Anyone have a large camping tent suggestion?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Car camping, family, we camp cushy. All I want is a huge, ginormous tent that weighs 4 ounces and can fit in my glovebox when folded. Is that too much to ask? :smiley:

My favorite tent of all time was a two-fer: one room dome tent with one screentent. They were of equal size (radius ~ 7 feet) and could be connected with a little “hallway” zipped between them. The effect was not unlike a giant brassiere, and we called it The Boob Tent. My 6’4" husband could stand in them without ducking. I used the screentent as a kitchen, and there was still plenty of room in the tenttent for a queen sized air mattress and our gear. If we camped somewhere where space was tight, the screentent could be sacrificed, or set up across the way, as they could be separated at will.

Alas, time and the elements took their toll, and after 7 years, The Boob Tent was no longer watertight even with religious seam sealer and waterproofing. A final 2 week wetfest was the last straw, and it’s currently in a landfill in Ohio somewhere… I don’t think it’s made anymore; at least, I can’t find another.

Now we have a Northeast (Outfitters? Explorers? Trail? something…now defunct, I believe, the tent was bought on clearance) cabin style tent. We use 1/4 of it for sleeping, another 1/4 for gear, one corner of it for a little popup shade tent for my daughter to sleep in (she needs her own “room” or she won’t sleep) and the other end is our kitchen. I do like having my kitchen inside the tent (yes, I know you’re not supposed to have a Coleman stove inside a tent, but when the windows are open, the ventilation is superb) and it’s nice to have all my food and stuff out without having to worry about rain. But the tent also suffers a few design flaws. It’s huge, which is great, except when there’s no room for it at campgrounds with small spots. It requires the canopy to be unfurled - if it’s not, then the rainfly collects water, and in short course, so does the tent. The canopy has to be staked out quite a ways from the footprint of the tent, so we’re really taking up about a 14’X20’ spot - way too big to be neighborly. I’ve got to attach glowsticks to the guy wires nightly, or people trip over them all night. And this weekend a pole cracked in a storm.

I’m not crazy about the idea of tracking down a replacement pole for a (discontinued) tent I’m not crazy about, so I’m thinking of getting a new tent. Tent shopping gives me headaches.

So what I need: a tent to sleep at least 4, with lots of gear, including things like drums and children which are just miserable when wet. A place to cook even when it’s raining; doesn’t have to be in the tent, can be a totally separate structure, but has to be at least mostly enclosable to discourage foraging raccoons and hippies with the munchies. And both have to be tall enough for a tall person to stand in them; we spend too much time in the tent to be stooping.

Oh, and we only have about $150 to spend, unless you can personally swear to me that the tent you endorse is really, honestly worth more and will last me multiple years without headache. I’ve never gotten, say, an REI tent, because deep down I believe that any $400 tent must be a scam.

2

Yep. I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend this Coleman tent.

I can personally swear that you will truly and honestly love it.

We’ve had it for about 5 years now and it is in pristine condition. We camp about once a month, rain and shine. Usually long weekend trips, but we also do at least 2 week-long camping trips a year.

It is the easiest tent ever to set up. My husband and I have this one up in less than 5 minutes. And broken down too. Ours packs away easily in a rolling bag that’s just a bit larger than say an umbrella stroller when folded up.

It’s large and it will keep you dry. My husband is just over 6 ft. I think, and he stands with plenty more room above his head. We fit our queen size mattress in one side with plenty of room on that side for us to walk around. We’ve had guests and our kids stay on the other side no problem, but now that it’s most often just the 2 of us, the other half stores our bags, shoes, laundry hamper, and just stays mostly vacant as a changing area or whatever.

We get inquiries about it every time we camp. Mostly people like the size of it, and they are amazed at how quickly and effortlessly we have it set up and broken down.

Personally, I wouldn’t dream of having our stove or kitchen stuff in the tent. We have too much, and in some areas, it’s not an option with bears and all that. I don’t know how much space your cooking set up usually takes, but if you are sleeping 4 or more in this tent, I don’t think it would be ideal to add the kitchen area too.

We have a screen/shade house we use. I can’t recall the brand off hand, but it’s similar to something like this.

It’s where the kitchen goes if it’s raining or there is no natural shade. (We keep all of our food items in our ‘camping box’ along with our pots and pans and whatnot. Basically a big Rubbermaid bin that snaps shut. Everything stays dry. And it works to keep crows and squirrels and raccoons out, but when in bear country we obviously have to use the bear boxes at the camping site.)

3

We have something very similar to the linked tent, and I think it’s a Coleman. We love it.

Anyway … how was your weekend? Any more raids by the feds? :smiley:

4

I meant to add this, but got sidetracked. Darn work! :wink:

Anyway, the one we have has screen for the ceiling, which is really nice for star gazing when you know it isn’t going to rain. It’s one of my favorite aspects of our tent. The rain fly on ours has clear plastic windows that go over the screened areas of the ceiling, so you can still see the sky, but it’s kind of blurry.

It also has flaps that lay on the ground in front of the doors where you can either take your shoes off or wipe your feet or whatever.

I didn’t notice either of these in the picture of the tent I linked to, but otherwise the design is the same as ours.

5

Ooooh! That’s some nice looking reviews there! I had just whizzed right by that tent on my search, thinking it couldn’t possibly be sturdy with only three poles. 12X9 is a bit smaller than what I have (which is good), but still nice and roomy. I’m thinking maybe a stand alone pop up is what I need for the kitchen, as well, but none of them pack small. Maybe I need to just go low tech and rig a lean-to out of a tarp and some rope. The food will certainly fit into that tent with us, and the stove can go outside. From the looks of it, I wouldn’t use a stove inside that tent, either. I’m devil-may-care, but I’m not reckless! There don’t look to be enough windows to give that level of ventilation, but OTOH, fewer windows means fewer seams, and fewer seams mean fewer leaks.

Avarie537, the weekend was great! Well, okay, Friday was wet. Instead of waiting out the rain like sensible people, I threw some beers around and got three of my friends to help me sent up our huge ass cabin tent in the rain. Which, on second thought, might have contributed to some of the leakage: I think someone stepped on top of the rain fly while it was wet. :smack: But it was a hell of a lot of fun once we passed that point of “so wet you don’t feel the rain anymore.”

And no, no more feds. :smiley: