Regardless of the type of tent you choose, Campspot’s Tessa McCrackin noted the importance of practicing setting up your tent at home before heading out, especially if you may have to pitch it in bad weather. “And whatever you do, put the tent up right when you get there — don’t wait until later, because setting up a tent in the dark after a few beers isn’t easy,” she suggested. To make sure your tent lasts for years, Romero recommended always shaking out the tent before packing it back up, never placing it near a cooking area and keeping all the parts together, including poles and stakes. Coleman’s flagship weather protection system is called “Weathertec” and tents with this system are the best suited for three-season camping rain-or-shine. It’s a bit of a bummer that Coleman didn’t add a second door to the Cabin, but considering its “one big room” interior and the fact that a second door would mean more opportunity for water to find a way in, we really can’t blame them there.
Generally, we like clip-on designs better, since those are easier to put together, but in the case of the Base Camp models, the sleeves add extra tension and stability throughout the tent fabric. There are also two poles that cross over each doorway and down the sides of the tent to add extra shape and support. The rain fly has an additional tent pole, too, to support the vestibule. Overall, these poles contribute to a particularly sturdy structure, with or without the rain fly.
So, to keep the overall cost down, are usually supplied with these type of tent poles. If you expect a tent to be waterproof but doesn’t have taped seems, a high waterproof rating, or a full coverage rainfly, it’s going to leak. The massive tent was able to house our mountain bikes, riding gear, camping equipment, and sleeping area comfortably. Surprisingly, the tent was able to weather a bit of rain and wind gusts with zero issues.
Overall, both nylon and polyester are synthetic fibers which are strong, moisture resistant and lightweight. In comparison, most high-performance tents are made from coated ripstop nylon. Nylon fabric and its variants are typically higher strength and more lightweight compared to other coleman cabin tent materials. The separate rainfly and full mesh interior allows for greater airflow during warmer nights. Usually, Coleman groundsheets have an ultra mesh design that allows the grass underneath your tent to breathe so that you cause less damage to your environment while camping.
For car campers where space and weight isn’t an issue, these work well. But for pretty much any other kind of camping these tents are too heavy and bulky. We’ll be taking another look at family-size tents next, as a few readers have noted some issues with our top pick’s window design that we’d like to follow up on. We’ll be testing tents that would be ideal for a family of four camping in all terrains and in three seasons. The biggest differences between the two tents are their fly and vestibule designs.
The tent comes with fiberglass poles, an E-cable port, a pleasant awning supported with its own pole shown in the picture, and you also have side windows. The Coleman Skydome 6 Tent is with a full fly and vestibule so you have plenty of space for storage and a full protection in a 3-season camping. Its official capacity is for 6 people and for this you have a floored area of 85 ft² (7.9 m²). The mentioned vestibule adds 40 ft² (3.7 m²) of fully covered area for gear. The structure is an extended dome supported with fiberglass poles.