Choosing the Right Tent for Your Family
1. Cabela's Instinct Alaskan Guide 4-Person Tent - Editor's Pick
If you’re serious about camping in a tent, and don’t want little things like the weather to bring you down, this is the ultimate tent for you and your family. The Instinct Alaskan Guide series takes everything that is great about the legendary Alaskan Guide line and adds a PressFit 7001 aluminum pole frame and a 75D polyester fly with heavy 2,000mm PU waterproof coating. This ensures the tent is blizzard proof and can handle any weather situation. This makes it a great tent forgoing into deep back-country hunting situations, and makes it s superb tent for taking the family out, too. Anyone who has ever had a rough storm blow through while camping with the kids can tell you that having the tent fail in the midst of a storm is a surefire way to have the little ones not want to go again.
2. Stansport Everest 6-Person Dome Tent - Budget Pick
This is a basic 6-person rated simple dome tent. If you’re new to camping, or just want a quality tent that you don’t pay a ton for, this may be the right tent for you. It has a rainfly for weather protection and shock-coded fiberglass poles that set up quickly and give the rigidity you need. The are gear pockets and vents to give you good airflow. While it says it’s a six-person tent, I’d suggest it for up to four people. That way you still have room to move around and store your gear.
3. Coleman Dark Room Skydome 6-Person Tent - Fastest Setup
The most important thing you need to know about this tent is that set-up take about five minutes. Yep – five minutes! Ever had your child sit there asking how much longer will it take to get the tent up? Happened to me many times. And what if you get to the camp ground late and have to rush to set the tent up so you can get everyone settled down and to sleep? Now add in that this tent has 20% more headroom than other tents in it’s class and a wide door to make getting in and out easy. It also has Coleman’s Dark Room technology that blocks 90% of sunlight and reduces the heat inside the tent compared to other similar-sized tents. Everything about this tent screams that it’s the right tent for your family.
4. Coleman Weathermaster 10-Person Tent - Roomy Pick
The Coleman Weathermaster has been the standard big tent for a while now. Coleman is constantly updating this tent, too, making it better all the time. This may be the right tent for your family due to the sheer size. at 17-feet long and 9-feet wide, this two-room tent has the space you need to take a big group with you and still offer enough privacy . You can put the girls on one side and the boys on the other, or kick the kids to one side so you and mom can sleep in peace and somewhat quiet. This tent has Coleman’s very cool hinged, framed doors that always swing shut to keep out mosquitos. The WeatherTec material holds up to some pretty serious conditions and it’s heavily ventilated. This is the classic, big family tent.
5. Bass Pro Shops Eclipse Voyager 6-Person Tent with Screen Porch
This quality tent combines two great ideas making it a solid choice as the right tent for your family camping adventure. It has a roomy 6-person 10×9 ft dome-style tent mated to a screened room that acts as a vestibule and covered screen room that you can use to enjoy the great outdoors without the bugs or weather getting you down. It has a 190T polyester taffeta with 800mm polyurethane coating materials main body with a 230gm polyethylene bathtub floor with welded seams that keeps you dry from the ground up. Set up is pretty simple with shock-corded fiberglass poles and reflective guy lines, to help you see them when you have to get up during the night for nature calls.
Tent care and getting it ready to go
Tents today are made from nylon materials that are designed to shed water and keep you dry. That doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement, and from experience, I can tell you that you should seriously look into treating the rainfly at the very least before you go camping.
I always set a new tent up in the yard before I ever use it. For one, it helps let me know exactly how it sets up and two, it gives me the chance to treat the fabric with Camp Dry. Camp Dry is a silicon-based spray that adds a big level of water proofing to the fabric. I gives the rainfly the deepest coat and then look at the rest of the tent. Let it dry completely before putting the tent away. This not only helps with keeping you dry, but also helps make the tent last longer, especially when stored.
Now there is one other thing you should know when setting your tent up in the yard for the first time. Taking it back down and trying to fit it back in the original bag, well, if you can do that, you’re a camping wizard.
How do you pick the right tent?
Answering a few simple questions can help you choose a tent that’s the right tent for your family:
- Does the tent provide ample protection from the elements?
- Is the tent made of quality material?
- Does the tent have plenty of space for everyone to sleep comfortably?
- Will the tent fit in your vehicle?
- Is the tent light enough for you to carry it to and from your campsite?
Retailers like Cabela’s offer a wide range of tents, and their in-house brands are some of the best you can get. These guys know camping and tents.
How big of a tent do I need for comfortable camping?
It’s hard to determine exactly how big of a tent do you really need to make it the right tent for your family. The tent sizing is determined by taking the average space an adult takes up inside of a sleeping bag. So a four person tent has enough space inside for 4 adults to sleep side-by-side without touching. Does that make it the right size for you and your family? That’s a tough question to answer. I usually suggest that you go up to at least the next size tent. So a family of four should consider a 6-person tent as the right tent size for them. You can always go bigger for more space, too. I usually take an 8- or 10-person tent for my family of 5 so we have space.
Can you go too big when picking a tent?
The only consideration I feel is appropriate for going down on tent sizing is when you’re looking at a backpacking tent. When size and weight matter, smaller is better. Otherwise do what you want and just enjoy camping. It’s a great family pastime.
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