Top 13 Tents - How to Choose a Tent & Tent Reviews

hey welcome to the ultimate tent review video we have 13 tents here of every shape size price range in color and we're gonna walk you through how to pick the right tent for you despite what some people say you don't need to spend a lot of money to get a good tent but there is a time and a place to spend four or five six hundred dollars on a tent I just want to make sure that you spend money only when you need to spend money so first off let me start you off with the basic three man tent this tent right here is the Walmart brand Ozarks trail three man dome tent it costs only twenty five dollars and this is a perfectly good tent it does a lot of things really well they say it's a three man tent it's really two adults or an adult and two kids you can put three people in here but you'll have no room to move and no room for your gear it's a very tight fit they're also surprisingly durable I've had this patent used it many times and just I've had no problems with it if you go to Walmart or you go online you'll find a bajillion companies that sell seven foot by seven foot three man tents and they range from 25 to 50 bucks they're all pretty much the same design with few variations and they're all perfectly good tents this one I bought for 30 like 17 years ago they're between five and a half to six and a half pounds and they're just good all-around tats and my attitude is that you should start with one of these tents unless there's a good reason not to and there's only a few reasons why you need anything more than this one is you need something bigger you just got more people this isn't going to fit your needs or maybe your of an age where you're just sick and tired of having to crawl into a tent and hunched over when you get dressed these also are not that great in winter they're okay but not great and in really harsh conditions these tents don't hold up that well there's a couple things to look at with these tents first off is the rainfly how much of the tent is covered by the rain fly the further down the rain fly goes the better this is going to hold up in extreme conditions and in cold weather additionally look at the bottom the material on the wall should not be the same material as the bottom you want like a tarp like material on the bottom so if you don't have a really thick sturdy bottom you're going to need to buy a ground tarp and lay that down or you're just going to have moisture come up through the tent or you're going to tear a hole in the bottom of your tent so these nice cheap tents come with reinforced bottoms so you don't need a grand ground tarp there's also a couple little features that I really like to see in these tents this Ozark Trail tent has a little spot where you can run a power cord in and out of your tent additionally on the roof I like to see these little loops so you can hang stuff you can hang a lantern up here hang a little mesh bag up here to store stuff because there's not a lot of room in this tent you should have a little pouch so you can hold stuff look I found one of my old DSL batteries I wonder where that went have you put your keys in your cell phone and things like that so you're not rolling over them in the night and some of these tents have windows and some of them don't this one is just 25 bucks there's no window so if it's really hot out you're not going to get much ventilation this little Swiss Sport has two pouches one for each person to hold their stuff and it has a rear window so a little slightly different features but kind of pick and choose what you care about when it comes to picking a tent a lot of people think that more expensive Ted's or higher quality or their more durable and it's really not the case most of these tents are made out of pretty much the same material and they're all really durable this $30.00 tent it's lasted be 17 years and I have abused this thing I've never really had a problem with any of my tents the only thing that ever seems to break is the bag the tents come in when you spend a lot of money on tents what you're getting is features or performance that you don't get with these smaller cheaper tents you're getting a Tet that can handle the cold you're getting a tent it has more room you're getting a tent it's super lightweight you're getting a tent that's designed to do something that these tents don't do oh but you're not getting a tent that's higher quality or more durable I have never really noticed a big difference in the brands of tents it seems like you get the same thing whether you buy a name brand or a no-name brand or you get a Coleman or fielding stream or Eureka in our Ozark Trail it doesn't make much of a difference I suspect most of the tents are made in the same factories in China anyway these small cheap three-man dome tents are wonderful I've got three sleeping bags three mats three pillows and a three-man tent with a stove in some food all in this little bag everything me and my boys need to camp right here in one little bag and this entire kit cost me about $300 there's a lot of three-man tents that cost a lot more than 25 bucks but generally there's only a few reasons you should pay more money for a three-man tent one is lightness you want a backpacking tent and you want it to be as light as possible but a general rule of thumb is it you're gonna spend a hundred and fifty bucks for every pound you shave off your tent so this is a five point six pound tent for 25 bucks if you want a three pound tent you're gonna spend about 400 bucks you want a one pound tent you're gonna spend about 800 bucks so if you want a lighter tent you're gonna pay dearly for each pound that you shave off that tent another reason to buy an expensive tent is so that it has more insulation and better endurance in extreme weather this tent right here is a good example of that this right here is the REI area at ASL - it's a two-man tent that costs $400 its 5.5 pounds so only a tenth of a pound lighter than the $25 Walmart three-man tent behind me why is this so expensive well this is designed for cold weather high wind extreme rain one behind me not so much the main difference is the rain fly covers the entire tent which protects it from rain and adds a better layer of insulation that keeps the heat in better there's also extra poles to keep it from blowing around or collapsing if it's got snow on top of it or wind and that sort of thing the stakes are really rigid they don't bend and they're just this really strong superlight material what do you think of this tent this is cool thing this tent is the same length as the cheap $25.00 tent it's just not quite as wide it's really a one-man tent with a little bit of extra room or a very cozy two-man set this tent has a vent in the top there and event there that you can zip open or close to let heat out if it's too warm but there's no windows in here you can't get much cross ventilation in this tent so it's going to be really stuffy if you're in hot weather additionally the floor in this tent is kind of thin they recommend you use a ground tarp with this tent which is an added expense which is added weight you can get by without it but you increase the chance of wearing out the floor of your $400 Kent and it increases the chance that you get moisture up through the floor the only reason you should buy this tent is if you are going to be an extreme wind cold and rain if you're not that kind of camper get the $25 tent this tent is not more durable or longer-lasting through the twenty five dollar tent it's the same thin stuff if you poke this with a stick you will put a hole in it if you step on the poles at night you will break them just like the twenty five dollar ten this is the Alps one-man mountaineering tent it's about a hundred dollars and it's basically a small portable coffin it is small smaller tents are warmer tents the less volume of air you have inside your tent the more your body heat will warm it up so this smaller one-man tent will be warmer than an equivalent three-man tent if you just got one person in it this isn't a particularly expensive tent it's about a hundred dollars and it's got pretty decent insulation and extreme weather protection not as good is the four hundred dollar REI tent but pretty good if you're looking for a compromise between the $25 Walmart tent and the $400 REI tent something like this Alps mountaineering tent would do the job you've got a rain fly that goes all the way to the ground that increases your resistance to rain wind and cold by a huge amount this has a lot more ventilation than the REI tent and you can't close off the vents in here like you can with the REI tent so that's going to make it suffer a little bit in cold weather but make it a little bit nicer in warm weather because it's a one-man tent you get a lot less weight for less cost really that's the only reason you ever buy a one-man tent is to get something that's lighter without paying a gob more money alright this is the inside there's just barely enough room to lay down in and just enough room to sit up in but that is it if you have to store your backpack under the rain fly because there is no room inside there it's all mesh here up in the top and you can't seal this off so without the rain fly you have no privacy and unlike the $400 REI tent you can't seal off the vents to make it warmer and there's even a little peekaboo window so you can see if there's a bear attacking it or something all right now let me show you a couple specialty tents these two tents behind me are carpfishing Vivi's made by an English company called Fox this is the Fox R series - man vivvy that's the Fox Royal one man Bibby these are specifically designed for fishermen who want to fish day in and day out for multiple days and they want to camp by their rods and they want the ultimate in for season ruggedness and luxury if you want to be comfortable no matter what the weather these are the ultimate temps and while these are specifically designed for fishermen you don't have to be a fisherman to appreciate a lot of these features these are versatile durable and always comfortable look at this thing this is what fox calls a two-man vivvy this thing is massive I'm almost six and a half feet tall and that's that's spacious one of the things that's nice about these Vivi's is the doors and windows are extremely versatile you can get rid of the whole front of the baby if you want I'll open up these back windows and get tons of airflow in here and this is a nice cool place to get out of the heat if it's really hot but you have bugs we can do this fine mesh over the windows and doors or if it's cold you can replace the mesh with this clear vinyl door and that way you can see outside at what's going on in your fishing rods while staying warm inside or if you prefer privacy you can put on the solid door and then you can open it up letterbox style and you can just there you go just have a it's slightly opened so you can still see what's going on without letting too much hot air out the nice thing about these tents is the doors are designed with Velcro and zippers so you can burst out your tent very quickly if you need to run to get to your fishing rods these Vivi's are designed to be used with cots if you like to sleep on a cot get a sleeping bag that attaches to the cot this one has a strap around the middle and it's got this part up here it slides over the top and over the foot and it keeps the bag attached to the cot so when you roll over you get in and out you don't have to constantly adjust your bag but it will do more to improve your sleep than anything else the floor of this baby is removable and I almost never use it I find it really annoying because you just track dirt into your busy all the time and you have to clean it out the stakes on these babies hold really well and a really beefy these babies have a lot more stake down spots this one comes with 16 stakes and 16 spots to stake it you don't need any guy wires and this makes it very strong even in very high winds other than their size these are almost the identical bivy the only difference is this one has rear windows and this one does not these babies are really durable I've owned this one for over six years it's never given me any problems very versatile very good for season all-weather cancer - the Eureka Copper Canyon eight-man tent but in our home we refer to it as tent tropi 'less come on in this tent has the highest ceiling of any tent I've ever seen it's 7 foot 4 inches tall I'm 6 foot 4 inches so I wanted something with Headroom and we got it this thing is amazing it comes with a little divider that you can put here to make it into two rooms if you want kids over here mom and dad over there you can do that it's got tons of Windows every wall has a window down and you need it because if it's a kind of a hot day it gets really stuffy in here pretty quick this tent has loads of ventilation which makes it great when it's hot in the summertime but it makes it a lousy wintertime tent this tent also has a little zipper here so you can run an extension cord out of the tent and hook it up to a generator or something the ceiling of this tent has about a half a dozen of these little hooks and grommets up here it's great for hanging lanterns and bags and keeping stuff off the floor and out of the way the tent comes with this little awning here which is kind of useless in rain but it's good for keeping the Sun off you if you want to sit in the chair in front of your tent if it rains the water goes and drains back this way and then comes off the awning straight into the tent so you don't want to be using the awning like this if it rains if you pitch the poles down low then you can make the water drain off but then the awning is kind of in your way I love this tent it's been a great tent for our family but there's a couple big drawbacks first off it's over $400 it's not a cheap tent secondly it's 39 pounds and it takes up a lot of room so if you put this in the trunk of your car it's gonna fill up a good chunk of it also this tent is not good in cold weather and finally this tent is very susceptible to high winds it's a massive profile I once was camping with this with a troop of Boy Scouts and a gust of wind pick this tent up and threw it 40 feet even though there was 200 pounds of gear inside the tent the stakes that it comes with are just the standard little tent stakes you get real cheapo things get bigger thicker longer stakes also the bag that comes with this tent is really flimsy and frankly too small so I went and bought this duffel bag and use it instead and it works great I've also seen people use rollaway bags and that's freaking brilliant the Coleman 10 man instant cabin it's almost the same price and almost the same dimensions as the eight man Eureka Copper Canyon however it's got the pop-up feature which is definitely more convenient quicker the problem is it makes it wobbly it wants to tip over all the time and you have to use the guide wires even in calm weather like today you get convenience with this but the downside is its handles wind not nearly as well as the more sturdy Yurika so it's a trade off one of my biggest pet peeves is tent bags that are too small and too flimsy the coleman tent bag is actually pretty functional and it's pretty easy to get the tent back in the bag and it has this strip you tear it off and the bag gets bigger and so now it's like a full-size duffel bag and getting the tent into this bag is super easy so I really like that another thing I appreciate is that the Coleman instant cabin comes with the larger beefier tent stakes with a big tent like this you need that the Coleman also has a little zipper so you can run an extension cord through the tent so you can see here you've got mesh on the entire ceiling like you do with most of these big tents and you also have windows on all sides which are great in the summer time for more ventilation and cooling it down not so great in the wintertime and with most fair weather tents the rain fly only comes to the top of the wall so this part the lower part of the wall will get wet if it rains a lot and you'll get moisture soaking through which is pretty typical I do like that the guide wires have reflective material in them so at night these glow really brightly so you don't clothesline yourself walking around in the dark it's a nice little feature this field and stream eight-man cross vent tent has only a slightly smaller footprint than the arica Copper Canyon or the Coleman instant cabin it's a very large tent the biggest difference is the ceiling height the door is about the same height in the same size as the coleman instant cabin so it's pretty easy to get in and out and have to duck a little bit this eight-man tent is the same length as the coleman and Eureka tents I showed you earlier it's just narrower and has a lower ceiling that means that you've got a lot less headspace but also a much better tent for cool weather you have fewer vents up here it's about half vents instead of full vents like the other tents and there's just less air in here to have to warm up so if you're in a cooler condition this tent is going to be a lot warmer than those big drafty box tents the rain fly on this tent comes down a little bit lower on the walls it sticks out a little bit more so it'll keep the rain off the walls slightly better than the big box tents additionally because it's domed and has this sloped sides this is going to handle high winds much much better than these massive box tents that have these big profiles there's just a lot less surface area for the wind to push against these large eight-man dome tents are great they're about 1/4 the cost of the big box tents they can handle cold weather rain and wind a whole lot better and they're lighter and smaller you can see here a good size comparison of the eight-person cross vent by Field & Stream versus the 10-man instant cabin from Coleman the cross vent is half the weight half the size and it's a fourth of the price so it's a great option if you don't need just tons and tons of space this model like a lot of them has a couple downsides though the bag it comes in is ridiculously tiny and you need to be an origami master to get the tent back into this bag additionally the stakes that it comes with are these tiny little dinky camping stakes you really should upgrade to some better higher quality stakes but at $100 you'll have a lot of leftover money to buy an extra bag and buy some better stakes [Music] all right coleman claims this is a four band pet I got to tell you I have a hard time not falling in love with these pop-up tents okay they're kind of small but they're cheap and they are so convenient I bring these along when I go fishing with the boys if the weather is kind of iffy and if the boys get tired or they get cold I can just pull this thing out throw it up in the air and poop there's a tent for them to play in I mean how convenient is that if you hate setting up tents get yourself a pop-up tent there's just they just really are awesome enough room for Nathan to roll around in they got a little pouch but there's no windows so this is gonna be a little bit stuffy in hot weather not a ton of room for a four man but it's a spacious three-man tent and that's it there's no hooks on the ceiling it's just really really bare-bones but oh it's so crazy easy to set up and it's cheap if you guys are looking for a cheap easy small little tent you might want to check this out look at that hop on in there boy it's got enough room then I can lay down and sleep and I could probably fit the two boys in here in a pinch but it's a tight three-man it's a tight reMed well this tent doesn't have a rain fly so it's not gonna hold up well enough and a downpour but it'll do okay in a light rain it's got these little velcro windows on the ends and it's got a zipper window right here so you can go and unzip this side as well and get a lot of ventilation so this is a good good one in in warm weather but I mean how simple and easy is that okay the most challenging thing about these tents is putting them away the trick is you pull it together like a taco okay you got your old taco here then you put the end of the taco on the ground and you grab this part then then squish it down on itself and it kind of makes these circles these rings and then you just go and stack the rings on top of each other and boom and then you just put it away in its little bag these little pop-up tents are super light this three-man tent here weighs about as much is a $400 backpacking tent the only thing that's weird about it is it's kind of this awkward disc shape but if you can strap it to the outside of your backpack it's a really good inexpensive option for lightweight camping alright guys let me show you a bit of a specialized tent here this is the Peapod bike KidCo it's a toddler popup pen now the reason why I'm showing you this fun little Ted is because it is great for sleep training kids this tent comes with a mattress that's inserted into it unlike the other tent so you have a built in pad that's in there you've got windows on all four sides the fun thing about this tent is it's great for sleep training kids you get them used to sleeping in this in their own bedroom and camping in that in the basement and then when you travel or go camping it's not scary for them because they're used to sleeping in the tent you can go anywhere you want the tents a familiar place additionally it kind of keeps him contained so if your kids roll around a lot you can put this on a bed and they won't fall off and if your kids like to get up and wander the zippers kind of help keep him contained a little bit so it's a nice little option if you're trying to travel or camp a small kid if you're looking for an ultra lightweight super cheap camping setup look at hammocks this two-person hammock is $16 on amazon.com right now it weighs 1.1 pounds additionally when you sleep in a hammock you don't need a sleeping pad and that saves weight as well you can save weight by using nylon straps instead of rope which is better for the trees and you can get little tarps and mosquito netting that can go over your hammock that's really light and affordable as well the only problem with hammocks is that they are no good in cold weather but their weaknesses are also their strength hammocks are exceptionally great in hot weather you get all that circulation and air all around your body through the hammock and around you so if it's really hot and muggy it's hard to beat sleeping in a hammock one of the most unique tents I have here is the three man hammock tent the stingray it's also one of the most expensive it's a little under 600 bucks but it is a load of fun the kids kind of think it's like a portable trampoline and it allows you to camp in places you normally couldn't camp on hills or bogs wherever you want as long as you've got trees you can set this thing up so that makes it really nice but at 19 pounds it's not exactly a backpacking tent I did a really fun tent review video with this tent and I'll put a link in the description if you guys want to check that out thanks for watching we hope you enjoyed this video if you want to see some other great camping videos from the outdoor boy's youtube channel don't forget to check out our 23 best campfire recipes video put a link in the description and check out me and Nathan's survival video or last winter we went out built our own shelter and slept in it thanks for watching guys have a great day if you like this don't forget to check out the outdoor boys YouTube channel where we have hundreds of videos just like this and don't forget to click subscribe so you can see other great videos every Saturday morning hit that belt like you'll get notifications thanks for watching oh crap now I got to take these all down

Channel: Outdoor Boys

Views: 542,047

Rating: 4.8868933 out of 5

Keywords: Tent, shelter, camping, backpacking, hiking, tent review, best tent, find tent, choose tent, pick tent, how to choose a tent, top tents, buying a tent, tent guide, how to pick a tent, best tents 2019, best tents 2020, family tents, backpacking tent, affordable tents, expensive tents, lightweight tents, bivvy, best family tent, best backpacking tent, best camping tent, glamping, car camping, best four season tent, 4 season tent, all weather tent, cold weather tent, review

Id: NRJ9mnLVImk

Length: 27min 18sec (1638 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 02 2019