Instant tents

Both Coleman and Ozark Trail make tents where you just pull the frame up and stake it down and thats about it. Does anybody have one of these. I know the Ozark is cheaper and doesn’t have the reputation that Coleman does. The Coleman does not come with a rain fly. They claim its water proof. All tents do. The Ozark has one but they’re black. That just makes for a hot tent. Nothing worse. The lower price of the Ozark allows for a bigger tent though too. Any thoughts?

In looking at the construction of “instant up” tents, I can’t believe that any of them will stand anything but the most minimal amount of use. I’m also very wary of their ability to withstand wind without folding up or getting pushed over.

The ONLY things that matter to me with a tent is its ability to stay up in a wind and to keep me completely dry.

Is the setup time really that big of an issue? I can put up an 8 person Cabelas Alaskan Guide tent up by myself in 20 minutes. With 1 person helping me, we can have it up in 10.

I can put up my Eureka Timberline tent in 5 minutes all by myself.

Both of these tents are absolutely dry and have withstood sustained winds of up to 40 MPH. I’ve had both tents for over 15 years and they are still perfectly functional, the only thing I’ve ever replaced is one of the zippers.

Grouse

What is your intended use of the tent? Back packing, car camping, base camp. How many people or pets? How will it get to the camping spot, back, car, horse, boat, ATV. If it weren’t for weather, bugs or privacy you wouldn’t even need a tent. But with bugs, wind, rain think of your scenario under the worst possible conditions and base your purchace off of that.

These things may be instant up, but they certainly aren’t instant down. You can probably get pretty fast at taking it down if you practise a bunch, every month.

Another option for an instant tent is a Goretex bivey sack.

I’d be car camping with my wife and maybe the dog. At most 2x a summer. 2-10 days a year. I’m not taking it to Alaska hunting mountain goats.

Eureka Timberline 4. Reasonable cost, good size for car camping without being too big to store, excellent quality, dry, easy to set up. This design that has withstood the test of time.

If you want a dome tent that will allow full stand up height, there are a wide variety on the market. The #1 thing I’ve noticed with dome tents is get on with a rain fly that covers the entire tent, top to ground. Those little bikini flies that only cover the top of the tent and end halfway down are as useless as mammary glands on a boar. They just dump water onto the side of the tent and it will always find a way in.

Even with car camping, the #1 problem in northern tier is staying dry.

Grouse

I’m not spending $200. Maybe $120-Found a Coleman Instant Dome 5 person. 10×7 with a rain fly