The best camping tents in 2024, tried and tested

When it comes to outdoor gear, having the best camping tent tops the list of must-haves for any camper. As long as you’re not a minimalist hammock camper, you need one to sleep comfortably outdoors.

Camping tents serve as your home away from home in the woods. They shield you from the sun, protect you from the rain and fend off pesky bugs from buzzing in your ear and biting you all night. The best car camping tents are simple to set up, strong enough to withstand the elements and large enough to house families, friend groups and couples inside with plenty of room to spare.

We spent many nights this past spring and summer testing car camping tents of all shapes and sizes, comparing ease of setup, durability, interior space, weatherproofing and design elements like pockets, vestibules and ventilation. After months of testing, we narrowed down the best camping tents of 2024 to one quality, must-own tent.

Best camping tent: REI Co-op Base Camp 4

It’s not the biggest or tallest car camping tent you’ll find on the market, but it was by far our favorite tent we tested. A standout for its durability in rain and wind, thoughtful design and an astonishing number of interior pockets, the REI Co-op Base Camp 4 checks all the boxes (and more) for a comfortable and reliable car camping tent. Plus, it’s sold at a reasonable price point.

We took the REI Co-op Base Camp 4 car camping tent on several camping trips during the spring and summer in the Midwest, testing how easy it was to set up, how breathable it was during the day and at night, and how it stood up to rain showers and gusts of wind. The result: We were the only ones blown away (pun intended).

Dealing with water seeping inside your tent during a rainstorm is one of the worst experiences while camping. But we experienced no problems with rain in this tent. The Base Camp 4 features a deep vestibule that extends well beyond the front door of the tent, meaning you can keep the vestibule open even if there’s a steady downpour of rain, which we did on a few trips and never dealt with water getting inside. This also helped with temperature control inside the tent and was aesthetically pleasing. The tent’s low-profile design also allowed the wind to pass over it without blowing its walls over or interfering with its structural integrity.

Aside from rain protection, this tent has tons of interior room — big enough to fit four people with room to spare. When camping as a couple, my wife and I could fit a double-wide camping pad, a small camp table and our bags inside, making for a cozy and comfortable car camping experience where we didn’t have to sacrifice creature comforts. When camping with friends, we fit four people comfortably on individual sleeping pads, with extra room at our feet to keep a backpack of clothes and extra camping gear like water bottles. The Base Camp 4 tops out at 59 square feet inside and 63 inches (5.25 feet) tall.

If a four-person tent is too small for your squad, the Base Camp also comes in a $549 six-person size that’s 84 square feet inside and 74 inches (6.1 feet) tall. We haven’t tested the Base Camp 6 (yet), but our favorite family-sized camping tent that we did get our hands on was the MSR Habitude 6. It’s one square foot smaller and nearly the same height as the Base Camp 6, was easy to set up, felt extremely spacious and provided a true luxe camping experience due to its dome shape and high-quality design. The biggest downside is its $700 price tag, but it’s a high-quality tent that’s sure to impress.

If you want a similar-sized tent to the Base Camp 4 but one that’s standing height, The North Face Wawona 4 is a great option and slightly more affordable at $400. However, The North Face Wawona 4 lacks protection during heavy storms and wind because of its minimal rainfly coverage along the side and back wall of the tent. Its taller design is also more susceptible to blowing over in the wind.

Inside the Base Camp 4, you’ll find 16 pockets (eight on each long side) and 19 different loops to hang lights. We loved that two of the loops on each side of the tent were within arm’s reach to shut off the light. That means you don’t have to stand up to turn off the light once you lie down for bed. The massive front and back doors on the Base Camp 4 zip open entirely, making it easy to load gear into the tent, from camping cots to multiple sleeping pads and sleeping bags.

Another feature unique to the Base Camp 4 is its ventilation design. It has six air vents scattered throughout the tent, including the upper four corners of the ceiling and two triangle side panel vents that can be unzipped to create a cross breeze at the bottom of the tent. A full mesh roof on this tent also gives you a great view of the trees and sky on a clear night and tons of breathability — a game changer for camping in hot and humid weather.

What could be improved? Well, not much, honestly. But if we had to pick, we’d say its weight and slightly complicated setup, which took us about 12 minutes the first time and around nine minutes once we knew what we were doing.

A standard X-shaped pole system must be fed through sleeves on the top of the tent, which is a bit more time-consuming than clips you see on most car camping tents today. You also have front and back cross poles that extend through a sleeve at the front and back of the tent to add more stability and support the rainfly. At 17 pounds and 5.6 ounces, the Base Camp 4 is quite heavy too. It’s even heavier than the much larger MSR Habitude 6, which weighs only 13 pounds and 6 ounces. Yet, despite its slightly more challenging setup and heavier weight, the REI Base Camp 4 is by far our favorite car camping tent on the market.

How we tested

While testing the best camping tents, we considered several factors, from weight and packability to ease of setup and unique design features like vestibule size, included accessories and ventilation. We also considered the effectiveness of each rainfly and its ability to stand up to inclement weather outdoors, like heavy rain and forceful wind.

Over several months at campgrounds around the Midwest, we compared the pool of camping tents across several tests, including timing how long it took to set up each tent, sleeping in each to understand how breathable they were overnight and comparing design elements like vestibule size and interior floor dimensions. Here’s a full list of our testing criteria.

Ease of setup

Weight, packability and portability

Durability and quality

Design

Surface area and height

Everything you need to know about camping tents

A tent is one of the biggest purchases you’ll make for your camping gear haul. You can certainly opt for a cheap tent to get you through your outdoor adventures, but trust us when we say that purchasing a reliable tent, even if it’s on the pricier side, makes all the difference. To choose the best camping tent for you, your friends and your family, there are several considerations to make before buying.

First, you’ll want to select a tent based on the size of the group you plan to camp with. Tents come in all sizes, with most car camping-sized tents averaging four to eight campers per tent. Family campers should look at larger tents that fit four to six people. The MSR Habitude 6, REI Co-op Wonderland 6 Tent and REI Co-op Base Camp 4 are some of the best family tents we tested. For smaller groups, like a couple and a dog or a few friends, the slightly smaller Kelty Rumpus 4 or The North Face Wawona 4 are an ideal size and plenty tall enough to stand in too. If you’re camping with just you and a friend or partner, you probably want an even smaller tent for two or three people, like the REI Co-op Half Dome SL 2+ Tent or Mountain Hardwear Mineral King 3. Picking the best size tent for your camping trip comes down to what kind of camping you’re doing and who’s coming along.

Next, consider whether you want or need a large vestibule. Vestibules, or the covered “front porch” space outside the main tent, provide storage and protective cover from the rain, sun and wind. Vestibules are helpful when camping in unpredictable climates susceptible to rain and wind. They’re also great for sunny conditions, like desert camping or camping at high elevations, when you want to shelter in the shade. As a general rule of thumb, bigger tents and rainflies usually come with bigger vestibules. Of the tents we tested, The North Face’s Wawona 4 and REI Co-op Base Camp 4 featured the largest vestibules.

Ventilation and rain protection are two other crucial factors. A well-ventilated tent with robust rain protection ensures a more enjoyable camping experience. Ample ventilation prevents you from overheating in your tent at night, especially when camping during summer or in a hot climate. Airflow also helps prevent condensation from forming inside the tent, helping keep you dry and comfortable. Look for tents with mesh panels, windows and multiple doors that allow for cross-ventilation. Some car camping tents also feature small vents in the rainfly to promote airflow into the tent when you have the rainfly on.

Equally important to ventilation is reliable rain protection. A rainfly is essential for keeping you and your belongings dry inside the tent during unexpected rainstorms. An ideal rainfly for car camping covers the entire tent down to the base and features guylines to stake out the rainfly walls so they don’t touch the tent walls. This helps prevent water from seeping through the rainfly onto the walls. Ensure your camping tent is also equipped with sealed seams and waterproof design elements like a bathtub floor. Bathtub floors consist of a waterproof fabric that extends from the floor up the sidewalls of the tent. This creates a tublike shape around the bottom of the tent to help prevent water from seeping into the tent, especially during heavy rain or when camping on wet ground.

You also won’t want to overlook the height and interior dimensions of the tent. A tent with ample headroom allows you to stand up comfortably, making it easier to change clothes or exit and enter the tent. Assess the peak height measurements and consider whether you want a dome-style tent or one with more vertical walls. Interior dimensions are crucial for a good night’s sleep — especially when packing in several campers to sleep overnight. You’ll want to ensure the tent floor is long and wide enough to fit multiple sleeping bags and sleeping pads with space to spare. Some tents offer features like room dividers, storage pockets and extra windows for added ventilation.

Remember: While larger tents provide more comfort and space, they also take up more room in your car and might be heavier or more complicated to set up. Balance your desire for space with practical considerations to find the ideal tent for your car camping adventures.

Other camping tents we tested

A family-sized camping tent with all the creature comforts, the MSR Habitude 6 is ideal for large groups or families who love to camp. The Habitude 6 offers all the space and comfort you’ll ever need in nature, with a 6-foot-high ceiling and a whopping 83 square feet of living space inside. It feels more like camping in a dome or igloo than your average car camping tent.

The massive, standing-height tent features all the bells and whistles you’d need for car camping, like built-in privacy walls, an extra-wide and tall door for easy entry, massive pockets for storing accessories and even a front porch light so you don’t have to carry around a lantern to find the tent. Despite its size, it packs down impressively small and weighs 14 pounds — much less than your average family car camping tent. The MSR Habitude also comes in a four-person ($600) size for slightly smaller groups.

The ventilation and spacious interior of the REI Co-op Wonderland 6 make this tent shine. The tunnel-shaped tent was made for camping trips for the whole family, sleeping six comfortably with room to spare. The spacious interior can be divided into two private rooms or you can keep the 83.3-square-foot interior open as one big room.

The entire roof is ventilated for ample airflow and gives you and the family an expansive view of the night sky on a clear night. Due to its height, this tent does struggle to stand upright in moderate to severe wind, however, even when staked down.

The smallest four-person tent we tested, the Marmot Tungsten 4 is a compact car camping tent that’s easy to set up and comfortable to camp in. While it’s not big enough to stand up in, you can sit upright and kneel without hitting your head on the roof. This tent shines for its rain protection, thanks to a seam-taped and full-coverage rainfly that extends to the base.

With smaller-than-average doors, we admit it was a struggle to fit an inflated, double-wide mattress pad in the door. We recommend putting your deflated sleeping pad inside the tent before blowing it up. The Tungsten also comes in three-person ($299) and two-person ($249) sizes ideal for backpacking.

A bulkier, simplified version of the REI Basecamp 4, the Kelty Rumpus 4 is best for car campers on a budget. This tent is perfect for groups or families who go camping a couple of times a year but don’t want to spend a fortune on a camping tent. If you want a luxe tent, keep reading and consider The North Face Wawona 4 instead. The Rumpus 4 stands out for its extra-large vestibule with plenty of room to fit chairs, bikes, a cooler and more, keeping gear out of the rain and sun at the campground.

The biggest downfall of this tent was the troubles we ran into with the tent door zippers sticking and requiring excessive force to shut. This tent also has significantly fewer pockets than the Base Camp 4 and hardly any privacy without the rainfly on, which isn’t ideal while sleeping at a state park campground with other campers.

A strong contender for our top spot for the best family car camping tent, The North Face Wawona 4 is a solid pick for group and family camping. A massive front door unzips floor to ceiling, making it easy to enter, exit and fill up your tent with all the essentials for a camping weekend. A laddered pocket system on the back wall provides convenient storage for gear and accessories — from headlamps and books to cell phones and extra layers. It’s also several hundred dollars cheaper than the MSR Habitude 6 and only slightly shorter, yet 25 square feet smaller in floor dimension.

This tent has the least rain protection of any tent we tested, including the similar-sized MSR Habitude 6 and Kelty Rumpus 4. While this was a good tent overall, we struggled to award it a top spot because of the lack of rain protection the rainfly provides. With only a half-wall rainfly coverage on the sides and back of the tent, it’s more susceptible to leaking water in torrential rainstorms. Also, its lack of pockets around the bottom of the tent compared to the Base Camp 4 makes it less desirable for easy access to gear storage.

From the Moab desert to the Driftless region of Wisconsin, we tested this tent in various camping conditions — and it quickly became one of our favorites for its easy setup, versatile design and protective rainfly. There’s plenty of room inside for two campers on a double-wide sleeping pad or three on individual sleeping pads. And we love that the rainfly extends to the base for adequate coverage in strong downpours.

While we love the Mineral King 3 all-mesh tent wall design for lots of ventilation and an unobstructed view of the sky at night, we wish it had slightly more privacy with the rainfly off. This tent also includes a footprint, which comes in handy on rugged ground with roots, rocks and other debris. While it’s great for three people, this tent won’t work well for larger families and friend groups for car camping.

If you’re into lightweight or minimalist car camping or want a tent you can use while backcountry camping, the REI Half Dome SL 2+ makes a great pick. Even though it’s billed as a backpacking tent and only weighs 4 pounds and 11.5 ounces, we also recommend this tent for frontcountry camping due to its spacious design. REI designed the Half Dome SL 2+ as a lighter version of the original beloved Half Dome tent, shedding over a pound of weight while adding more interior capacity with the same thoughtful features.

Its updated tension-truss pole architecture creates verticle sidewalls that extend wider for more generous head and shoulder room. It’s most similar in design to the Marmot Tungsten 4 but clocks in 5 pounds lighter and features bigger entryways and a wider design. This tent comes with a footprint too. We recommend this tent for backpackers who don’t want to splurge on another tent for car camping and only have another person (or pup) to camp with.

If the REI Half Dome SL 2+ isn’t in your budget, consider the more affordable REI Co-op Trailmade 2 Tent. With a similar look and feel as the Half Dome SL 2+, the Trailmade 2 is slightly heavier but better suited for campers who want a tent on hand that will work for short backpacking trips or car camping throughout the year.

If you’re new to backpacking, this tent comes in a convenient Trailmade Backpacking Bundle, complete with a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. It also comes in a one-person ($179) size option.