REI.com alone has 47 options for 2-person backpacking tents from 16 brands. When I add in other brands and other stores, I took data on 93 tents from 31 manufacturers. How can we narrow that down? This post is all about my process to select the best 2-person backpacking tent available for me, comparing against my current Nemo Dagger 2p (63oz, great vestibules, great customer service). If you want to read all the details, carry on. If instead you want to jump to the recommendations, take the leap.

I’ve looked at tents from the following sources:

My search was for 2-person capacity, backpacking use (not car camping or mountaineering), ground-based (not hammock), and 4-wall (not tarp only). If you are open to something outside this, I recommend taking these recommendations and comparing against your own search.

First, let’s walk through the factors I considered and see how this collection of tents compare to each other.

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Price

Unless you like throwing money away, less is better. The range is $100 to $1100, with an average around $370. For any tents that had optional poles or required seam sealing, I added that to the price listed.

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Weight

Obviously, less is better. But sometimes this is tricky because not all published weights include the same thing. There is a huge span of 19oz to 121oz, with an average at 67oz.

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Weight vs Price

This is my favorite correlation. Generally, you need to increase price to decrease weight. Often that means thinner, more fragile materials that are difficult to manufacture or more expensive to obtain. The best place in this chart is cheap and light, which is the lower left corner. The worst place is expensive and heavy, the upper right corner. Being above the downward sloping trendline means that tent is generally heavy for the price. That means the best tents are likely below the line. And the tents furthest to the lower left corner are on the Value Frontier, which makes them frontrunners in my book.

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Floor Area

We at least want to fit two sleeping pads next to each other, which either means 40 inches wide (if pads are 20 inches wide) or 50 inches wide (if pads are 25 inches wide). And the larger the area, the less likely it is that we touch a wet tent body or rainfly and transfer that water into the tent. It’s also nice to have an extra place to keep clothes or a book, so larger is better. Floor area ranges from 24.7 to 64.5 sqft, with an average of 31 sqft. That 64.5 is clearly an outlier, so we’ll take a closer look (likely means the area includes vestibules). I don’t find any of these unacceptable, so I’ll use this as a minor tiebreaker later on (if necessary).

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Vestibule Area

Bigger area is better to allow you to keep your pack, shoes, or whatever else out of the rain and away from the rainfly. Data is difficult to trust here due to the shape of the vestibule having a big impact on usability. I love the octagon fly shape on my Nemo Dagger 2p because it lets me keep gear protected while putting the door in a better place.

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Peak Height

No one expects to stand up in these tents, but being able to stretch out your arms or sit and play cards with your tent mate is nice. Taller is better. Straight sidewalls matter as well, but we’ll get to that after we get through the numbers. I expect – especially with my kids – that we will want to sit on either end of the tent, not either side. This means that height needs to run down the long axis of the tent, not just a hoop across the width. The range here is 36 inches to 59 inches, with most around 42. I found that sitting on a pad, I need about 39″ of space (at 5’10” tall).

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Door Count

The right answer here is 2. I know it’s possible to get away with one, but in my experience that is not a worthwhile sacrifice unless you are using this as a solo tent.

First Cut: Price, Doors, Weight

With so many tents, we have to set some limits. For me, there are 3 easy first cuts that take the list of 85 tents down.

• Door count equals 2

• Weight less than 90 oz (75% of all tents are less than 90oz)

• Price less than $800 (there’s a jump after $750, and this only eliminates 3 tents that are likely more specialized than needed).

After that cut, we’re down to only 53 tents. Here’s how this group looks on my favorite view, Weight vs Price:

There are still a lot of tents. Here’s what I notice about this view. The lightest tent is around $700. But if I move directly left on the graph, I can see there are many more tents that are less than 50 oz, but with a much lower price. The lower the price, the greater the value of that particular tent (when considering only weight). That section in the middle – between $300 and $500 and below the trendline – are my happy place. Those 21 tents in the green circle make the second cut.

The 2 tents just to the left of that group (cheaper but same weight) are also worth considering and are circled in yellow below. And just to the left of those is 1 very low priced tent at under 75oz circled in red.

Finally, because apparently I have a mixture of too much time and FOMO, I’m adding 5 tents in the orange circle, which are slightly more expensive but the same weight as some already circled tents.

And yes, I’m skipping the lightest tents for my own consideration. I just don’t think those extra ounces are worth hundreds of dollars. Those tents in the lower right corner do end up in the recommendations below, but not for my use.

Second Cut: Weight vs Price, Exceptional Features

We are now down to 30 tents in those three circles.

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Recommendations

For my needs, I look for as much volume in the tent as possible. That means vertical side and end walls. That also means I need a pole down the long axis of the tent, not just across the width (diagonal poles work too).

I am not a fan of tents that need trekking poles for full features. If there isn’t a pole option (Tarptent does a GREAT job of offering optional poles to buy instead of trekking poles), I eliminate that option for my own use.

I read reviews to look for issues with condensation or leaking or durability issues. And after all that…the point you’ve been waiting for!

Lowest Weight, Period

(aka “don’t make me drill more holes in my toothbrush”)

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Lowest Weight Without using Trekking Poles

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Best Tents under $300

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Whew! That’s it. Let me know what you think in the comments. Did I miss anything? Want to fight about it discuss? Want more information?