Favorite Car Camping Tent

wintermute

wintermute

Joined
Oct 18, 2007
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I've never had a family car camping tent before, and granted, maybe this doesn't belong in W&SS, but what's your favorite car camping tent? I'm checking out a Kelty Green River right now, and it's pretty sweet, but a little expensive. can you get away with something like a Coleman? are the cheaper tents built to last?
 
i bought a eureka equinox 6 but haven't had the chance to try it out yet

like most things you get what you pay for
 
Check out these guys. I was doing some research a while back and these came up as tough as nails.

http://pahaque.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

I was looking at the Perry Mesa. It was actually too big for the campground I like to car camp at. :eek:

They are expensive, but as said above, you get what you pay for. Here is a tip though, google around and find the best price you can online, and they were willing to match it for me direct from the company at the link above. After I hemmed and hawed for a while, I think they were going 20% off that!

I have not had good luck with the cheap brands.
 
I agonized over this same purchase decision for about 6 months. I finally settled on a Eureka Sunrise 11. It's an 11x11 square dome. It seemed like a nice compromise between the inexpensive (Coleman, etc.) and the $400+ models. Including a $30 rebate, I picked it up for about $170.

I've used it once to date on a car camping trip with my wife and 3 kids aged 2 to 8. First impressions are good. There's plenty of room for the 5 of us and associated gear. It comes with a couple of hanging gear lofts. It's also nice to have a tent you can stand up in for changing, etc.

The materials are solid. I wanted to have a durable floor given the traffic it'll see. It's 4 oz polyester instead of the "plastic" ripstop you find on some of the less expensive tents. Ventilation is good as there are large windows on all four sides. The fly overhangs the windows so you can leave them partially open during rain. We didn't see rain on this trip, but reviews I read said the tent held its own in bad weather. There are 12 stake down points on the tent, and additional tie down points on the fly if conditions are windy. Setup was pretty straightforward with two people. It would be a challenge with one due to the height.

On the negative side, I would have like to have two doors, and it can be a challenge finding a clear, flat spot large enough. Of course this would be the same challenge for any large tent.

Though my experience with this tent is limited, I've owned a Eureka Timberline Outfitter 2 and used it heavily for about 8 years. It's held up extremely well and the floor and fly materials are similar to the Sunrise.
 
I like big heavy canvas tents. I have never been able to stay dry in little nylon ones.
 
I love my big REI Basecamp 6. It's the Hilton of tents. My criteria was a tent that I could walk around inside. The Basecamp 6 is rock solid in bad weather as well. Plus, I can set the whole thing up in a couple minutes.
 
I've only ever had a Coleman for car camping, and I can say that for the money, they are a great deal, and will probably outlast you, if you don't abuse them. Coleman has some pretty nice stuff.

I've never seen the need to spend lots of money on a car camping tent.
 
Whatever you get, make sure the corners are 90 degrees. Meaning don't get an octagon tent. You loose a lot of space in the corners that way. Non square cornered tents suck.
 
I've also found that the tents that have side rooms cause leeks where the rainfly has to turn a corner. The water tends to pool there, and then leak through. Just my experience, YMMV.
 
My favorite tent patterns are square. The one I use for my wife, 2 kids and dog is 10x10. Its never leaked, and sets up in minutes even if your only help is 5 years old.
 
Noshtero said:
I love my big REI Basecamp 6. It's the Hilton of tents. My criteria was a tent that I could walk around inside. The Basecamp 6 is rock solid in bad weather as well. Plus, I can set the whole thing up in a couple minutes.
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Ditto! I love ours! Bombproof, excellent ventilation, two doors, easy setup, stand up inside - great tent! :thumbup:
 
Wow. That REI tent is $350.

http://www.campmor.com/outdoor/gear/Product___20149

LOTS more space, lots less money, lots easier to set up. $119.

Mine is a Coleman. Its 10 x 10. I've had it ten years, and slept through some pretty bad thunderstorms in it nice and dry. This weekend we fit a large dog cage, a pack and play for the baby, and myself, my wife and my 5 year old.
 
Think I might split the difference between a Coleman and a Kelty and get a Eureka Tetragon 1210.
 
Nobody will probably have the same answer as me :) These things are just not that common. Tentipi!

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Exhaust vents. One with screen, one without.

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Spot for a stove pipe to pass through.

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Fresh air intakes. Drafts like a chimney with no breeze.

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Brian
 
oz tent 30 second tent

love it

but it is seriously only a car tent , gotta ride on the roof rack or in the trailer on my vehicles , its 7'long folded down ... but it seriously does take 30 seconds to set up

makes it a breeze when you push a few too many miles into the dark and find yourself setting up by torch and headlights .

its a square tent , got 6' headroom , I like it :)
 
wintermute, I started a thread sort of similar to this one over in Gadgets and Gear recently.

Here are the two relevant posts of mine that answer your question.

Edit: Looks like noshtero and Grampa beat me to this one.

That thread title was: What do you look for in a good tent?

Guyon said:
And I'm talking here about a three-season tent. I understand that winter tents take the requirements up a few notches. I've spent the past week looking for a good tent for family car camping. As such, weight isn't so much an issue. What I want is:

  • roominess... should hold 3 to 4 people plus some gear with ease
  • good stability in the wind
  • (yet) tall enough for me to stand up and change clothes in
  • full rain fly... never cared for those cheap tents with tiny little rain covers
  • sheds water well & will stay dry in a storm (seam sealing is a given)
  • freestanding (it's hard to stake at some campgrounds, depends on the ground cover)
  • good ventilation with the fly off
  • footprint offered... I just don't like making them
  • vestibule for gear is nice but not entirely necessary
  • good warranty and support

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After quite a bit of searching, I settled on the REI Base Camp 6. It has all the features above. Roomy and stable because of the 4 pole design. As a bonus the rain fly has two vestibules built in. It also has two doors, which is nice when someone on the other side of the tent has to pee in the middle of the night. And you don't get much better support than REI. Pricey, but good gear usually is.

There's a used one (with footprint) I was watching on eBay, but at present, the darned thing is almost as expensive as retail. Since I have a valid coupon code for 15% off, I can actually do better at the store. Go figure.

So... what do you look for in a tent?
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Guyon said:
Update: Took the Base Camp 6 out for a night of camping with the family. Great tent. Roomy, easy to set up, decent ventilation even with the full fly since you could open up both door windows and roll up the vestibule openings to get some cross ventilation. We put the fly on since there was a 50% chance of scattered showers. Of course, it never rained a drop. The tent poles are heavy duty aluminum, and the stakes are the heavy duty versions. No need to buy/use alternate stakes on this one.

The one I got, however, had faded brown marks all over the light green doors. At first, I thought it was mud and that I'd gotten a used tent. But after another look, it appeared dye from the brown section had somehow rubbed off on the light green? Odd though that it was only on the doors and nowhere else on the green portions. Maybe just a factory mishap. Purely cosmetic, but I took it back today, and REI gladly swapped it out for a new one.

Functionally, I couldn't have been happier with the tent.

BaseCamp6.jpg
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scuse the mess but this is the 30 second tent being used .. I had no idea about tents when I bought it , and didnt know what the hell this fly things was the sales guy was trying to sell me ... hence the tarp over it instead of a tailor made fly
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