Coleman Sundome Camping Tent

I have to recommend the Coleman Sundome Camping Tent.  A few years back I bought one of these before I hit my current streak of camping, and it sat in a box in the attic ignored.  Then I entered a phase of life where I started camping more.  Like anyone my main concern was “Can this thing handle rain?”  Initially I’d go camping and throw a huge tarp over it in extreme storms, but I’ve stopped even doing that.  On it’s own, it holds up.  I looked at a video Coleman has for their tents where they test them in a simulated rainstorm room and that matched my experience.  But let it be known I’m referring to strictly the 4 person Coleman Sundome tent.  It all comes down to how the seams are made, and what the bottom few inches of the tent are composed of.  For the four person tent there is a few inches of nice plastic feeling material that rises from ground into the air and seems to endure whatever muck is forming outside during a rainstorm.  I have now purchased a 2 person version of the tent which has less height of that bottom stuff apparently, so I’ll be skeptical when I get to playing with it.  But that’s just a toy, my main tent continues to be the 4 person version.

If I’ve learned anything about tents it is you take the recommended number of people it fits and divide by 2 to get the actual number of people that fit comfortably.  So a 4 person tent in my opinion is really a 2 person tent.  The four person Coleman Sundome Camping Tent seems ideal for putting a queen sized air mattress in.  I however shove a double height air mattress in which tests the limits of the ten’s space, leaving a food or so on two sides of the mattress is pressed against the other two walls.  I’ll endure that for being extra comfortable on my bed, and I like the tent enough not to get anything better for my sleeping choice.  Downside, when on a double high queen air mattress the little hanging pockets for your keys and stuff on the wall are in my headspace a bit.  Still worth it.  The point here is the only downside so far to the Sundome is that I crap it up with a huge mattress.

After a couple years of hard core use on my original 4 person Sundome, it started to be time to look for a replacement.  A zipper had busted on a window and one of those little hanging pockets had ripped.  Which overall isn’t too bad for the abuse I put it through.  Sometimes I’d take it on camping trips that’d find me busting down camp every day for days in a row and moving to a new location, so a lot of wear and tear.  This impresses me.  And no I’m not that person as of yet that puts tarps or pads under the tent or babies it too much to keep it pristine.  So Amazon Prime Day comes around and there was a deal on the same tent, although in different color this time, and of course I’m immediately sold.

The new tent is an identical version, so my first thought was that I already had replacement parts if I needed them.  I’d never broken a tent pole or anything before though, so I filled that thought away.  However, the rain fly that comes with the tent uses one short tent pole, which broke!  After 3 camping trips I came home, laid the tent open in my garage to air out and dry (standard post camping procedure for me) before putting it in it’s bag.  Somehow during this time but thankfully after camping was done the shock cord, meaning the stretchy bit inside of a tent pole, decided it was going to break.  Being a new tent I wasn’t thrilled.  I could have grabbed the original tent and taken the matching part from it, but I wanted to learn how to fix tent poles.  So I found some shock cord on Amazon (which is cheap) and learned to thread it into poles to fix them.  And it worked.  But that’s my only gripe while spending time using and abusing the 2nd Coleman Sundome Camping Tent I have.

Other perks of the Sundome is that it has a little fabric loop to attack a light to in the top center of the tent.  And the rain fly is optional, so the few times i’ve camped and it has actually been warm I’ve been able to keep it as cool as possible. I’m also amazed that the floor doesn’t have holes in it.  Seems like a lot of the state parks I go to in particular have gravel pads they force you to put a tent on, instead of nice soft grass, and it doesn’t shred the thing.

For what it is worth I also own a Coleman Evanstan 6 person tent.  I bought it about the same time I bought the original Sundome, because I was attracted to the screened porch room.  This tent mostly sits unused now because it is basically a Sundome with a porch, and the porch lets rain in, so I rarely see the point of this tent for my needs.  When it does make sense is when I’m going to be near a buggy lake during a dry time or something and want a screen room to hide from mosquitoes in.  But that’s about it.  Sundome for the win.