No matter what you call them, though, a good one should protect you from the trifecta of outdoor discomforts—sun, rain, and bugs—while you’re picnicking or camping, and it should be intuitively designed and pleasant to sit in. In this camping tent guide by Academy Sports + Outdoors, you’ll learn how to choose your next tent. We’ve tested (and recommended) Eureka tents in past versions of this guide. In October 2023, Eureka’s parent company, Johnson Outdoors, announced that it was discontinuing the Eureka brand. The product line, including its tents, should remain available through the end of 2024.
Throughout all our testing, we wanted to know how it felt to be inside the tents for long periods of time. If we had to spend a day in the tent during a storm, would it be comfortable? After first removing the models that failed the structural tests, we slept, watched the stars, and ate our meals in all of the tents, as well as planned hikes from them.
The Tungsten 4’s larger size accounts for the higher price tag (about $40 more), but campers who would like that extra room may find the expense worthwhile. Bring some practical comfort on your next camping adventure with the Ozark Trail Shower Tent. This outdoor essential can be set up and taken down quickly and easily thanks to the innovative,pre-attached instant frame design.
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 were skeptical about the vestibule’s ability to handle wind, since it’s big and supported by a single pole, but it stood fast in 30 mph oceanside gusts and 15 mph hilltop winds. The Wireless 6’s drawbacks have mainly to do with material quality. These can be as strong, or even more so, than aluminum poles (especially cheap ones), but they’re always bulkier, heavier, and not as nice to handle. However, the Wireless 6’s poles were the best fiberglass ones we tested—they left no splinters, unlike those on the Camp Creek 6 or the Copper Canyon LX 6.
However, it isn’t meant as a place to sleep; for that you should choose a regular car-camping tent. Are you looking for new ways to keep the family entertained during your camping trip? Archery is a great way to get everyone together for some quality time and lots of fun. Our archery range includes archery sets and kits that are great for beginners and kids and are super easy to set up. If you want to make your next camping trip as organised and stress-free as possible, look at our camping cupboards and storage range. Decathlon has some great solutions, from camping cupboards to kitchen stands to help you and your family keep your tent tidy for a more relaxed trip.
In terms of how the two tents feel, the Marmot Tungsten 4 is more geared toward hunkering down and providing stalwart defense against wind, rain, and sun. In contrast to the Mineral King 3’s triangular vestibules, the Tungsten 4’s vestibules are trapezoidal, opening via a central ozark trail canopy tent 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.
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. An avid hiker, camper, and long-haul road-tripper, Claire Wilcox has slept in (and occasionally improvised) tents in 11 states. She covers outdoor gear for Wirecutter and worked on the most recent update of this guide, testing couples’ tents and family tents. The Tungsten 4’s poles are bent at a more acute angle and closer to the ground, which, we discovered, can cause the tent to collapse in windy conditions if you don’t attach the poles to the fly using the Velcro tabs running under the seams.
As with any free-standing tent, with this one you stake out the four corners, and then you feed the two main tent poles through the Wawona’s fabric sleeves, which go halfway down the tent’s body. The North Face’s color-coded poles make this process easy to navigate. (We were stubborn and didn’t look at the instructions.) ozark trail instant cabin Once you identify the front and back, the process is straightforward. The fly goes up and over the tent body, covering only the upper half of the mesh dome, and then forms the glorious vestibule with the aid of a third pole. Use the extra stakes and guy-lines provided to stabilize the vestibule as much as you need.
Take the Ozark Trail Shower Tent with you on your next outdoor adventure. This outdoor essential can be set up and taken down quickly and easily thanks to the innovative, pre-attached instant frame design. A 5-gallon solar shower comes with it, heating water up to luxurious temperatures using natural light. This 2-room portable shower tent includes a separate changing/utility room, so your clothes stay dry.
It also comes with a groundsheet (aka footprint) to protect the tent floor. 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.