12 Best Screen Houses for Camping 2023 Review Guide

I do with the flaps to close the windows were on the inside but it isn’t a huge issue. You probably already have too much stuff, so your screen tent should be spacious enough to entertain but compact enough to store. A tent that comes with a storage bag makes it both portable and simple to store. If you are looking to “up” your tailgating game, you may want a pop-up that can withstand any wind or rain. Note that the mentioned area more or less corresponds to the shade that this screen house offers, the walls are completely vertical, see the picture below. Wirecutter is the product recommendation service from The New York Times.

Most screen tents aren’t for sleeping as much as for relaxing, dining, and other activities requiring plenty of headroom. For that reason, most options offer comfortably tall openings, so the height of the entryway is rarely an issue. The easiest entryways to navigate are those with magnetic closures, but they’re often the least insect-proof and weatherproof. Zippered entries can be difficult to manipulate one-handed, but they do help to ensure unwanted pests aren’t able to pass through to steal food or leave a mess. Regardless of the entryway style, many screen tents feature convenient tiebacks to hold the screen open when you want to pass through freely.

The SansBug is also super easy to pitch thanks to the instant pop-up design. The screenhouse can spring into action and provide some light protection to shelter you in the rain. After you feel a few drops, you can get this one up and over you before the shower really starts. None of these products will hold up for very long against a storm, but the Alvantor comes with some handy extras to improve the stability of this screenhouse in the wind. The quick pitch setup is also perfect for when you don’t want to waste time setting up a second tent.

You can even purchase an optional floor, genuinely bringing the indoors outside. The REI Co-op Screen House Shelter is an intuitively designed, easy-to-erect picnic tent that offers protection from sun, bugs, and mild rain showers. Since 2015, I’ve tested camping shelters and large car-camping tents on weekend trips involving more than a dozen families, and I have talked to dozens more about their tent travails. Over the years, I have evaluated gear for magazines including Wired, Popular Science, and National Geographic Adventure, where I was a senior editor. It comes in plenty of different sizes to tailor to your family. Its attachable floors and retractable walls make it brilliantly versatile for picnic tables, play areas, and as an outdoor living room.

It also leans to the affordable side, which is unusual for this size. You’re getting high-quality materials with a sturdy framework. This Gazelle Camping Gazebo might just be everything you’re looking for in an outdoor shelter.

There are also guylines and stakes to use if you end up in heavily windy conditions, but they’re not integral to its instant setup. The most trustable screen tent for when the weather turns coleman sundome and packed full of useful features. This screen house performs exceptionally well in the rain and has polyester panels that can be let down to make a completely enclosed structure.

However, taking the festivities off-grid requires a screen tent with some serious portability chops. One of the standout features of this tent is the privacy zipper wall panels, which allow users to add privacy to the tent while sleeping. Open them up during the day to create mesh windows coleman ice chest that provide excellent ventilation and enjoy the views of your surroundings while keeping the bugs out. The tent that offers the most protection from the sun is the Coleman WeatherMaster. Because the Coleman is made of regular synthetic material and only the screen room is made from mesh.

But for my son on his Scout trips, the larger size is not an issue since this will be trailered along with all the other gear a typical Troop takes! Some of the other boys were envious of the copious amount of room he had inside. It did overhang a standard cot a little on the sides, but it didn’t seem to bother him at all.

Lastly, the Core Instant Screen House Canopy Tent has sloped walls, which I don’t love because it reduces the amount of usable space inside the tent. That said, the frame of this screen tent is alloy steel (aka a mix of steel and other metal), so it should be reasonably durable. The roof of the tent is also listed as “heavy-duty 150D polyester,” which means that it has a Denier rating of 150.

Most folks using a screen house while camping aren’t going to be trekking into the wilderness. I like that the Alvantor Screen House folds down flat so it’s easy to lay flat on other gear or store in a narrow space. If you’re taking a camping trip with a small group, the Coleman Instant Screen House Canopy Tent is a great choice. Having pockets in camping gear is never a bad thing and if you’re camping with a family, being organized is a top priority. Imagine the best parts of camping but without those itchy and annoying bug bites or sweaty downtimes in an enclosed tent. We all know that unwelcome feeling of bugs nibbling at our ankles once the sun goes down at camp and we’re just trying to get in a fun game night with the family.