Tent Reviews

The Big Agnes Scout UL 2 person tent is a single wall, ultralight-style tent with ample room for two people. Weighing 1 pound 9 ounces (without tent stakes) it includes an inner tent with high bathtub floors, mesh ventilation, and a roof fly, rivaling many of the features and function of …

I usually replace the factory-supplied tent stakes that come with backpacking tents because they’re too heavy, too short, or they hurt my hands when I pull them out of the ground. My goto tent stakes are: MSR Mini-Groundhog Tent Stakes because the have superior holding power and stand up to rocky …

What is the best family camping tent? What are the must-have attributes of a family camping tent are? How many people should a family camping tent hold? What’s a reasonable price for a quality family camping tent? Best Family Camping Tents Most of our readers equate family camping to car camping, where there’s no …

The outdoor gear company, Wenzel, has started making family camping tents pre-treated with Permethrin, which repels and kill mosquitos and ticks, including those that carry Lyme Disease. I think this is a fantastic development and hope higher-end backpacking tent manufacturers follow Wenzel’s example and start selling backpacking tents that have been …

The Big Agnes Fly Creek UL 2 is a two person backpacking tent that weighs 2 pounds 4 ounces, making it an excellent choice for backpackers who want to reduce the weight of their gear but still prefer a double-walled tent. Just a few ounces heavier than the one person …

The Hilleberg Akto is one of the lightest weight, single person, 4 season tents ever made. First introduced in 1995, Akto was the gold standard by which lightweight ( 3 pounds 8 ounces) expedition class solo tents were judged for more than a decade. I first saw the Akto up …

I’ve taken my 4 season Scarp 1 Tarptent on two late autumn backpacking  trips over the past few weeks and I thought I’d write up some notes about my experiences so far. We’re right on the cusp of full winter conditions in New England, so you should expect at least …

There are two main differences between a tarp tent and a conventional tent: rain flies and ventilation. Tarp tents, like tarps, (hence the name) are really just single walled tents. They don’t have rain flies and I’ve never been in a situation where the absence of a rain fly has …