How to Choose a Backpacking Tent, From Packaged Weight to Rainfly

Saturday morning at the gear store. Two green tents look like twins, both “2-person,” and one weighs several ounces less than the other. Your hand’s already on the box. Except the two labels aren’t weighing the same thing: one counts the stakes and the stuff sack, the other doesn’t. You pick a tent by its spec sheet, and a spec sheet reads like a contract, fine print included.

That fine print always covers the same lines: packaged weight, floor width, structure, rainfly and season, vestibules. This guide takes them one at a time, based on what the manufacturers themselves publish and what the standard says. For a first night out, our guide to your first backcountry camping trip finds a tent simpler than a tarp; all that’s left is choosing the right one.

Minimum or packaged weight: what each brand counts

In 1998, outdoor companies got together with ASTM International, an American standards organization, to set a method for weighing backpacking and mountaineering tents: the ASTM F1934 standard, which MSR says it follows voluntarily [1]. According to the standard’s summary, minimum and packaged weight are what consumers use to evaluate tents [2]. Packaged weight is everything in the package, just as you buy it. Minimum weight covers only the tent bodyThe inner tent you sleep in, with its floor, often partly made of mesh., the rainflyThe waterproof outer layer pitched over the tent body, which keeps off rain and wind., and the poles, without stakes, guylines, or stuff sacks [1].

Not everyone uses the same words, though. Vaude’s “Minimalgewicht,” or minimum weight, also includes the minimum number of stakes needed to pitch the tent, but not the stuff sack or the storm guylines, and the German brand warns that a tent set up that way only holds up in favorable conditions [6]. Big Agnes lists a “trail weight” and a “total weight” [4], Hilleberg a minimum weight and a packed weight [5], without spelling out on their spec sheets what each one includes. So the only fair comparison is packaged against packaged, never one tent’s minimum against another’s packaged weight.

Even packaged weight isn’t always what ends up in your pack. MSR points out that most of its tents are sold without a footprintA ground cloth cut to the shape of the tent floor and laid underneath to protect it, usually sold separately., so add its weight if you bring one [7]. Vaude ships its tents with enough stakes for a first pitch and leaves it to you to add more for the terrain [8]. A tent pitched with trekking poles is weighed without them: 2 lb 14 oz (1.3 kg) for the MT900 Minimal Editions from Forclaz, a brand of French sporting goods retailer Decathlon, without the poles, naturally [9]. As a ballpark, Decathlon puts a light tent at about 2.2 to 3.3 lb (1 to 1.5 kg) per person [10], and Vaude advises staying under 4.4 lb (2 kg) on foot and 8.8 lb (4 kg) by bike [6], where the tent body and poles ride in your bags, as our bikepacking gear list shows.

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Ounce counters, and I know a few, will be reaching for the kitchen scale: MSR admits that a tent weighed at home can come in a few ounces over or under its advertised weight, depending on the thickness of the coatings or how the fabric was cut [1].

One, two, or three people: measure the floor width

The number in the name tells you how many sleepers the tent is built for [7], not how much room is left around them. Vaude specifies that its “1-person” and “2-person” ratings don’t include gear [6]; Hilleberg, on the other hand, says it builds its tents for their occupants plus their gear [11]. Same word, two different promises. And for a two-person trekking tent, Decathlon warns there will be just enough room for your sleeping pads, and suggests checking their size [9].

Let’s run the numbers with published specs. MSR’s Hubba Hubba NX has an 84 x 50 in (213 x 127 cm) floor [3]. A Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite NXT sleeping pad is 20 in (51 cm) wide in the Regular size and 25 in (64 cm) in Regular Wide [12]. Two Regular pads leave 10 in to spare; two Regular Wides take up 50 in, the full width of the floor, with no room to spare, so they press against the walls. Big Agnes’s Copper Spur UL2 tapers toward the foot end, from 52 to 42 in (132 to 107 cm) [4]: two wide pads fit at the head but not at the feet, where the floor is 8 in narrower than their combined 50 in. According to Therm-a-Rest, most two-person backpacking tents are 50 to 52 in (127 to 132 cm) wide [12], enough for two standard pads, rarely for two wide ones.

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Width isn’t everything. MSR suggests looking at wall height and slope too: steep, near-vertical walls let you sit close to the edge without hunching over, and two tents with the same floor area aren’t created equal [7]. The Hubba Hubba NX peaks at 39 in (100 cm), the Copper Spur UL2 at 40 in (102 cm) [3, 4], and the Akto’s inner tent at 37 in (93 cm) [5]. Vaude also recommends lying down in the tent with your pad and sleeping bag before you buy, since the length has to fit your height [6]. Hence the tip both MSR and Decathlon mention: size up by one, a two-person tent for solo trips, a three-person tent for two [7, 9].

Freestanding, semi-freestanding, or staked out

Third line on the spec sheet: the structure. At MSR, a freestandingA tent whose poles hold its shape on their own, without stakes or guylines. tent stands on its poles alone; a semi-freestanding tent also needs points staked out or pulled taut by guylines, like the FreeLite; tarp-style shelters go up with trekking poles or an accessory pole, plus well-tensioned guylinesThe cords that connect the tent fabric to the stakes driven in around it. [7]. A tunnel tentA tent with parallel, semicircular poles, tensioned from both ends., by contrast, won’t stand without stakes [10]. But the terms change from one brand to the next. Hilleberg calls a dome “self supporting” when only its vestibules need staking out, and saves “freestanding” for one that needs no stakes at all [11]; Decathlon writes that a semi-freestanding tent stands up even without stakes [10]. So read the brand’s definition, not just the label.

A freestanding tent still benefits from being staked and guyed out: MSR says it’s always a good idea, to pull it tight, gain room inside, and not find your tent blown away when you get back [7]. Tunnel tents hold up very well in wind while staying light, according to Decathlon [10], and Hilleberg considers them ideal for trips where you take down and pitch the tent every day [11]. The Akto pitches with as few as four stakes and comes with ten in the bag [5].

Then there’s the tent that pitches on trekking poles, often called a tarp tent: light, but it needs two hiking poles, Decathlon points out [10]. If you hike without them, add the weight of an accessory pole, the other option MSR offers for its shelters [7], and check the instructions for the pole height required.

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Single or double wall, three or four seasons

Most three-season tents are double-wall, with a mesh or breathable tent body under a waterproof rainfly; single-wall tents, made of one layer of fabric, are mostly found in mountaineering and in tarp-style shelters, according to MSR [7]. The upside of a double wall is simple: overnight moisture condenses on the underside of the rainfly and stays out of the tent body, Vaude explains [6].

On seasons, MSR makes all its backpacking tents three-season tents, useful from spring through fall in most places. A four-season tent keeps out snow and cold air and stands up to heavy snow loads and high winds, but it’s harder to ventilate and heavier; as the brand puts it, if you need a four-season tent, you probably know it [7]. Hilleberg sorts its tents by colored labels instead: Black and Red Label for all seasons, Yellow Label for the snow-free months, protected terrain, or warmer climates [13].

One detail on the spec sheet says a lot: does the rainfly reach the ground? Hilleberg warns that a fly that stops short can let in wind-driven rain and splashing water, and if you have any doubts, it urges you to go up a category [11]. Vaude adds that mountain weather often changes fast, and recommends a tent there that pitches quickly and stands up to storms [6].

Vestibules, and pitching in the rain

The vestibuleThe area covered by the rainfly in front of the door, outside the tent body. is your storage closet: Vaude uses it for bulky gear, wet shoes, and dirty equipment, away from where you sleep [8]. Decathlon recommends at least one large vestibule on a two-person tent, puts two on its own two-person models, and makes the case for two-door tents, so you can get out at night without crawling over your tentmate [9]. Spec sheets list the area: two 8.75 sq ft (0.81 m²) vestibules on the Hubba Hubba NX, 8.6 sq ft (0.8 m²) on the Akto, which has a single door [3, 5]. Hilleberg also offers extended vestibules, handy with lots of gear, a dog, or kids, at the cost of a bigger footprint on the ground and a little extra weight [11].

What the standards say, and what they leave out

There is a standard for camping tents: ISO 5912, an international standard whose fifth edition dates from March 2020, adopted in Europe as EN ISO 5912:2020. It sets requirements for safety, performance, and fitness for use, sorts tents into two categories, one of them for lightweight tents, and into three performance levels [14]. It also includes a sleeping capacity calculation and a rain test, summarized in the table below. What it no longer says matters just as much: its introduction explains that stability, though considered important, was dropped for lack of a reproducible test method [14].

Without a common yardstick, each brand tests wind resistance its own way. Decathlon says its trekking domes and tunnels are tested in gusts up to 43 mph (70 km/h) [10], Vaude puts its tents through a wind tunnel [6], and those results can’t be compared across brands. None of the spec sheets or manufacturer advice pages cited here mentions ISO 5912, either: the capacity a tent lists doesn’t tell you whether it follows the standard’s calculation.

Tent or tarp for a first night

A tarp, a simple sheet of fabric pitched overhead, is very light but protects you less well from the weather, according to Decathlon [10], and Hilleberg warns that riding out truly bad weather under such a minimal shelter can be miserable, if not downright dangerous; the lighter the tent, the brand adds, the less comfort it offers, and possibly the less security in bad weather [11]. For a first night, a tent has the edge for simplicity; the tarp can come later, with the setups in our tarp guide. And the tent isn’t the whole story: your sleeping pad and its R-value and your sleeping bag do as much as the tent to keep you warm.

Before you buy, six lines to check on the spec sheet, or to ask about at the store:

• Packaged weight, compared with another tent’s packaged weight, plus the footprint and poles if they’re extra
• Floor width, at the head and at the feet, versus the width of your sleeping pads
• Wall height and slope, and floor length versus your height
• Structure, freestanding, semi-freestanding, tunnel, or trekking-pole, and the number of stakes included
• The rainfly, whether it reaches the ground, and the season it’s designed for
• Vestibules, doors, and the pitching order in the rain

The smart move, before you even look at the price: read the packaged weight, then pull out a tape measure for the floor width, sleeping pads included. The rest of the spec sheet can wait until you’ve got a quiet minute.

Worth watching

REI’s Miranda lays out the options for a backpacking tent, from capacity and weight to seasons and design, to help you pick the right one for your next trip.

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Guillaume Hoarau

Camping, backpacking, bushcraft and hiking

Guillaume Hoarau writes for Outfarer about camping, backpacking, bushcraft, and hiking. A survival-skills buff and a collector of vintage field manuals, he loves clear explanations, lists that actually help and other people’s stories, which he tells well.

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