The two simple and identical poles were quick and painless to put together, and the lack of color coding between them and the tent body minimized any type of confusion or missteps along the way. Further aiding to the straightforward coleman cabin tent set up was the relatively small rainfly, which was easy to toss over the tent. Even assembling the Sundome 6 solo was a smooth process, which took less than 10 minutes from start to finish at a leisurely pace.
The best-selling Coleman Sundome 6-Person Tent has a footprint similar to that of our top-pick tent for families, but it feels significantly smaller because it has a dome-style rather than cabin-style design. Nevertheless, it still comfortably accommodates four, and it’s a roomy choice for two. This no-nonsense, single-door tent is intuitive to set up, has sufficient windows, includes a partial rain fly that’s easy to put on and stake out, and is cheery-feeling inside and out.
The first was an early February trip to Indian Cove Campground, in Joshua Tree National Park, where daytime temperatures in the high 70s plunged to the mid-30s at night. (A later check of the weather at nearby Point Mugu Naval Air Station confirmed that the recorded winds had topped 40 miles per hour.) A third trip brought us to Wheeler Gorge Campground, outside Ojai, California, in April 2016. A year later, in early April 2017, we took another group trip to Point Mugu, in an effort to evaluate three additional family tents. Families who regularly pitch their tent in rainy locales need a wind-fighting tent with a good-size vestibule for storing wet shoes and gear, as well as a full rain fly for added weather protection.
To evaluate the small tents in real-world situations, we took them first to Greggs Hideout, on the Arizona side of Lake Mead. During our tests in this area, temperatures reached upwards of 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and at night, as the sands cooled, whipping windstorms kicked up around us. It got so hot one afternoon that we spent the day taking shifts in the car, cooling our photography equipment while monitoring coleman sleeping bags ourselves for signs of heatstroke and dehydration. If tents can withstand those conditions, they’ll withstand just about anything. We also wanted self-standing tents, which stay up on their own before you stake them down. Even with a self-standing tent, ideally you should stake down each corner securely; in some crowded campgrounds, however, finding a flat spot with soil soft enough to do that can be difficult.
The reason is that they build them separately for the EU market and for the US market. So the former are huge and they typically can accommodate far more than 6 people. The Mineral King 3 and the Tungsten 4 have similar tent-body profiles and are nearly identical in setup, except that the Tungsten 4 uses two brow poles instead of one to support its fly. Like the Mineral King 3, the Tungsten is a largely mesh dome tent with a tape-seamed polyester bathtub floor, which is highly water resistant. Neither tent experienced any ground leaks during testing, either under rainy conditions or when we soaked the tents and the ground underneath them with a garden hose. Beyond their general size, the tents in our test group were very different from one another, with a wide array of pole configurations and window, door, and roof designs.
But in sudden, violent storms, car campers always have the easy (if perhaps pathetic) option of collapsing their tents and retreating to their cars. Weighing 2 pounds, 8 ounces, this backpacking tent by Big Agnes is an ultra-lightweight option for long hiking trips. It’s easy to pitch, with reflective guylines and color-coded webbing for nighttime set-up, and is made from solution-dyed fabric that’ll hold color longer and resist fading from UV rays. It’s a three-season tent, meaning its ripstop nylon/polyester mesh fabric won’t necessarily hold up in winter weather, but it’s still a durable and spacious option for backpacking beginners. This 3-person rooftop tent is designed to fit on top of most vehicles with a roof rack.