My Favorite Tent For 2021 (plus My Favorite Lower Budget Options)

hey y'all dixie here today i want to talk to you about my favorite backpacking tints for 2021. i've used a lot of great tents over the years and i do think certain ones are best suited for particular scenarios i do have an all-time favorite though but let's start going through that list first i want to make mention of my least favorite tents that i considered for this list just because i most recently used it while i was on the penhody trail and that is the big agnes tiger wall 2 carbon tent it's a two person tent it's also a double walled semi-freestanding tent because you still have to stake out the vestibule and some other areas on the tent but more or less it could stand up by itself and offer you some shelter if you couldn't use the stakes for some reason this tent has a lofty price tag of one thousand dollars but it does only weigh 22 ounces because the manufacturer states that it is a pretty delicate tent they highly recommend having a footprint or some sort of ground cloth so the footprint that is manufactured specifically for this tent cost me eighty dollars online and it weighs four ounces now you would think for a thousand dollar tent they could go on and throw in a four ounce piece of cloth but alas they do not i think that there could be some applications for this tent even though it seems to be super delicate so if you were going to be camping in areas that were very well trodden so you're not going to have any abrasion to the tent also if you just have to have that freestanding idea because it brings you some comfort and you really want the most lightweight tent possible then this could work for you especially if money is no issue and i don't want to sound like i'm just completely bashing it but i do think that most people in the backpacking community this just really isn't going to work out for but it is nice to see one of these larger companies that's at rei and some of the other larger outdoor stores try to get into the world of dyneema shelters and and more ultralight type shelters because typically you only see those in the cottage companies all right so now i'm moving along to some favorites first up is my favorite tent for more damp or wet climates and colder temperatures and that is the tarp tint stratispire lithium the reason i think this tent fits that application the best is because it is a double wall tent so you've got that extra buffer another layer on your shelter to capture a little bit more warmth inside your tent and then also you have less issues with condensation this way because the idea is that the condensation will form on the outer wall where you won't have any condensation on the inner mesh wall and i found that to be true while i was using it on the pennody trail although it's a double walled tent it is still a very lightweight tent because it sets up using trekking poles and doesn't have its own designated set of tent poles and it's really nice because where the trekking poles are set up on this tent they're not right in the middle of the doorway so they're not in your way while you're trying to climb in and out of the tent i really appreciated that about this design in addition to saving weight because it sets up using trekking poles it's also made out of a lightweight yet also strong fabric dyneema so it's only 26 ounces for a double wall tent less than two pounds for a two person double wall tent is pretty great and it's still roomy there was enough room for me my gear my dog fancy mae and her gear i also like that the stratospire lithium is a very adjustable setup there are a lot of places that you can kind of cinch or tighten up and loosen up and i especially liked that you can control how much space is between the mesh wall and the outer wall now let's talk about the cons first off it's pricey it costs 689 dollars also there's a bit of a learning curve involved in the setup i found that i actually had to read the instructions to kind of understand the best and most efficient way to set it up but even after reading the instructions and following that it still just took a little while to get used to the setup now that could be because other tints i've used i used much longer and so that was drilled into my head on how to set those up but i just don't think it's as simple out of the box as some of the other tents that i've used and the struts there are two corners that have struts and in a way that's a pro because it's nice that it's got that as part of the design but on the other hand they can be kind of a pain in the butt especially when you're packing the tent up you have to be mindful of the struts so you're not breaking them i like to just be able to stuff my tents i don't like to have to deal with folding and rolling and all of that so while that may be more efficient and less time consuming i just prefer to shove the struts in and then slowly cram in the body of the tent and the fly around the struts i just found that it wasn't as easy to pack up as some of the other tents i've had and also the struts can cause a bit of an issue i had a situation one night on the penhody trail where we got some pretty extreme wind and rain and the stakes that i had on the two corners with the struts kept popping up it's just the ground was really rocky and it was hard to get any kind of stake in there because i have several different types of steaks in my steak bag when i go out backpacking but anyway so i couldn't get the steaks to say normally that's not an issue for me with other tents because i can just stack a rock on top of the steaks but the way that these struts are set up it kind of blocks you from being able to do that and for the rock to function how it should but i figured out a way to solve that problem and that was by tying some extra guy line out to the strut and then staking it and so if i had that issue you know i could just stack a rock on top of the stake that was attached to the guy line from the strut my favorite tent for when i have company well in addition to or other than miss fancy may is the z packs triplex this tent is pretty much like the duplex just a bit larger so it's got some extra stakeout points otherwise it sets up and functions just the same as the duplex technically you could fit two people in the duplex the duplex signifies that it's a two person tent and the triplex is a three person but if you want to have your two bodies and your gear inside and especially if you also have a dog with you it's just much more of an enjoyable situation if you've got that extra space it's simple to set up and quick to pack up some of the negative aspects of the triplex are it's a single walled tent so with single wall tints you're always gonna have condensation if you're sleeping in an area that has any significant moisture in the air but the design of the triplex and also the duplex is set up to try to mitigate that because the idea is you have the moisture that collects on the walls of the tent and then it runs down the wall and through this mesh area that goes around the bathtub floor so the only thing you got to watch out for though is that you're not laying your sleeping bag against the wall to where it can get you know a lot of moisture on it and end up damp or wet but also if you're on significantly sloped ground it can make you slide towards the wall of the tent so your sleeping pad and sleeping bag can end up pushing out the bathtub floor where it's past the outer wall and therefore water from the outside like the rain or even the condensation on the inside can then shoot down into the tent so you definitely want to make sure you're not doing that and it is a pricey tent it totals out at 699 my favorite middle of the line tent is the nemo hornet the two person or the one person i prefer two person tents just for that added space of my gear and being able to spread everything out but if you wanted to go a little bit more lightweight and a little bit more budget-friendly then you could go with the one-person tent in my opinion the nemo hornet is very much a quality double walled tent it's also semi-freestanding as you have to stake out the vestibule it's a relatively lightweight shelter especially considering that it's double walled and not made out of dyneema it's a nylon fabric it weighs two pounds for the one person tent and two pounds five ounces for the two person tent the cost on this is 330 dollars for the one person 370 dollars for the two person i probably would have chosen the big agnes fly creek ul2 for this particular category because it is a good tent and i used it on my entire thru hike of the appalachian trail but my only nitpick with that tent is how the tent opens so it opens on the smaller end instead of the longer side where the nemo hornet actually opens on the longer side so if you get the two-person version you've got two entry ways so that you're not disturbing the person beside you hopefully as much when you enter and exit the tent it's just easier to get in that way when i got in my fly creek ul2 i felt like i was climbing into a dog crate or something so that may not be a deal breaker for some of y'all but it's just a personal preference for me big agnes did end up correcting this if if that's what you want to call it with their original tiger wall tent but i've only used the tiger wall carbon so i can't really speak to the original tiger wall design my favorite budget tent is the 3ful landshan one it's a double wall tent that sets up using trekking poles it weighs 28.4 ounces i paid 114 dollars for it but the price fluctuates on there so you can catch it when it's a bit higher or also a bit lower i would say this is just a really solid tent for folks who are just getting into the world of backpacking and don't want to spend a ton of money on something that they're not sure that they're really going to enjoy or if you've got a boy scout or a girl scout that needs some backpacking gear and you want them to have something that's quality that's going to be durable enough for their trips but that also isn't just going to weigh their pack down and i think this is a good option for that last but not least my favorite all-around go-to tent and the one that i would choose if i could only take one backpacking tent with me on the rest of the trips that i'll have in my life is the z-packs duplex the duplex remains the most simple tent i have to set up to tear down and to pack away and for my style of backpacking where i'm either really tired after a long day and or considering how much i not hike i'm setting it up in the dark this just works well for me i've used this tent for thousands of miles on all terrains i've even set it up on a solid rock slab before because all you got to do is stand up your trekking poles stretch out the guy lines put your stake through the loop and then stack rocks on top of the stakes the duplex is made from dyneema and i know a lot of people when they see zpac shelters or really any shelters made from dyneema they're like it looks like a cheap trash bag i'd never be caught in the woods in a shelter like that but it's it's literally the strongest fabric in the world another thing about the duplex that is perfect for me is it's a two-person tent so there's lots of space but it only weighs 19.4 ounces and for all of the camera equipment that i take with me on trail because i share all of my journeys with y'all it's important for me to have the most lightweight tent that's still comfortable and roomy enough for my personal preferences now i'll sit here and sing praises on the duplex all day long but i still recognize that it's got some cons first of all it's expensive the zpax duplex costs 599 another big complaint that a lot of people have about the duplex and dyneema tents in general is that they're a bit more noisy than other shelters especially if you've got a windy night just that crinkling sound of the dyneema whipping in the wind or even if it's not windy and you're just adjusting in your tent it is a bit more noisy than other tents so that may be a deal breaker for you but it doesn't really bother me of course being a single wall tent as i mentioned before you will have some condensation so that's something that you have to be mindful of but i've had the duplex set up in very damp and humid conditions and it's still not something that is an issue for me or that i think is unsafe again the only thing that i make sure to be mindful of is that i'm not pushing that bathtub floor out past the wall of the tent while it's raining dyneema is great for strong winds and heavy rain it'll never sag and i don't think it would be possible for the wind to tear it up but it probably isn't as resistant to punctures or abrasion as other fabrics and some of you all might remember back in 2017 when i was on my through hike of the pacific crest trail i had an issue with my duplex where it ended up leaking and flooding and there wasn't like a specific puncture hole it just seemed like the material had some abrasion wear and tear on it but after contacting zpax they replaced it without any issue so i had a brand new duplex to go out on the cdt where i didn't have these issues but after thinking back to the pct i cowboy camped a lot on top of my duplex using it as like a ground cloth so i'm not sure if the abrasion of my sleeping pad with maybe some grit from the ground on top of the tent caused that issue or if it was a bad batch of dyneema so going forward i didn't do that anymore and i haven't had any issue out of the duplex since and finally the placement of the trekking pole in the setup of the duplex is right in the middle of the doorway so that can be a pain for some folks having to go around the trekking pole i've gotten used to it it doesn't bother me and for all of the pros in my opinion they really outweigh the cons of the duplex but of course it's my favorite one overall it's just the best combination to me of being functional comfortable simple and lightweight the duplex also doubles as my favorite option for a semi-freestanding like almost freestanding tent because again in this situation you have to stake out the vestibules if you're confused and thinking dixie this sets up using trekking poles so how can it be almost freestanding well they've got the flex pull option add-on that you can purchase from zpacs it's called the duplex freestanding flex kit it costs 125 and adds on 10.2 ounces to the weight of the shelter so the total weight then would be 29.6 ounces and 724 dollars i almost wonder after looking at the numbers if big agnes wasn't trying to almost beat the duplex with their tiger wall ii carbon design because they actually do beat the weight of the duplex as a semi-freestanding tent by 3.6 ounces but at a cost of 356 additional dollars but i assure you that the duplex is much more of a durable tent and if i was going anywhere where there might be abrasion on my shelter i would pick the duplex hands down compared to the tiger wall 2 carbon but i think i've made that clear enough all right y'all well that is all i have for you today if you've got a favorite tent that is either on this list or even if it's not i'd love to hear about it in the comments below especially why that particular tent works best for you and your personal preferences because there's probably somebody out there who shares the same values as you when it comes to a backpacking shelter so just drop that information there and you might help somebody who's trying to find the perfect tent for them thanks so much for watching and we'll see y'all next time

Channel: Homemade Wanderlust

Views: 192,527

Rating: 4.9527588 out of 5

Keywords: travel, hiking, backpacking, hike, gear, adventure, fun, story, Appalachian, Trail, PCT, CDT, thru-hike, Auburn, Alabama, epic, climbing, canyon, national, nature, mountains, update, park, lake, trail, tents, camping, summer, University, Aubie, River, stream, Mountains, National, Scenic, Dixie, Camino, tent

Id: Rtuiz4vtNwQ

Length: 17min 28sec (1048 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 31 2021