It's time for a family tent...

[Mike P.]

I ended up getting a Cabela's tent 8 x 16 with the option of three rooms, three doors and lot's of screen in the tent. (the other tent is a 4 season 4 person EMS tent)

Big selling point for me was that the rain fly had very good coverage for one of these tent-maj-halls.

Was out this weekend in CT where we got rain Friday night and even more Saturday night, Sunday early AM. Nice & dry inside.

 

[NorthShore]

That pic looks like my living room most Mondays after I've been camping or backpacking.

I have a few tents, but have been using one 3 person Coleman tent (7x7) that I bought for $39 six or seven years ago for most of my car camping (and even a few short backpacks when I split it with my two sons). It weighs about 7 pounds. It finally sprung a slight leak this past weekend right at the very crest of the rainfly where the seams come together (a Dryduck rain jacket placed between the top of the tent and the fly rectified the situation for the night). I should probably retire the tent, but placed a patch and resealed the fly today. A well spent $39. For about $50 or $60 now you can find the 7x9 version of the same. Not sure if its what Spencer was looking for, but you can fit a family in a relatively cheap tent for a long time if you keep it clean.

If you want a vestibule (or transvestibule as some characters I know call it) or multi-rooms, you'll need to go bigger.

On the opposite side of the coin, when my wife and I were planning to start our family about 20 years ago, we purchased a mammoth sized Kelty for over $300 from EMS. I still have it, but I doubt its been used more than about 10 times. Bigger and more expensive isn't always better.

Ed

Spencer, three can definitely sleep in each half of the Kingdom 6 (and it is cut in half down the middle). The thing is gigantic. I would say if it was three people that are my size (6' 1" and 220 lbs), you'd still have more room than a normal backpacking tent (I've owned a Sierra Designs Flashlight 3 before, and there is far more floorspace on one side of the Kingdom 6). Also- I can stand up in the Kingdom 6, but the Kingdom 4 is shorter, but it's not that much shorter. I'm guessing you can still stand in it, but it's just not something you'd want to do for more than 5 mins at a time.

Regarding the rainfly- I haven't actually been out in it yet, so I can't say. It looks to me like that's not an issue though. Here's a pic of it set up in my living room (what can I say- I was excited!), and the mesh is up pretty high off the ground...