I had Colman tents as a little kid. Heavy, a few steps above crapulent but they kept me safe in the back yard. I eventually grew into backpacking and had a series of great tents (Eureka, REI). Not only easier to set up (e.g. better engineering tolerances) but incredibly light. I never looked back.
Until now. It’s been about thirty years since I had a Colman and am in the market for a family-sized tent to take to music festivals. That’s why I’m reconsidering Colman. No backpacking, so weight isn’t really a concern. And given the venue, there’s a stronger preference for interior space. Not that backpacking tents are necessarily cramped, but since they have to balance weight with features.
So given what we’re using it for, will we notice a difference? Will we be better off saving a couple hundred bucks and going with a Colman purchase or are enthusiast tents still the better deal?
Oh, if it makes a difference we’ll have a toddler camping with us.
REI sell family sized tents (they have an entire category for “Family & Car Camping Tents”). In my observation, Coleman tents just aren’t well made on fundamental levels - like rain fly that doesn’t actually cover the tent? WTH good is that? Compare the Coleman Subset Dunes with its weakass rain fly to the REI Hobitat 4. You get what you pay for. Do you want to be sleeping with a soggy 2 year old? I’m thinking no.
In general, the cheaper tents have smaller rain flies because more of the tent itself is made of water-repellent material. That means the tent is heavier and doesn’t breathe as well, but they usually keep the rain out just fine.
I’ll buck the trend. I have nicer tents, but for casual family camping we use a Coleman. It works fine and I like it. We take good care of our camping stuff, and it’s lasted a few years. My SO has a cheapie dome tent (not even as nice as a Coleman) and he’s been using it for something like 20 years. So maybe we’re just an anomaly.
I’ll give a differing opinion. I have been a Boy Scout leader for 8 years and an avid camper my whole life. I love REI stuff and they make great, high end equipment. For backpacking, they are your best choice. For car camping (which what you are proposing), Coleman tents will be perfect. I have a basic three man Coleman tent that is over 8 years old and still doesn’t leak. It gets used almost every month so it has seen plenty of use. It has been rained on, snowed on, and survived heavy winds. We have used Coleman tents for our troop tents and they survived for many years, and believe that they have been subjected to abuse.
My opinion; Coleman makes a great inexpensive tent. Take care of it (keep it clean, never store it wet, never allow shoes inside) and it will keep you dry for years.
I bought a cheap Coleman 4-man at the outlet store for a ridiculously cheap price. All I’ve used it for is backyard camping, and even then one of the poles broke and I had to replace one of the sections. It’s built to a price-point, and I’m surprised it’s lasted as long as it has (5-6 years I think). I wouldn’t trust it out in the woods if it was the only thing that might keep the rain off me at night, but for what you describe it sounds like it will work. Incidentally, I slept in it last night.
I always used Eureka tents when I was into backpacking and I imagine I’ll get one again when the kids are old enough to camp in the woods. I doubt the Coleman will still be in one piece by then.
With a toddler, I recommend the Coleman. We bought the $40 on-sale Coleman family 4 person dome tent 7 years ago. We said, “It’s only for car camping, it’s cheap, we don’t care if a spark from a fire gets it, we don’t care if it gets marshmallowed, we don’t care if the kids punch a hole in it, we don’t care if the zippers get played with, we don’t care if the dog shreads it.” But the darned thing is still with us. Probably 60 nights of camping done in it, a couple of backyard fort uses. We’ve always put down an extra tarp underneath to protect from the ground, but this thing just keeps going. We even have taken it for a couple of 4 day backpacking trips- stripped down to the essentials, of course. With kids, you aren’t going to stick around if it is going to be rainy for more than an hour or two- it’s not worth it. So don’t worry too much about being 100% waterproof.
My recommendation, buy the cheapest tent and spend the extra on good sleeping bags.
If this is true - if you will definitely bail when it rains, then I agree. I was thinking the opposite in my reply - that the OP would want want to ensure continued comfort, regardless of weather conditions (in my thinking most people don’t readily give up on music festivals, as they are special events).
In my experience the “water resistant” properties of Coleman tents merely insure that in a steady rain water runs down and seeps in the bottom seams, to form a nice cold puddle for you to sleep in. but this does assume more than a drizzle, and more than an hour or two of it.
I recently bought a very good used tent I found via Craigslist. It is for my gf to use as a bathroom on our pontoon boat (when she doesn’t feel like jumping into the water). It is a high-end tent in excellent condition that I picked up for a Coleman price. One use a season and I’m ahead!
In cub scouts when we would do 3 or 4 family camps per year, I invested in a Eureka family tent. A bit of a PITA to put up, but when a storm blew through one evening, all a falling limb did was shred the rainfly. It was a good tent. My wife and I had cots and the 2 kids slept on the ground. We had plenty of room for when it was raining (we don’t bail for a little rain unless the rainfly is shredded). It had gone through a bunch of bad weather, too. We saw some heavy downpours that flooded other families’ tents, but ours was nice and dry.
When I started camping with the Boy Scouts, the leaders slept in this tent. Two of us leaders could get it up in less than 3 minutes (not including stakes and guy lines). We could get it down and back in the bag in under 5 minutes (again, not counting stakes and guy lines). The stakes and guylines only added about another 5 minutes. Less, if there were a bunch of us.
Part of what made it so quick was that there was no rainfly. The whole tent was made of the rainfly material. We usually kept the windows unzipped all day and there was a little flap in the roof for hot air to get out.
It was easy, quick and big. We could easily fit four 200+ lb men in each of those with no problems.
Edited to add that all of the Boy Scouts in my troop used Colman tents as well. Not the nice ones like the leaders got, they used 4 man dome tents. They never had too much of a problem with them other than not zipping up the door completely or they decided that they wanted to see the stars with the rainfly off, then fell asleep and a storm roll in. So I’d say that Coleman still makes some pretty good tents.
TLDR version: A full coverage fly is an advantage, but one that covers only part of the tent still serves a useful function.
You don’t need a fly to keep the rain out. You could just use waterproof main fabric for that.
What a fly does is allow part of the main tent to NOT be waterproof, and thus allow aspired moisture to exit the tent rather than condensing inside. This moisture may (and if it is a clear night, it will) condense on the underside of the fly, where it runs outward and does not drip into the tent through the breathable panels.
The fly doesn’t need to cover the entire tent for this to work. You just need a big breathable area covered, and the fly needs to extend a bit beyond to allow for the dripping described above, and also enough for rain not blow under in light winds. (Heavy winds nothing will stop it, so no point in trying for that)
Interestingly a rain fly needn’t be really waterproof to work. As long as it stops rain drops, it can become wet and still drip outside the vent. So using a fly makes waterproofing of the fabric far less critical. Seams on the fly needn’t be sealed, and holes in the waterproofing due to wear seldom cause problems. Remember that flys are often wet on the underside due to condensation, so a little extra from seepage doesn’t hurt.
The second thing a fly does is serve as a second layer to block radiant heat loss and gain. A tent with a fly that provides good coverage will be cooler on sunny days, and warmer on cold clear nights than one with just a single layer. This often works to prevent dew from forming on the main tent, at least in the area covered by the fly.
You make a good point and if one is determined to weather the storm, drier is better. But camping with young kids especially for someone who hasn’t camped in many years may not be the idyllic adventure one remembers and that it is probably better to cut one’s losses and try again another day. We’ve only bailed twice from camping and definitely not a regret in either case. Once because the forecast said that it was supposed to rain all night and through much of the next day and the other because 20+ young people took the spot next to ours and we didn’t want to suffer through another night of the ruckus. In both cases we cooked dinner had a campfire (in the rain in the former case) and then got in the car for bedtime. We just rolled up the wet tent with everything inside and took it home for unpacking and drying. The kids got a couple of nights in the tent and smores, etc. and everyone had a great last day back at home after a good night sleep!
I disagree. A good quality tent (one brand is Kelty) with a full coverage fly will stay dry inside in heavy rain with heavy wind. I’ve weathered several storms that soaked other tents and even blew some down without getting water in my tent.
Again, if you just want handle some light rain without much wind this may be true, but the fly and its seams must be waterproof to keep water out if there’s heavy rain. Over several hours of significant rain the seepage can add up to quite a bit more than “a little” and it will come into the tent.
Having camped through all seasons and conditions, I know the ill-weather value of a good tent. Not to take anything away from cherished memories in a Colman, but the dryness–and even coolness–of a higher-end tent is palpably noticeable.
We’ve all had bailed trips, but I don’t think I’ve ever had to bail during a trip. Well, once when Mrs. Devil and I got our canoe caught in a strainer and we spent a cold night on a root ball, but other than that we’re used to having hiked in for a few miles at least. Bottom line for that is my general philosophy. Two, really. First, camping is the art of being comfortable in nature. The other is it’s not the quality of the peanut butter sandwich that makes it so good; it’s how far into the woods you carried it.
But music festivals are a completely different element. We’ll be within walking distance of the van, so if there’s that heavy a downpour we’ll have an escape (and a place to keep dry clothes). Given that we’ll have the Dudeling with us we paid for VIP tickets–so wherever we go there’ll be covered areas and plumbed toilets. Plus from what we hear the family area has lots of shaded areas so the heat shouldn’t get too bad (and we won’t quite be returning to the tent until later in the evening).
Given the lack of consensus in general–and the warm nostalgia that returned for Colman tents and Scouting–it sounds like for our purposes a Colman will do. A huge thing is realizing that a careful four-year-old is still a four-year-old. Let him trash it if he does and not worry.
If you have enough space a pop up canopy is a good addition. With some you can get a shade wall and screens to put up if the bugs are bad. In the case of heavy rain you can easily move the canopy over your tent.
Coleman will do. Eureka will do. Eureka was even running a contest giving away a tent a day for most of the Spring (not sure if thats over). By me, the local camping store is Campmor and they rarely steer you wrong.
