Have Trouble Sleeping While Camping? Check Out This Dark Room Tent
Morgan Rogue 05.26.22
We bought a dark room tent when we were headed up to Alaska. As you may know, Alaska summers are quite bright, for a couple months the sun is out for dang near 24 hours. I loved it, we had blackout curtains in our cabin when we wanted to sleep, but it was so awesome being able to get up and walk around at midnight like it was the middle of the afternoon.
Even during the summer in the lower 48, it can stay light out up to 10PM in some places, which could make sleeping difficult for some people.
Ours kids don’t necessarily need complete darkness to sleep, they take naps in the car during the day and it’s fine, but it really does help for nighttime sleeping. I don’t mind a little bit of light peeping in, but mostly dark is my preferred way to get a good nights sleep.
The Coleman Dark Room Tent is a great option to get some good nights sleep while camping.
We’ve used this dark room tent several times now and there are pros and cons.
- It’s big. I believe it’s only available in an 8-person size tent, so it’s not a backpacking tent by any means. We only use it when we’re car camping or off roading.
- It’s easy to set up. Even though it’s big, it’s fairly easy to setup, though two people are ideal, it can be done with one person. It has standard poles like most other tents.
- The rain fly creates the dark room. Before the rain fly is put on, it’s a little dark, but it does have the vented windows all the way around so it’s not the actual dark room until the rain fly is on.
- The rain fly doesn’t fit over the ‘screen room’ in front. It’s a bit annoying when it rains and the screen room floor gets wet. If you put your shoes there in the screen room area, and it rains, your shoes will get wet. It’s a bit of a design flaw if you ask me.
- When the rain fly is on, it can get a little hot in there. It does have some ‘awnings’ which allow ventilation and keep rain out, but otherwise, if you’re in a hot area, you should place the tent under some shade or have additional shade to keep the sun off the tent because it can definitely heat up in there. What we do is keep the rain fly off until we’re ready for bed. Having a little fan inside could definitely help.
- Roomy. Because it’s an 8-person tent, it’s very roomy and for our family of four plus two dogs, it has plenty of room for all of us to sleep comfortably along with any stuff we might want.
I think the only downside to this tent, is that it can be hard to know when to get up! Need to make sure an alarm is set.
I believe this is only available from Walmart, for $198. It’s worth the investment if you have a hard time sleeping while camping or if your kids need darkness to sleep.
Check out the Coleman Dark Room Tent!
