My intention with these posts is to share some of the equipment that I find, or thought I would find, to make my hiking or camping experience better. Not all of the items are “must haves,” but I plan to share tips or things I wish I had known before purchasing. A handful of REI customers complain that the tent is not stable in strong winds. Though the previous version came with four guylines—the stabilizing lines that allow you to stake out the tent for added security in windy conditions—the current version does not, which is inconvenient. We set up the REI Screen House Shelter and L.L.Bean’s Woodlands Screen House side by side in the Mojave Desert in 100-degree temps.
With six mesh netting screen walls and a hexagonal shape, your views of the beautiful outdoors are only hindered by your friends, not the tent’s structure. While it’s not waterproof, the Alvantor Screen House can hold up to six people and instantly pop-up anywhere you need protection from the critters. Plus, at 41.6 square feet of floor space and a 7-foot maximum height, this screened canopy tent is roomy and comfortable.
As mentioned before, the door on the Evanston only opens halfway. This means getting your gear in and out of the tent is much harder than it should be. Add only two pockets and a weight of 20.9 lbs, and you get a tent that scores coleman instant tent very low in the ease of use category. Note that we add texts here regularly, so you might want to bookmark this site and visit from time to time. For more items of this type, please check under the category Screen Houses.
The Alvantor Pop-Up Screen House Tent might just be the best screen tent for camping because of its unique shape and low weight of 15 pounds. This quick-setup tent is perfect for summer evenings without bugs. You can even purchase an optional floor, genuinely bringing the indoors outside. The best screen tents for camping should accommodate six adults but still weigh less than 40 pounds.
First, the cheap fiberglass poles get snagged when pushing them into the sleeves. The poles also use a pin setup instead of the grommet setup seen on all the other tents in our lineup. However, you can’t put the fly on without fully staking the entire tent first. But because Coleman uses cheap elastic straps that clip to rings attached next to the poles, it is very hard to clip everything when under tension.
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It’s better to be prepared than to let something unexpected ruin your weekend. 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 coleman ice chest helpful advice, we’ll help you get it right (the first time). During the winter and early spring of 2017, we added four more canopy tents to our testing lineup. In addition to the models from REI and L.L.Bean, which became our new top picks, we tested the Coleman 15 × 13 Instant Screenhouse and the Wenzel Sun Valley Screen House.
The cap-like roofs on both models provided far less shade than we wanted, especially in the beating desert sun. The mesh walls do have a ribbon of polyester at the foot, but even carefully staked they can leave gaps at the ground; if bug protection is your main concern, these tents would likely fall short. Finally, these shelters feel noticeably smaller than any of our picks.
That’s why we focused on collapsible camping shelters with mesh walls to keep bugs at bay. We tested the Coleman 10 × 10 Instant Screened Canopy and Walmart’s Ozark Trail 10′ × 10′ Instant Screen House during our first round of testing in the winter and spring of 2016. These two shelters are the same size and shape (7-foot peak height, 17 pounds) with an almost identical design.
The tent is easy to erect with its cross frame and assist function, even by one person. It also features side windows that can be opened to let light in as needed. For optimal cooling, the tent can be used with a reversible fan ventilation (sold separately) that allows outside air to flow into the tent, creating a cooler space with the power of the wind. It’s 10 x 10 feet and 7 feet tall, with an easy one-minute set-up that could qualify it as one of the instant tents.