How Do Popup Tents Work?

Last week I walked down the street and checked out a large camping store that is in my neighborhood. I'm glad I did, because they had a new popup camping tent in their showroom. It was already set up, and I was able to see it, touch it, climb inside and have a really good look-around at the way the whole thing functioned.

So now I have a much better understanding of camping pop-up tents, and I can tell you now — with some authority — that there are two main types of instant-up tent. These are the “umbrella frame” type popup tent  and the “uncoiling spring” type tent. (These are nobody's official names, yet. I just made them up today to help me describe to you the way these two types of self-erecting tents work.)

Take either one of these instant-opening tents out of its storage bag and it will pop up into an open tent shape within seconds – at least the uncoiling-spring type popup tent will.

The uncoiling-spring type popup tent is stored in a big cylinder-shaped bag, rather like a very large family-sized pizza. It is about 2 feet in diameter and about 4 inches thick. Great for the car but no use for a backpack.

The umbrella-frame popup tent packs away and stores in a cylindrical-shaped bag, just like most conventional camping tents. So it is easier to hike or go backpacking with.

All you have to do to make use of these pop up tents, is to unzip the door and climb inside. Well almost. You had better peg out the corners of the structure with tent pegs for stability.  And if your camping tent has guy-lines (ropes) then use those to anchor it securely to more tent pegs so the tent won't blow away if your camp site gets any gusts of the wind.

Some instant-erecting tents have just one “wall” of fabric. The better tents will have a waterproof and wind proof outer skin and an inner wall like a mosquito net that will keep out the bugs but allow the air to circulate. This prevents moisture from your breath from turning to droplets on the inside walls and dripping on you.

The umbrella-frame type of quick-up camping tent needs its “umbrella-like” roof frame to be opened out manually, so it takes a few seconds more. But it's still an outdoors tent you can set up in two or three minutes, as opposed to much longer for a conventional type of camping tent.

How long will it take you to erect a new popup camping tent? I don't know because I don't know how handy you are at that kind of thing. Have you even put up a regular dome tent or a wall tent before? If not, it may take you a little longer. But packing the tent up when it's time to go home is a whole new ball game. It will take you longer to pack it away than it did to set it up.