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The best family tents

Take to the outdoors and pack the whole gang into one of the best family tents

best family tents
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There’s nothing worse than a tiny cramped tent you can barely move around in or one which forces you into contorted, yoga-like poses just to change your shirt. If you’re camping with the whole family, it’s even more important you have enough space — not only to sleep everyone comfortably but also to allow you to lounge around at the end of a long day or when the weather is poor.

Aside from space, it’s ideal to have a tent that’s sturdy, durable, and built of high-quality waterproof fabrics to protect you from the elements. You’ll also want a tent that’s both easy and straightforward to set up because spending an hour shoving poles into clips and pulling your hair out trying to decipher how everything adds up is a lousy way to start any time spent outdoors. Without further ado, these are the best family tents designed for easy setup, loads of space, and maximum comfort.

Big Agnes Big House 4

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Big Agnes’s Big House 4 is the perfect combination of roomy and spacious, without being so giant and cumbersome that it’s a drag to haul and set up. At 56 square feet, the breathable polyester tent is covered in 1500-millimeter waterproof polyurethane coating, allowing it to block out the elements without the inside getting stuffy.

Doors are featured on each side with easy-open zippers and mesh for ventilation. It’s loaded with pockets — iPad-sized pouches on the side walls, interior mesh pockets, and stowable bin pockets that are used as bedside tables. The Big Agnes Big House 4 comes in a briefcase-style carry bag and is simple to set up with color-coded webbing and buckles, making it convenient, compact, and versatile.

Mountainsmith Conifer 5+

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Aside from the large, 84-square-foot living space inside this awesome three-season tent, Mountainsmith’s Conifer 5+ boasts a bonus 33-square-foot front porch perfect for relaxing in lawn chairs. Designed to fit two adults, three children — as well as a dog — you and the family can soak up the view of your natural surroundings with the no-see-um mesh wall panels while making use of the multiple pockets and hooks to stash gear.

The Mountainsmith Conifer 5+ also features taped floor seams, a removable storage loft, and enough height for a 6-foot, 2-inch person to stand up. The reflective guylines and convenient suitcase style stuff sack make it simple to put together and even easier to carry.

Wenzel Shenanigan 8

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If you want to be that family that rolls into camp and starts setting up a giant, full-sized condo to wow your fellow campers, then Wenzel’s Shenanigan 8 is the tent for you. This teepee-style abode is ridiculously easy to put up with a single pole in the center, meaning less time setting up camp and more time hanging out around the campfire.

The peak of the ceiling sits nearly 8 feet high — which is more than enough room to stand up comfortably in the center — and it has an easy inverted T style door with roll back flaps. Zippered windows, mesh roof vents, and four easy-stash gear pockets round out the list of reasons to buy this fantastic tent.

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Wenzel

Eureka Copper Canyon  6

Whether your family likes to play card games or lounge around reading books on rainy days, the Copper Canyon 6 from Eureka is a stellar choice for providing ample indoor space to hang out. Built for six people, it has a steel and fiberglass frame with walls that are nearly vertical, making it fit cots and air beds perfectly. The cabin-style tent features tons of pockets, breezy windows for ventilation, and a zippered E Power Port that makes it possible to bring an electric cord inside with you. Best of all, the Eureka Copper Canyon 6 is incredibly easy to erect with yellow-to-yellow color matching alongside ring and pin assembly.

Marmot Limestone 6P

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With one giant, oversized double door, Marmot’s Limestone 6P is made with a combination of durable polyesters and a 3000-millimeter waterproof floor, making it an excellent choice for family adventures where rain or other elements may be a factor. The tent keeps six people warm and holds together well in wind and inclement weather via its weather-proof seam-taped fly and sturdy build material.

Its clips and poles are color-coded so setup is a cinch and — along with multiple gear pockets — it boasts a handy lamp sleeve to create light inside from your headlamp. Put frankly, the Marmot Limestone 6P is a great all-around tent.

Coleman Instant Tent 6

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Coleman’s six-person Instant Cabin tent is one of the easiest tents to set up that we’ve seen, featuring pre-attached poles and reflective guylines. Its extra spacious, 10 by 9-foot living area is big enough to fit two queen-sized airbeds and at over six feet tall, the tent pitches high enough to comfortably stand up in.

With hyper-durable Polyguard 2X fabric and Coleman’s patented WeatherTec welded floors — paired with its sturdy built-in rainfly — this is a family tent you can confidently trust in bad weather. To top it off, the Coleman Instant Tent 6 boasts convenient storage pockets inside to stash gear, allowing you to keep your belongings ultra-organized.

Rachel Cavanaugh
Rachel discovered outdoor recreation in ’98 when she stumbled into a river town one summer and left a raft guide 3 months…
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