With a 44-square-foot vestibule, and 86 square feet of interior living space, the tent has plenty of room to house beds, cribs, gear, pets, and camping furniture. Zippered doors can enclose the vestibule fully, so it serves as a separate room for the tent, or you can leave one or both open, so the vestibule can act like a porch or mudroom. The main tent body has a giant front door that’s oriented to make entry and exit easy for all the tent’s occupants at night, and a smaller back window that doubles as a second door. Ultimately, I wasn’t as impressed by the 10-person tents that I tested for this story as I was by the 8-person tents or the 6-person tents. There were a lot of tarp floors, and a lot of fiberglass poles. Unless you truly need this much space, I would strongly recommend you opt for something smaller made with higher quality nylon and steel poles.
Everyone who tested this tent loved it, and it’s not hard to understand why. With plenty of interior space, near-vertical walls, and a gigantic vestibule that could accommodate a golf ozark trail shower tent cart, the Wawona feels more like a tiny home than a tent. The biggest material difference between the Sundome and our other picks is its crunchy, tarp-like polyethylene floor.
Many of our picks use grommet attachments, which are more secure and simple to repair than key attachments if anything should break. We also wanted self-standing tents, which can stay up on their own. 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. Trailspace’s community of gear reviewers has field-tested and rated the top warm weather tents. Since 1898, OL has been a leading authority in testing and reviewing hunting gear, fishing tackle, guns and shooting equipment, and much more.
And I typically find that color coding the poles and the connection points and sleeves is the easiest way to communicate what goes where. This is great for avoiding potential exposure to hazardous chemicals, but you should pitch the tent well away from any open flames. The 2 room dividers turn it into a 3-room tent – one divider is even made with silver-coated fabric so it works as a movie screen. There are also two strings of LED lights hanging inside the tent, an E-port to power your tech goods, and a mud mat.
But with this tent, you have to neatly fold the pole inside the tent body to have a hope of getting the whole thing back in the carrying sack. But the bigger issue is that one of the plastic pieces that holds the pole into place on one side broke. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times. Our journalists combine independent research with (occasionally) over-the-top testing so you can make quick and confident buying decisions. Whether it’s finding great products or discovering helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time).
They even asked if they could trade their typical family tent (a similar cabin style to the below models) for this tent at the conclusion of testing. The separate fly, which covers the upper half of the tent, uses a third, shorter “brow” pole to form protective peaks over the door and the back window. In our tests, an experienced camper took only about six minutes on the first try to set up the tent body alone and stake it out. Getting the fly placed and staked properly took about five more minutes.
Pitch a truck bed tent right in the back of your truck to keep your sleeping bag off the ground and be ready to get up and go whenever you need to. Look through a variety of truck tent sizes to find the best fit for your truck bed and enjoy a tent that takes advantage of the solid foundation and protective qualities provided by a truck. After the first night, a puddle had formed near the back of the tent. Upon further examination, it appeared that this was the result of the awning for the back window not being taut — it needed to have its guyline staked out. The individual who slept in this tent shared that she simply stayed away from that side to avoid dealing with the rain creeping in. I was still able to set the tent up, but it was ultimately a little disappointing.
Both of the doors zip open to the side that’s color-coded blue, as opposed to zipping open to opposite sides. This means the vestibules equally protect the doors, rather than providing opposite entries and exits—the latter creates a situation where, in stormy weather, one side of the tent is always more exposed to blustering wind or rain. In other words, one partner—or one partner’s gear—is always going to get a dose of weather when they head out.
This tent is a little heavy because of the steel poles pre-attached to the tent, so I recommend having a partner to help pop up and lock in the poles. Unfortunately, this tent was one of three that ozark trail instant cabin leaked during testing. While they did seal up from the inside, water was still able to sneak in through the seams, and the tarp over the top of it didn’t provide enough coverage to protect it.
Keep your gear organized with the included hanging gear organizer. And a carry bag for easy portability and storage when ozark trail shower tent not in use. Make the most of your next camping adventure with the Ozark Trail 11-Person Instant Cabin with Private Room.