If you can afford to spend more on a family tent, we recommend The North Face Wawona 6. Everyone who tested this tent loved it, and it’s not hard to understand why. With plenty of interior space, near-vertical walls, and a gigantic vestibule that could accommodate a golf cart, the Wawona feels coleman cabin tent more like a tiny home than a tent. The biggest material difference between the Sundome and our other picks is its crunchy, tarp-like polyethylene floor. The other tents in this guide all have bathtub-style tape-seamed polyester floors, which is the standard among high-quality tents.
Each canopy was set up and broken down repeatedly to assess its ease of use and craftsmanship, separating the well-designed from the failure-prone or confusing models. Methodically, we used each tent in its intended environment — plus some unintended ones — to see just how much use we could get out of them. From whipping wind to sweltering sun to relentless rain, we set up these canopy tents across multiple weather scenarios to test them in the worst and best elements. We even carried or rolled each tent 100 feet to see how much suffering it took to move them from point A to B. We also hosed the tents down to see if the material is water-resistant and strong enough for an afternoon thunderstorm.
But with car camping—the industry term for what most people consider just camping—you’ll likely be parking next to your campsite and unloading. If you won’t be carrying your tent more than a couple hundred feet, more space means more comfort (as well as more room for your stuff). An avid hiker, camper, and long-haul road-tripper, Claire Wilcox has slept in (and occasionally improvised) tents in 11 states. She covers outdoor gear for Wirecutter and worked on the most recent update of this guide, testing couples’ tents and family tents. A full rain cover, two vestibules, and an extra-sturdy pole structure make this the best choice for families who want to get outside in any weather.
(We were stubborn and didn’t look at the instructions.) Once you identify the front and back, the process is straightforward. The fly goes up and over the tent body, covering only the upper half of the mesh dome, and then forms the glorious vestibule with the aid of a third pole. Use the extra stakes and guy-lines provided to stabilize the vestibule as much as you need. At $500, this modified dome-style tent isn’t cheap, but it represents substantial value. Many tents with similar profiles—such as the Big Agnes Dog House 6—either cost more or require you buy the tent body and attachable vestibule separately. The Wawona doesn’t come with a footprint—few tents this size do—but it’s otherwise all-inclusive, and it is compact considering how much livable space you get.
If you can spend a bit more and want a more traditional cathedral shape, the Caravan V-Series is a good choice. We are also very impressed with the overall value the Coleman 10×10 Sun Shelter brings to the table. It’s slightly more expensive than the cheapest options on our list, but we feel its price point is nearly perfect considering its quality and performance, specifically its extra features and beefier design. To uncover the best canopy tent, we use comprehensive test metrics and cover all manner of use cases and essential details. We also took a close look at the quality of each canopy tent in our craftsmanship metric, as well as measuring each tent when packed up to provide details on portability. We weighted each metric according to its importance before grading and ranking each shelter, side by side, on a scale of 1-10.
Our notes on this shelter are mostly positive — there isn’t much we don’t like about the Escape. In addition to costing you a few extra clams, this product doesn’t pack up very small. When stowed in its carrying case, it could easily be confused with a winter travel bag carrying snow skis. Its packed size is more the 6 feet, making it difficult to fit into an average-sized car.
You can also get a nice cross breeze going by leaving the vestibules open. On sunny days and clear nights, take off the fly and enjoy the sky through the tent’s clear mesh canopy. Some testers, though, thought the tent was stuffy when the fly was fully closed and the sun was out. Both Base Camp tents have two doors and lots of mesh in the main tent body. But unlike the Mineral King 3 and the Tungsten 4, the mesh on each Base Camp tent starts high on the walls—more than 4 feet from the ground.
These pins are a little harder to use, especially during takedown, and they have a greater likelihood of pinching the skin. Our second grading metric involves how fast and easy it is to set up and take down each shelter, but it also considers how simple and intuitive both processes are. While we recommend a minimum of two people to set up most shelters, the ease of this process can vary drastically depending on the design and quality of materials. While being timed, we set up and took down each product a minimum of 10 times. We also noted special features, like quick-release levers, that make setup easier. The Eurmax Standard 10×10 is very functional, followed closely by the E-Z Up Pyramid, Clam Outdoors Quick-Set Escape, and Eureka Tagalong Shelter.