Guide Gear 18′ Teepee: Good Huge Tent

For car camping, we have had the REI Base Camp 6 tent for fourteen years.  The current iteration is $470. It is bombproof and has survived storms with winds over 40 knots. Even after a decade of use, the only problem is that the plastic windows on the rain fly are shot, but this is not a real issue and the tent itself is still waterproof.  I often recommend the REI Base Camp 6 as a family camping tent. But the problem with the Base Camp 6 is that it really does not fit six people comfortably. With four growing kids we began a search for a new family car camping tent.  The only options at REI for bigger tents are well over $500, and they are not that big.

We ended up buying the enormous Guide Gear 18’ x 18’ Teepee Tent from Sportsman’s Guide for about $220.  We have been pleasantly surprised with how well this cheap, big teepee has worked. (I have no relationship with Guide Gear or Sportsman’s Guide)

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Its packed size is a cylinder about 32” long and about 11” in diameter.  It weighs about 25 lbs.  This package is compact enough to easily fit in checked luggage. Set up, the footprint is an octagon that is 18’ in diameter from corner to corner and 16’ in diameter from side to side.  The height of the tent is 9’9” at the center pole.

The tent floor is polyethylene, very similar to “blue tarp” fabric.  It has held up well to rough kids.  The tent upper is a single wall 190-denier polyester with a P/U coating. There are two large screen doors and four screen windows, and four clear plastic window panels.

Setting up the teepee is easy and fast IF you have a site with good staking ground.  The basic set-up process is to stake out the 8 corners, insert the 4-piece steel pole, then stake out the windows and tensioning lines with 8 more stakes.  In soft ground, this takes me about 10 minutes. Where things get complicated is rocky ground.  The stakes that come with the tent are crap.  They are “L” shaped and rotate easily, causing the lines to slip off the stakes.  They are also made of a mild steel that bends easily.  As the stakes bend I am replacing them with stouter stakes.  In some rocky sites that would not hold stakes I have ended up tying lines to heavy rocks and trees.

Other than the cheap stakes and the challenge of rocky ground, the biggest issue with the teepee is finding sites large enough. You need at least a 16’x16′ area to set up the floor. Many campground tent pads are not that big.

The teepee tent has kept us dry in the rain.  The key to this is to stake out the doors so that water running down the doors does not come back in the tent.  If you don’t stake out the doors water ends up inside. Do I think the teepee is as bombproof as our old REI Base Camp 6? No. The REI tent has a more sturdy design and better construction. That said, when it comes to car camping we don’t camp in hurricanes. For most of our car camping, if the weather is going to be bad we bail.

As with any single wall tent, we have experienced condensation with six people sleeping in humid conditions in the rain.  However, the teepee is surprisingly well ventilated.  The four screen windows have covers that allow them to stay open during rain and the large screened roof vent is waterproof. With both large screen doors open (when no rain) there is plenty of ventilation and no condensation.  This is particularly good for typical Texas camping.

The best thing about this tent is that it is HUGE.  All six of us can sleep in it comfortably, regardless of how many bags or cots we have.  There is plenty of headroom to stand up and change.

One of the fun things about this tent is that whenever we set it up people stop by and ask about it. It is really hard to overstate how huge it is. In sum, aside from the crappy stakes, the Guide Gear 18′ Teepee is a pretty good tent for large families seeking lots of space to spread out.