Like our top pick, the Tungsten 4 is a sturdy, two-door dome-style tent that can be deployed in about 5 minutes. It uses high-quality materials such as aluminum poles, breathable mesh, and water-resistant polyester fabric, and it comes with a full fly and a footprint. The Tungsten 4’s larger size accounts for the higher price tag (about $40 more), but campers who would like that extra room may find the expense worthwhile.
Overall, these poles—all of them aluminum—contribute to a particularly sturdy structure, with or without the rain fly. During our testing, our Base Camp shrugged off both a rainstorm and a desert windstorm as if they were nothing. Despite losing some headroom in comparison with the Kelty Wireless 6 and The North Face Wawona 6, both of which measure six-foot-four in height, the Base Camp 6 offers a substantial six-foot-two. The advertised setup time is a blistering 60 seconds, and we found that this was not an exaggeration—even if you start the clock with the tent still inside its travel bag.
I don’t think this Coleman 10-Person Instant Tent will do very well against strong winds. After about 3 hours of light rain, all the fabric of the main tent body (both the blue and black fabric) was still dry, which was great. So, if you have this tent, I recommend putting the zippers higher up where it’s more protected by the rainfly, instead of lower down, where water can seep in.
If there are no bugs, you can increase ventilation by leaving the hinged door open, and also by unzipping the other door, rolling it up and clipping it to the side right here like this. The hinged D-door measures about 50 by 34 inches in dimensions, and is only about 47 inches from the ground to the top of the door, because the side walls aren’t really that vertical. If there’s no rain, you you can unzip the windows for more ventilation, and there’s a bug net to prevent larger bugs from getting in.
After about 3 hours of light rain, I noticed that no water seeped through the bathtub flooring, and it was still dry, which was great. The pole structure is also very simple, and there are only 6 guylines in total for such a large tent. One of the best features about this tent is the dark room technology. In the above pictures, you saw what this Coleman 10-Person Instant Cabin Tent looked like with all the windows open.
A floating inflatable cabin tent should be waterproof and strong, and it should come with high-quality ropes and anchors. Right now, floating camps are not very common, and they are definitely very expensive. Some campers might find the Wawona 6’s footprint unwieldy in smaller campsites, or they might simply prefer a tent with a more straightforward design. If you want a six-person tent made with high-quality materials but a traditional profile, we recommend the similarly priced Big Agnes Spicer Peak 6, or Nemo’s Aurora Highrise 6.
The Wireless 6 lacks some of the premium materials found in pricier tents, but it features solid workmanship and should provide dependable, comfortable shelter in most three-season camping situations. The geodesic structure of the Base Camp tents is built to withstand wind and rain. It has two main that thread through sleeves, stretching between the four corners of the tent. Generally, we like clip-on designs better, since those are easier to put together, but in the case of the Base Camp models, the sleeves add extra tension and stability throughout the tent fabric. There are also two poles that arch over each doorway and down the sides of the tent to add extra shape and support; these attach to the tent body with clips. The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule.
However, this rainfly really only serves to add extra protection to the roof; it does not extend out far enough to provide sufficient protection for the doors and windows. The Coleman Instant Tent 6 has average dimensions for a 6-person tent, at 10’x9’ (90sqft). The peak height is 6’2”, which will allow most hikers to stand coleman cabin tent up without needing to crouch. In addition, this cabin-style tent has excellent verticality of the walls, so you shouldn’t need to crouch if you’re anywhere but in the direct center of the tent. This will most certainly be a tight squeeze for six people, but it could more comfortably accommodate two parents and two children.
An avid swimmer, surfer, hiker, and camper, she currently lives on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, where she can be found, as much as possible, in water. We found that company representatives are reluctant to estimate the lifespan of their tents. When pushed, most of the reps we talked to estimated five to 10 years, though the actual lifespan will vary widely depending on care and frequency of use (for more advice, read REI’s excellent tips).