Pro tip: stop reviewing tents after one night in the backyard

I keep seeing these 5 star reviews for tents that people set up on their lawn and slept in for one night. That test is useless. I took a popular 3 season tent on a 6 day trip in the Sierra Nevada last month and the zipper jammed on day 2, plus the rain fly sagged after two nights. You need at least 5 nights in actual weather to know if a tent holds up. Has anyone else found a tent that seems great at home but falls apart in the field?

2 comments

2 Comments

theabarnes23d ago

My friend bought a massive 8 person tent for car camping and we set it up in his backyard to test it, then a bird flew inside and got trapped for two hours before we figured out how to get it out. So now I always check for bird escape routes before anything else.

dakota_murphy9023d ago

Did you try just opening the tent flap wide and giving the bird a clear path out? Usually theyll figure it out if they can see the exit. We had a moth get stuck in ours once and it took way longer than it should have to get it out. Now I always keep at least one door unzipped a bit when we set up.