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Camping with Kids: Best Tents for Families

Sara

Whether you’re buying your first tent or upgrading to accommodate a growing family, there’s a lot to consider when purchasing a new tent. When camping, your tent is your home away from home. It’s where you’ll spend your evenings when you sleep and possibly hang out during rain or bouts of bad weather. Tents provide privacy, room to hang out, and most importantly, protection from inclement weather, cold, wind, and rain. Your tent can make or break your camping experience and needs to be accommodating for your family and your needs. We’ll walk you through everything you need to consider when choosing the right tent for your family. This post contains all the factors you need to consider and includes our recommendations for the best tents for families. 

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How to choose the right tent for your family

When it comes to finding the perfect tent for your family, there’s no one right way to make your decision. Each family should choose a tent based on their needs, size, budget, weather, camping style, etc. There are a million options out there and lots of features to consider, which can make it very overwhelming for anyone looking to purchase a new tent. However, there are a few really important factors to consider when selecting a tent for your family camping trip. Here are a few things we think all families should keep in mind when looking for a new tent.

Size of tent

Tent size is usually based on the number of people a tent can house in the sleeping area. However, there’s no industry standard for size, so you’ll find that tent size varies across brands for the same number of people. The number of people a tent can house basically means the number of average-sized adults that can lay down on the tent’s floor area. This doesn’t take into consideration space for sleeping bags, sleeping pads, air mattresses, gear, luggage, etc. 

It’s always recommended that you size up your tent by at least 1 person so you can accommodate gear, luggage, sleeping pads, etc.  So, if a family of three would want at least a 4-person tent (possibly larger if you’ll be storing gear in your tent or the people in your family are larger than “average”). For determining tent size, kids should be considered the same size as an adult (a child’s sleeping pad/mattress is probably not going to be that much smaller than an adult’s). 

Photo credit: @kristcx

Weight and packability

The type of camping that your family will be doing should play a significant role in the type of tent you purchase. If you’re “car camping” (meaning that you’re not carrying all your gear far from your vehicle), then the packability and weight of your tent are much less of a concern. However, if you’re backpacking (meaning that you’re carrying all your gear to a remote location), you’ll be much more concerned with the size, weight, and packability of your tent. 

Backpacking tents are much lighter and smaller than a traditional car camping tent for the same number of people. They’re made from ultra-light materials and usually have fewer features and accessories. They’re also much shorter, making it difficult (if not impossible) to stand up inside the tent when dressing/undressing. 

In this article, we’ll only be covering car camping tents. These tents tend to be larger, heavier, and roomier than backpacking tents. However, they’re great for most traditional family camping set-ups and can usually accommodate any size family. 

Ease of setup 

Some tents are simple pop-ups, while others require more work to set up, even requiring multiple people. It may be difficult to set up a large tent that takes an hour (and requires 2 adults) when you have toddlers and babies running around. The easier it is to erect and set up your tent, the better. Reviews are an excellent way to figure out if a tent is easy or hard to set up. 

We always recommend that you set up your tent at least once prior to going on your camping trip. You’ll want to familiarize yourself with how to set up the tent, what it looks like inside, how you’ll arrange your sleepers, and ensure that you have all the parts and supplies you need. Most tent poles are color-coded so you know what goes where. Instructions for assembly are usually printed on the storage bag or included. If you don’t have instructions, you can almost always find them online or YouTube videos showing you how to set up the tent. 

Durability 

Be sure the check the tent’s durability and seasonality. A tent is your home away from home when camping and can make or break your camping experience. The quality of tent material is crucial because you need something that will protect you from the elements. Consider the area where you’ll be camping, the time of year you’re camping and the types of weather that you’ll likely encounter. Camping in the PNW is very different than camping in Texas and you’ll want a tent with different features based on your location. No matter where you can, choose a tent that offers a rain cover (or rainfly), has durable zippers, is water-resistant, and is rated as durable. Most tents are 3-season tents, so they are lightweight and designed for the relatively temperate conditions of spring, summer, and fall. If you’ll be camping in the winter in really cold temperatures, you’ll want a tent that can handle that. 

Shape

Tents come in many shapes! There are cabin-style tents, which have straight walls, are very spacious, and have a high center height so that you can stand up while inside. Some of the larger cabin tents have multiple rooms for privacy or separation of the sleeping area from gear storage space. They offer plenty of room, but due to their height and size, they are not always the most durable in windy conditions, can be heavy, and tend to take longer to set up. Dome-shaped tents are durable and weather friendly. They are lighter, easier to assemble, and can be used for all sorts of camping excursions. Dome tents tend to withstand heavy winds and rainy weather a bit better and sometimes have fewer issues with leaks. 

Accessories

Tents can also come with (or you can purchase, in addition) a wide variety of features, options, and accessories. Some tents come with vestibules (created by a rain fly), garages, or attachments to add more square footage, extra space, and rain coverage to your home in the wild. Some have additional doors and windows. Most tents come with an integral pocket or two to let you keep small items off of the tent floor. A gear loft is an optional interior mesh shelf that can tuck greater volumes of gear out of the way. Other accessories include a footprint (usually purchased separately), seam sealant, stakes and anchors, tent repair kits, and floor mats.

Best tents for families

Now that you know some of the factors to consider when shopping for the best family tent for your next camping trip, it’s time to roll out our list of top contenders.  Remember to be specific about your choice of material for the climate and your weather conditions, as well as the type of camping you’ll be doing, the size of your family, and ease of setup. Below, we’ve rounded up our recommendations for the best tents for families, based on the size of your family. We’ve included 4 quality options for each family size (family of 3, family of 4/5, and larger families with 6+ people) and ranked them according to a variety of factors. We’ve included specifications for each tent, as well as price, pros, cons, and a link to purchase or find more information. Here are our recommendations for the best family camping tents.

Best tents for a family of 3

1. Big Agnes Spicer Peak 4

BIG AGNES @ REI

2.  REI Co-op Wonderland 4

REI WONDERLAND @ REI

3. Marmot Limestone 4

MARMOT LIMESTONE @ REI

4. Coleman Skydome Darkroom 4

COLEMAN SKYDOME @ REI

Best tents for family of 4 or 5

1. The North Face Wawona 6

NORTH FACE WOWONA @ REI

2. REI Co-op Base Camp 6

BASECAMP 6 @ REI

3. NEMO Aurora Highrise 6

NEMO AURORA HIGHRISE @ REI

 4. Kelty Wireless 6

KELTY WIRELESS @ REI

Best tents for large families 

1. NEMO Wagontop 8

NEMO WAGONTOP @ REI

2. Eureka Copper Canyon 8

EUREKA COPPER CANYON @ AMAZON

3. CORE Instant Cabin 12

CORE 12 @ AMAZON

4. Coleman Montana 8

COLEMAN MONTANA @ AMAZON

Try before you buy

The best tent is the one you already own or have access to (assuming that it works for your family). Tents can be expensive, and we never want price or feeling like you have to have the “right gear” to keep anyone from camping. We always recommend that families camping for the first time either rent or borrow a tent before purchasing a tent. This keeps the price point for entry into this fun activity lower and ensures that you like/enjoy camping before making a purchasing commitment. 

Photo credit: @kristcx

More family camping resources

If you’re looking for even more info on how to camp with kids, we’ve got you covered. Check out these great camping resources below:

Printable camping gear lists for families

To make it easier for you to get started on your next family camping trip, we put our ultimate camping packing list for your family in a free printable 2-page PDF for you! Use this as the perfect start to create your own master packing list. You’ll also be signed up to receive our  AMAZING weekly newsletter, filled with fun outdoor activities and inspiration for getting your kids and family outside! You can opt-out anytime (although we’d hate to see you go). 

PRINTABLE CAMPING GEAR LIST

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