The Best Tents Under $200

The Wireless 2 is built for the campground, not the trail, and Kelty makes no secret of it. The three poles are fiberglass, the minimum weight is 6 pounds 14 ounces, and it packs into a 24-inch duffel with a wide mouth that you stuff rather than fold. In exchange you get the most headroom of the two-person tents here, 43.8 inches at the peak, and a pitch designed to be done by one person.

Kelty's Quick Corners are color-coded feet that the poles click into, so the tent body holds its shape while you clip it up. Each side has its own door and a 9.5-square-foot vestibule, which is the detail that makes a two-person tent livable: nobody climbs over anybody at 3 a.m., and each of you gets a dry place for boots and a bag. The vestibules unzip at the corners instead of down the middle, which makes getting a cooler or a camp chair under cover easier than it sounds.

The floor is 86 by 50.5 inches, enough for two standard 20-inch sleeping pads side by side with a hand's width between them, as the floor plans below show. The fly and floor are 68-denier polyester with a 1,200 mm water column, which is on the low side; with the seams fully taped, as they are here, it suits showers and an evening of steady rain. Kelty includes aluminum stakes and attaches the guylines for you, with pockets in the fly so they don't tangle.

If the tent is going in a backpack, start here. The Late Start weighs 4 pounds 5 ounces at minimum and 4 pounds 12 ounces with everything Kelty ships, and packs to 16 by 6.5 inches, small enough to strap under the lid of most packs. It uses the same Quick Corners as the Wireless, but with two aluminum poles that are pre-bent to push the walls outward, so the inside feels bigger than its 30.6 square feet.

It is also the roomiest two-person floor here: 89 inches long and 54 wide. A sleeper over six feet tall has space for a pillow, and two standard pads leave real elbow room between them.

What Kelty gave up to get the weight down is the second door. There is one entrance and one 7.4-square-foot vestibule, which holds one pack and two pairs of boots, not two packs. For a couple that is a small nightly negotiation; for one person who wants room to spread out, it is no trouble at all. The fly and floor carry the same 68-denier polyester and 1,200 mm figure as the Wireless, and the footprint is sold separately.

The Grand Mesa has been Kelty's budget backpacking tent for a long time, and the current version weighs 4 pounds 1 ounce at minimum, the lightest tent on this list. It packs to 16 by 7 inches, about the size of the Late Start, and uses the same Quick Corners, a color-coded clip for the fly and two press-fit aluminum poles.

The weight comes from the shape. The floor is 85 inches long and tapers from 57 inches at the head to 44 at the foot, which is why there is no floor plan for it below: it is a wedge, not a rectangle. Two 20-inch pads fit, but only just at the foot end, and anyone over six feet will find the 85 inches tight.

Against the Late Start, then: the Grand Mesa costs a little less and is four ounces lighter at minimum, and both weigh 4 pounds 12 ounces with everything in the bag. The Late Start is longer, squarer and roomier. Choose the Grand Mesa if you camp alone or with a small partner and count every ounce, and the Late Start if you share the tent with someone tall.

A six-person tent is really a four-person tent with room for bags, and that is exactly what the Skydome 6 is good at. The floor is 10 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, Coleman says it fits two queen-size airbeds, and the center height is a full 6 feet, so most adults can stand up straight in the middle to change. The walls rise almost vertically, which is where Coleman's claim of 20 percent more headroom than its traditional domes comes from: the usable space reaches closer to the edges.

The poles come attached to the tent body, so pitching is a matter of unfolding and flexing rather than threading sleeves, and a family's second adult can be unloading the car while the first puts it up. Coleman's WeatherTec floor is a tub, with welded corners so its seams sit above the ground, and the seams are inverted to keep water out. Coleman says the frame has been tested in winds up to 35 mph. There are mesh pockets and a gear loft for headlamps and phones.

The compromises are the ones you'd expect at this size and price. It weighs 16.8 pounds, there is one wide door and no vestibule, so muddy boots come inside or stay out in the rain, and Coleman publishes no water column figure for the fabric. As a base camp at a drive-in site, none of that is a deal-breaker.

The smaller Skydome is the tent for a couple who would rather sleep on a queen-size airbed than on two thin pads. The floor is 8 by 7 feet, Coleman says it fits one queen airbed, and the 4-foot-8 center height means you kneel rather than crouch. It costs about what the Kelty Wireless 2P does, and the difference between them is the whole point: the Skydome trades the Kelty's two doors and two porches for nearly twice the floor.

Everything else is the big Skydome made smaller: poles attached to the body, the WeatherTec tub floor with welded corners and inverted seams, the frame Coleman says has been tested in 35 mph winds, mesh pockets and a gear loft. It weighs 10.2 pounds.

Call it a four-person tent only if two of the four are small. Four adults on standard pads fill the floor edge to edge, with nowhere to put a bag, and with one door, the person at the back climbs over everyone. As a roomy tent for two, or two adults and a child, it makes good sense.