy when the fly was fully closed and the sun was out. After our longtime top-pick tent for two people ran into some stock issues in 2021, we researched new models and redesigns, and we assembled a batch of small tents for testing in March 2022, on Oahu. During this period, winds rose up to 35 to 40 knots, and we experienced passing showers as well as direct sunlight and 80-degree temperatures.
MSR’s Habitude 6 is also a good tent, but it costs about $200 more. Unfortunately, you have to buy a separate groundsheet for the Wawona 6 and for most other tents its size as well. Our only quibble with the Mineral King 3 is that it comes with only six stakes.
When heavy trade winds buffeted our Oahu-coast testing site, we pitched each tent in full face of the blast. We then rotated the tents looking for structural weaknesses, and we tested their guy lines and tabs to see which tents had the best and most intuitive design for withstanding wind. Finding a small, light tent is the logical approach when you’re backpacking. 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.
The inner floor area is 24.5 ft² (2.3 m²), and the peak height is 7 ft (213 cm). The peak height is 84 inches (213 cm) so this should be high enough to attach the shower bladder and to take a shower. This Caddis Rapid 2-Room Privacy Shelter is an instant setup easy to use structure, and it is freestanding. It comes with a strong steel frame and with multiple storage options.
In contrast to the Mineral King 3’s triangular vestibules, the Tungsten 4’s vestibules are trapezoidal, opening via a central door with protected areas on either side. This design does a better job shielding the tent from incoming—and sideways—wind and rain. The Tungsten’s two brow poles create an especially effective awning over the tent door, so very little water gets in when someone comes or goes.
But note that there is only one entry door and it is on the front change room. From the name and from the pictures you realize this is a 2-room construction with a shower room and a changing/utility room, both the same size. But if this is not enough, note that this EasyGo Product Shower Shelter is larger. You will realize that these privacy shelter tents are all are more or less freestanding. The meaning is that you can move them around and rotate even after you set them up. But they are all tall and boxy, so never miss staking them properly.
Both of the doors zip open to the side that’s color-coded blue, as opposed to zipping open to opposite sides. In other words, one partner—or one partner’s gear—is always going to get a dose of weather when they head out. One night during testing, for example, clouds loomed in the distance ozark trail shower tent with clear skies overhead. After we pitched the tent, the Mineral King 3’s adaptable fly let us leave half the mesh dome uncovered. At the first sign of rain, it took only a few seconds—and a quick hand stuck outside the tent—to unfurl the fly and secure it for a dry night’s sleep.