Ep 81 - Coleman Instant Up Tents

For links to everything mentioned in this episode, check out our show notes:

The conversation around Coleman's Instant Up tents can become a little... well, intents. This episode of the Snowys Camping Show is no different, as Ben and Lauren exchange their interpretations of the range.

Be it Lauren's persistence in sticking to her show plan, or Ben's strong recommendation to reconsider - our gear gurus deconstruct each Coleman Instant Up model and unpack their features from the floor to the fly, soon coming to mutual revelations and conclusions.

00:00 – Intro
01:09 – Coleman Instant Up Tents
03:42 – The Range
04:26 – Working With Your Tent
06:06 – Sizes and Spacing
08:47 – The Silver Series
13:47 – The Gold Series
20:17 – The Evo Series
23:43 – The Northstar Series: P and PV
25:58 – Compatibility, Shade, and Setup
27:47 – Frames
28:42 – To Summarise…
32:01 – Trace Springs and Upgraded Pegs!

Join the conversation over on our Facebook group:

[BradGryphonn]

(Commenting as I watch) Your banter makes me smile. Don't stop.

[thatdanhill]

This was super informative! Thanks for taking the time to present this - it made chasing a tent a breeze. :)

[bleachbeundone]

The dynamic between you two is brilliant 😂

[joshuanicholson]

Love my 4P Darkroom with the light; FYI darkroom's biggest advantage isn't keeping out the sun, its the lights at camp, be that lights of the caravan park, torches, car headlights, neighbours camp lights or fire etc.

Strongly advise getting 4 or 6 springs for key guy ropes, + at least 6 good pegs (even better, the screwed pegs & cordless drill) + a couple of extra guy ropes (for strong winds). With these extras, I have survived some storms at 40ish km/hr (so not mega storms but serious enough and dropping poles was critical)
Even with all the rain this year, never had issues with 3 days of constant rain - with tent pitched properly, it stays dry. but recommend good large mats to be outside the door though
Easily a 3+ season tent (does Australia really need 4 seasons), the coldest has been -10 with comfort

So far, its lasted over 3 years well, doubt it will get me to 4 years. Quite a few signs of wear & tear despite lots of love, but no critical failures yet
Despite my love & appreciation of this tent, doubt I will buy another one. Looking for something significantly quicker pitching & pull-down (i.e. roof top tent).

[Pisceanboi]

I have a Coleman 6-person, silver series, purchased in late 2014. It's had a lot of use, mainly for festivals and weekend camps in 3 seasons, and always pitched out from under trees, and consequently in direct sun and high UV in our harsh climate. It's experienced windy conditions, thunderstorms, and some days of continual rain. Where necessary I've used extra pegs and guys; always use a tarp as a groundsheet, and always peg everything out.

It's now seen better days and is due to be replaced, as it started to leak on my last use of it this year. It's certainly been a great value for money as an entry-level tent, and overall I've been very happy with it.

I'd opinion that one of the reasons these tents are so popular is because our market is so driven by price, and that camping has often come to mean that the back-to-nature recreational family camping tent is ditched in favor of multi-thousand dollar home away-from-home camping trailers and caravans.

Better quality tents are available, but most are marketed at serious 4WDing enthusiasts, rather than recreational family camping.

This local situation is slowly changing with the advent of European-style family camping air tents slowly coming to market here, and to my mind, such tents are the natural progression from the likes of the "instant up" steel poled Colemans, offering even greater ease of pitching and packing up.  

Indeed Coleman even offers Airtents in other markets, so hopefully, some of this will catch on with Coleman in Australia. And it's great to see quality brands like Zempire forging a new path in this style of tent here, and even venerable and high-quality OZTent with their RV range favored by 4WDing enthusiasts has two recreational family camping air tents in the wings about to come to market.

Much as I like the instant up Colemans for value, I think the newer technology air tents are the direction the market will go in the future, and certainly, an air tent will be my choice of tent technology to 'update' the instant up Coleman that I have in due course.

[PyjamaLlama]

I have the second gen Gold 6P instant pop-up which I bought from Snowies and it's been an amazing tent over the last few years. As mentioned, we found that the evo gear doesn't fit the older models. Just like the zip-on awning doesn't work on the first gen Gold tent. I find it very frustrating that they have not standardized the equipment. It's more or less forcing you to upgrade or resort to buying gear second hand.

[coralieofjumpwithnofear]

As much as I love camping in my van now and not needing to put up a tent, I still actually really enjoy getting into the nitty gritty of all the types of tents available.

Good job, you two. 😊

[GryphonHall]

Between 2018 to 2021, my family used a Silver Series 6p with either a kitchen tarp or gazebo. Fully pegged out (including windows) it has weathered very windy conditions during beach camping, with us coming up quite dry and toasty inside. In fact, we found it _too_ toasty sometimes—without the circle vents near the bottom, even with the inside windows zipped down we found ourselves not very cold even during heavy rain. We never noticed any condensation. It could fit one single and one queen, both double-high, with space for a small stool to serve as a bedside table in between. It had enough room for two camp tables to fit within near the entrance for storage.

Starting in 2022, we had upgraded to the Northstar 10p. We've taken it camping in Autumn and Spring, both times have had heavy rain. It hasn't been quite as tested in very windy conditions yet, but judging on how "rigid" everything was when everything was pegged down I think it would do very well. We remained dry, but not quite as warm (possibly because of that large mesh ceiling in the middle). Still no condensation. For some reason, I thought that each of the rooms on the wings would be roughly equivalent to our old 6p, but found the queen bed to be a bit snug on one end (still enough room for two expanding stools on both sides to serve as bedside tables, but our feet can touch the tent wall. While there are enough awnings to serve every purpose, there are not enough included awning poles, so only the front extended bit and the back can be deployed.

For both our tents, we upgraded the pegs and used trace springs to deal with the sudden gusts of wind.

The disappointments with the model is that a) it no longer had the mesh doormats that used to come with the gold series, and b) the extended awning would leak during the rain because of how the windows (which are in the extended awning) cannot be sealed up—if there had been a way to cover those up, the extended awning could have fully replaced our old gazebo/kitchen tarp for shelter during rain.

I feel that the Northstar 10p would have been perfect for the "Evo" treatment—where instead of raising the front walls to become the extended awning, an "Evo" awning can just be attached to the centre awnings. In fact, we're going to experiment with a jury-rigged version of that when we camp again this coming Autumn next year.

[asdlkj]

Finally, a podcast that made me laugh... Keep up the good work... Waiting for a podcast on BlackWolf....

[chelleQLD]

Living in QLD went with the Northstar for the 5 degree temperature reduction, being an early riser I find myself laying there wondering if it’s light yet and for that reason have considered getting a tent in the gold range for when the days are shorter. Great show and looking forward to Cams contributions in future!

[kennethkilpatrick]

As an avid camper in the States I'm always amazed at the range of camping gear available in Australia. Coleman is considered a very basic brand in the States. They offer much better tents in the very competitive Australian market. A few swags are starting to show up here but at very high prices with the import costs of Australia. Just bought an Oztrail stretcher tent on eBay that with shipping costs ran me about $250 USD. Would love to have bought the Oztent Bunker Pro from our dealer in the States but it runs over $600 USD. Can buy a Darche Airvolution 900 on eBay but with shipping from Australia it will cost $600 USD. Hats off to you Aussies for the amazing gear!

[BradGryphonn]

7:45 I've had a few tents in my day, and yes, if you want to sleep 1 or 2 people with your gear/packs inside the tent, buy a 4-person tent. I shudder to think how hot a 4-person tent would get with four people inside it.

[mmmbass]

Here’s an idea Snowy’s - tell all of your tent suppliers that you won’t be stocking tents with rubbish pegs. Yes, you are in grave danger of having zero tents in stock, but how else will they get the picture? And don’t let them bang on about freight and cost and blah blah blah - just supply a decent peg and you’ll sell the tents. Easy as that.

[joshfeek]

Rolled aluminium cans for tent pegs. I have a 2017 gold 4 man which has served me well for stretcher and 4wd mat use. Properly set up has been used in heavy rain and very windy conditions.

[inpitlane]

Whats the best way of attaching the trace springs to the guy ropes?

[wenzbee]

I just purchased a silver 6 person Instant up so hoping I’m going to be okay after watching this.

[James_]

How do these compare to the Oztrail fast frame tents? I'm looking for a 4person hot weather car camping tent . Love your work, cheers.

[RoMiTouring]

We find our Coleman Instant Up double ensuite to be awesome! So easy to use, and perfect for purpose!

[GryphonHall]

Can't any of the new "Evo" rain fly variants still fit the original frame? I mean, for instance, what if I just tried to get a "replacement" fly for the Silver 6p, but instead of the original fly, Coleman sends the Evo—wouldn't that still fit on the original frame?

If they can, looks like you've got a bunch of waiting customers who'd be willing to upgrade their rain fly.

[sharonholding]

Please, please, please use different names next week in the intro! Just to keep us on our toes!
I have the Coleman 6p silver evo, brilliant for 2 adults on stretchers and a labrador. Wouldn't want anything smaller. Rain or shine if you put it up right it's all good.