Who Makes The Best 6 Person Family Tent?

If you are looking at purchasing the best 6 person family tent for you and your family there are a few different features that you may want to have with your tent.  Below I’ve outlined what I think the best 6 person family tents are and what features I think are useful to have on your tent.

Seasonality

Tents are designed to be used in certain seasons so make sure that you choose one that will be a good fit for you and what climate you will be using it in.  

2 Season Tents

2 season tents are designed to be used on backpacking trips and during the summer months.  2 season tents are typically designed to be lightweight and will typically have a lot of mesh in their design so that it can provide good ventilation during the hot summer months.  

3 Season Tents

3 season tents are designed to be used in the spring, summer, and fall seasons.  They are designed to be able to withstand rain and light amounts of snow. 3 season tents are probably going to be the better option for most people as most people just want to have one tent and not multiple tents for certain occasions.  

Tent Height and Shape

Dome Tents

When looking at 6 person family tents there are a couple of different styles to choose from, dome and cabin types.  

The most common type is a dome type camping tent. With a dome camping tent, the walls of the tent are in the shape of a dome.  

The dome shape makes the tent better able to have rain flow off of the walls of the tent and makes it better able to handle windy conditions than a cabin style tent. 

Cabin Tents

With a cabin tent type, the tent will have a higher ceiling and overall shape but because the walls are more vertical they are going to get blown around more by the wind.  If you are planning on walking around in the interior of your tent a lot on your camping trip a cabin style tent would make more sense than a dome tent because of the higher ceiling of cabin tents.

In rainstorms you want the water to bead off of your tent walls so that it does not soak through to the interior of your tent.  With the vertical walls of cabin style tents, they are going to be more likely to have this happen unless they have a full-coverage rain fly so you may want to go with one that has a full coverage rain fly if you get a lot of rain in your area.  

If you have taller individuals that are going to be using the tent you will also want to take into account the center height of the tent.  It’s not fun to have to hunch around the inside of your tent all the time, but if you aren’t planning on being in your tent that often this may not be that much of a factor.

If you are interested in learning more about dome and cabin tents you may want to check out my other article about which are better dome tents vs cabin tents?

Link Dome and Cabin tent article

6 Person Family Tents – Sleeping Capacity

If you are looking for a 6 person family tent you probably want one that has a decent amount of interior space in it so that you can sleep 6 people comfortably and still have room for your camping gear.  It’s going to be important that you take the interior space into account if you want to make sure that you are getting a roomy tent as they are not all made the same.

If you are going to need to sleep 6 people in your tent consistently you may want to look at getting an 8 person tent as they usually say that you can sleep 6 people in the tent but that’s 6 people sleeping shoulder to shoulder in the tent.  It doesn’t leave you much room to sprawl around or much extra room for your clothes and camping stuff.

Tent Doors

If you are planning on getting in and out of your tent a lot on your camping trip you may want to look at getting a tent with more than one door on it.  This makes it easier for people to get in and out of the tent and allows multiple people to enter and exit the tent at the same time if need be. One thing that you will probably want with your tent doors is a window so that you can vent the tent when it’s not raining or it’s hot outside.  

Value

In researching tents some brands are generally going to charge more for their products and they may or may not be made better than their cheaper alternatives but that’s ultimately up for you to decide.  

Ozark trails usually focus on providing reasonable tents at cheap prices. Coleman is one of the main manufacturers of tents and possibly the largest brand overall, they provide a lot of different tent options at different price points so that you can choose what style of tent that you like and what features you want at different price points.  

ALPS Mountaineering makes good products that seem to be well-engineered but overall are going to cost more than comparable tents from other manufacturers. ALPS seems to make well-designed products with many nice features, they usually just cost a bit more because of this.

CORE is another popular tent brand that makes products comparable to Coleman products with prices and features.  CORE tents may have features that you may not get with another brand, it’s ultimately down to what you want to have with your tent and what you think will be useful.

If you wanted to learn more about CORE tents and Coleman tents you may want to check out the other article that I wrote about CORE tents vs Coleman tents, which are better?

Best 6 Person Family Tents – Reviews

Coleman Steel Creek 6 Person Family Tent

With the Coleman Steel Creek 6 person family tent has interior dimensions of 10’ x 9’ and also has a built-in screen room that allows you to enjoy the great outdoors while being protected from insects. 

The screen room is also somewhat large with an area of 10’ x 5’. Coleman says that you should be able to fit up to two queen inflatable air mattresses inside of the main area of the tent.

The screen room also provides additional storage room for items that you don’t mind being exposed to the elements.  This Coleman 6 person family tent also comes with awnings over each window which helps you keep dry if you still want to open up your windows if it’s raining.

This tent also comes with internal storage pockets for extra storage space for your camping gear. It also comes with an integrated E-port that you can use to run an extension cord inside of your tent to charge your electronics or power a camping fan. 

This tent comes with Colemans WeatherTec technology that is designed to help keep water out of your tent by including a floor that wraps up around the base of the tent and seems that are sealed from the factory to help keep water from entering through the seams.

If you are interested in checking out the current prices on Amazon of this Coleman Steel Creek 6 person family tent click here.

Coleman Carlsbad 6 Person Family Tent

The Coleman Carlsbad 6 person family tent is very similar in size, options, and features as the Coleman Steel Creek 6 person family tent but also comes with Coleman’s Dark Room technology. 

It also comes with a screen room like the Coleman Steel Creek tent. The dimensions of this tent are actually identical to the Coleman Steel Creek family tent.

You may be asking why is this Coleman Carlsbad 6 person family tent cost more than the Coleman Steel Creek tent then?  The main feature that you are paying a premium for is Coleman’s Dark Room technology.

This technology blocks up to 90% of the sunlight that would typically enter your tent and this helps by doing a few things.  One way this technology helps keep your tent cooler is by blocking sunlight and the heat that the sunlight would produce by entering your tent. 

 The second way Dark Room technology helps out is by blocking out the early morning sunlight.  This helps if you like to sleep in because it will keep the inside of your tent much darker than it would be in a normal tent without that technology. 

Third I think that this tent looks a bit better than the Coleman Steel Creek tent because of the black and teal colors used. Looks are subjective though so I’d go with the one that you think looks better. 

If you just want to save some money but want a tent with a screen room I’d just go with the Coleman Steel Creek one.  To check out the current price of this Coleman Carlsbad 6 person family tent on Amazon click here.

Other 6 Person Family Tent Features to Look For

In Tent storage

Storage space is going to be crucial if you are planning on camping with a lot of people. The more people you have staying in the tent the more room for clothes and bags you will need. Some tents will come with internal storage pockets on their walls or in the roof of the tent to give you extra storage space for your camping stuff.  It may not be a bad idea to go with a tent with a larger footprint just so that you have more internal storage space for your things if you are going to be bringing a lot along.

Vestibule

A vestibule is an overhang that usually sits over one of the doors of the tent.  A vestibule is nice because it provides you with a screened-in area that you can use as extra storage space for your items.  Vestibules are typically not fully protected from the rain though so it would be best to store things in them overnight that you wouldn’t worry about getting wet such as a cooler. It’s also nice having a vestibule as you can take your shoes off before entering the tent so that you do not track mud and dirt into your tent entering and exiting. 

Rainfly

The rain fly of a tent is the piece of tent material that extends over the roof of the tent to provide the tent with protection from the rain.  The rainfly is usually made of waterproof material that will be designed to wick away water from the surface of the rain fly.

You will want to make sure that if you are planning on using your tent in the rain a lot you will want to get a tent with a full-coverage rain fly.  This means that the rain fly fully covers the whole tent while in use instead of just covering certain sections of the tent-like most rain flys.

You don’t want your tent walls to get wet as eventually, that water will start soaking through to the inside of the tent. A full-coverage rain fly prevents this from happening as water should be stopped from ever hitting the tent wall in the first place.

If you’d like to learn more about

Link Rain Fly article

Ground tarp

Another consideration you should make when picking out the best 6 person family tent for camping is using a ground tarp to set your tent on.  This provides a couple of different benefits but the main one is it provides another barrier between your tent surface and the ground of your campsite.  This makes it less likely for water to be able to soak through the floor of the tent in rainy conditions and it also provides a bit more cushion for people sleeping on the floor of the tent.  

Best 6 Person Family Tents – In Conclusion

When trying to find the best 6 person family tent there are a lot of different tents from different brands to choose from.  Hopefully, the information provided in this article has allowed you to make a more informed buying decision to pick the best 6 person family tent.