Guide Gear Teepee Tent, 18' x 18'

Wow, what a great tent. I bought this to use if I camp alone or with others. Most big tents you get, you have to have a buddy to put it up. I can put this up on my own and quickly. A single parent taking little kids can put it up without help too.Before you go for the 18 footer, you can take a garden hose and block out the tent footprint so you can see how big it really is. If you camp in a small campground with low hanging limbs (height is 9.5 feet), then it might be too big for you. I love the height and the space, so it was perfect for me.I read the reviews on the tent. It's true, the guy ropes are not standard paracord, but I wouldn't replace them unless you had to. I had mine set up for a week and there were 2 severe weather events. One was some pretty high winds and the other was torrential rain and high winds. They did fine. Someone suggested putting some Velcro on the bottom of the doors. That would work. Because of the slope, you can get the shower curtain on the wrong side of the tub effect. I sewed a loop on each of the 4 door sections on the bottom. I staked the loops down from the inside (it was sandy soil), just reaching out the screened area, and that kept the doors from touching the screen and all the water shed beautifully away from the tent.I did give it 2 coats of silicone before the weather events...just to be sure. NO LEAKS. I also sealed the seams from the inside...something I do to every new tent I get.Some say to get other stakes, I would buy a few higher end stakes. You wouldn't need to replace all of them. Just bring some extras and see where the needs are. I staked mine in Florida sand, and I ended up replacing about 4 of the stakes is all. It was enough.After about a week, I took it down tonight and if you fold it into a square, with the cap in the middle, you can ease out a lot of the air and can make it smaller. You will NEVER get that tent back in the bag that it came in. Plan on a duffle to replace it or I keep all the old tent bags and I'm going to put it in an old tent bag I have that will be plenty large enough for it.Someone complained about the pole ripping from the middle. BE SURE YOU PUT THE PLASTIC CAP ON THE POLE to protect the tent fabric. I almost didn't see it. I was outside and it just fell out of the tent pole bag and I was like, what's this? I took a pic of it so you can see it. Make sure you look for it and use it because that will protect your fabric and it would be so easy to lose it out in the grass. I now store it in a baggie with the pole base so it doesn't get lost.I also took a pic of my tent. Notice the utility shed next to it so you can get some idea of scale. It is a large tent. I camp A LOT. I've owned cheap tents and high end ones, and this one was sewn well and the quality was not cheap in the workmanship. It's not high end either, but well worth what I paid for it. This is the biggest tent I think you can get where one person can put it up with ease.

So I did a lot of research before buying a new family tent. We spend most of our camping trips exploring the local area, hanging out at the campground facilities, enjoying the outdoors, that's why we go camping, so our tent is just a place to lay our heads at night and catch some sleep. Therefore my requirements are simple, it needs to have enough room for 4 people with air mattresses, and it needs to stay up and keep us dry during the inevitable thunderstorm that WILL find us in the middle of the night. I liked the teepee design as there are no flat vertical surfaces for wind to push against, unlike your typical rectangular cabin tent has. Also, the rectangular cabin tent has a screen too with a rain fly that covers it, but generally has a large gap i between that sideways rain finds its way in between and into your tent. The tepee design seemed like a superior design in both these areas. But....... what about the quality? Other buyers seemed to have one of two experiences with this tent, one group loved it, and the other had major problems with the pole ripping out its designated spot at the top and the tent comes tumbling down. They also say the nylon loops the stakes go in separate from the tent. The guylines were allegedly made of ultra cheap material and snap at first use. There are no shortage of first trip horror stories to be read on here. However, I couldn't find another tent for the money I wanted to spend that I was more confident would do better so I bought it. Then I read more bad reviews and cancelled my purchase, then I once again couldn't find anything better so I bought it again!!!! Shipping was slow, it took a little over a week to get from Minnesota to Michigan using the FedEx/USPS budget service, but it did arrive within the promised window. It arrived so of course I immediately set it up!!! I had purchased some new guylines in preparation of replacing the junk ones before I even put it up, but to my surprise they looked fine, so I let them be, figured they'd be fine for a backyard camping adventure with the kids 100' from the house. Tent went up pretty much as expected, though the first time took a long time unknotting all the guylines and setting them to length, but setup is simple and straightforward, and I did it myself. I then spent the next several hours coating it with (9 cans of) Kiwi waterproof tent sealer (it's a big tent!!). We then filled it with out gear. First thing I noticed is it looks huge when it's empty but the lack of straight walls and corners, and the center pole, really limit your options to place items like air mattresses and tables and what not. Because of th shape you always end up with a large triangular space of emptyness behind the object, and your roominess seems to shrink very quickly. But..... while the space isn't abundant, it's sufficient for 4 campers and air mattresses, if you slept on the ground in sleeping bags you could fit a few more. We all slept well, the lower ventilation windows work well with the open top (covered with cone shaped rain fly) to suck fresh air in the bottom and back out the top. The tents debut was a success. The next few days weather reports were calling for thunderstorms, some potentially strong, but rather than pull it down, I decided to leave it up and see how it held up. If it was as poor of quality as many reviews have stated and it was going to get ripped to shreds, I'd rather have it happen now than the first night of a week long camping trip, plus I was still in the window to return it if it were damaged (I think). So we left it up, day 1 came where we got a little over an inch of rain over about 8 hours with some strong winds. Got home from work, opened it up and found it almost bone dry, minus a few drops that appeared directly under the plastic view windows, and a little bit more by the doors, but pretty minimal. I got some seam sealer and went around those windows as well as the other windows and door seams. I observed the design flaw others have mentioned where the doors don't actually zip at the bottom, so they flap around and I can certainly see how water can come in there, so I ordered some sticky Velcro strips to close it off, but as far as day 2 of testing, rocks would have to hold it down. Day 2 was actually a nice day so I didn't learn anything new, but day three had a round of heavy storms with another inch of rain in half the time span and winds gusting to 50 plus MPH. This storm lasted 3-4 hours and when it passed and I got a text from my wife saying "tent is still standing and none dry" I was amazed!! We tore the tent down that evening and I inspected every stake loop, every guyline, the pole, the spot it is held in, tent held up 100% with zero damage!!!! It seems to me there must have been a bad manufacturing run at one time or something for others to have had the experiences they had, because this thing far exeeded my expectations for quality and durability. I can't wait for my first real trip in this tent, I feel like Mother Nature threw her best at it and it held strong. Would buy again, at least from this same manufacturing run!!! 👍🏻😊

Not as spacious as a real Tipi. Not as ventilated as a real Tipi. An 18' Tipi would have 20' + long poles to reduce the wall slant and provide more room. We use air mats rather than cots to take advantage of what room is available closer to the floor. Great fun in cool, dry weather where things can touch the tent walls a bit. Snow was fine too. Leaked like a sieve in the rain, especially around the doors. There is a design flaw on the length of the door covers. Top vent could easily be twice as large and windows can only be used by going outside. Big fat seam running right across the mid line of the floor. Seal that. Seal all the seams and keep anything from touching wet wall during the rain. Kids and dogs trip over the guy outs all the time. Real Tipi did not use guy outs but... We like it and use it for special trips or during known weather but have added lengths of material to the door flaps and attached additional sidewall guy outs to increase living space inside.

This tent looks great, and is quite light - However, I would definitely recommend water proofing this thing completely if you're going to get any amount of rain on it. There's also no Velcro on the bottom of the vent flaps towards the bottom of the tent. Again, if you're going to go near rain, I'd recommend fixing that as well.I changed out the Ropes from the black nylon to something a bit more fluorescent, as well since our drunk asses kept tripping on the ropes the first time I took this out. I've used it several times now since I've bought it. works great, and takes about five minutes to setup, and about ten minutes to take down.