When my husband and I got married I knew we’d do quite a bit of camping together as husband and wife… he was a boy scout and we camped a few times when we were dating. So, naturally that would carry over after we got hitched!
But you see, there was one problem with our inevitable post-nuptial camping gear, my husband’s camping tent was tiny! It would be great for backpacking, but not the car camping I am used to! I required a bit more comfort and room in my tent.
After we were married, for some reason, we never got around to purchasing our own larger tent. We’d just borrow a tent from my in-laws. Their tent was much bigger and allowed us to use an air-mattress which significantly increases my camping comfort! This worked out well for us (despite the 1-hour drive to go and pick it up). The only problem was, it wasn’t ours… oh, and on our most recent trip, the zipper broke!
Luckily, the awesome warranty meant that we’d be able to take it in and have American Rec get it all fixed up… though we were now out of a tent for a couple of weeks! Perhaps by fate, American Rec offered to let us review an awesome 4 person Slumberjack tent! Just in time for our camping trip to Wyoming that weekend!
Slumberjack has been making camping products for as long as I can remember. Both my husband and I have Slumberjack sleeping bags that have been with us on all of our camping trips for years and years… they’re absolutely perfect. You can imagine our excitement then when we were given the opportunity to review their Trail Tent 4. So excited!
First off, this tent is a breeze to setup… we pulled it out of the bag as soon as we got it and my husband set it up in the backyard (with only a cursory glance at the instructions) by himself in under 10 minutes! (I was no help, I was the dedicated photographer!)
The Trail Tent 4 only requires four poles which makes setup super simple. The setup uses easy color-coded clips to secure the tent to the poles and there aren’t any sleeves to slide tent poles through like our old tent! This might be a preference thing, but I much prefer the clips to the sleeves!
The tent itself is almost entirely mesh which offers superior ventilation for those hot day and night camping trips. However, if the weather does turn south the durable rain fly almost completely covers the tent to protect you from the elements. The fly has four guyline tie downs (one on each corner) for when the wind especially picks up… something we found incredibly handy for our trip to Wyoming!
The fly includes two awesome vestibules that open up wide so you don’t have to strain yourself to get in. The vestibules and tent doors are on both sides which makes it easy for whoever gets up for the “toilet” in the middle of the night! The zippers are also nice and quiet (noiseless zippers) so I don’t disturb my hubby when I get up… HA! Who am I kidding… I’ll wake him up to keep me company anyway! 🙂
The vestibules are plenty big for gear and would keep items well protected from the elements. As for the gear you keep inside the tent? There are plenty of internal storage pockets for keeping essentials handy and loops on the ceiling of the tent to hang a flashlight or two.
The tent weighs in at just over 10 lbs which is plenty light for a tent that’s 8ft by 6ft! It’s big enough to easily fit a queen sized mattress in it. This is the perfect size for us, we plan to use this for ALL of our car camping excursions.
One thing we would have loved to see included with this tent bundle is a ground cloth. Although the tent material seems plenty durable, we’re sticklers about stickers and want to make sure we’re protected from the ground with a solid ground cloth… but nothing a $10 trip to Walmart can’t fix! 
All in all, this is a nice, solidly built – yet inexpensive tent (only $159.95!) that we loved using this past weekend. We had the opportunity to test this tent in windy Wyoming and it withstood some pretty impressive gusts! With the four support lines staked down I don’t think this tent would ever blow away! We even got a spot of rain and the inside of the tent stayed perfectly dry. We definitely recommend this as an awesome entry-level four person tent from a reputable company that we know (from first hand experience) stands by their warranty!
Wishing you all happy camping from these happy campers!
Connect & Purchase:
- Slumberjack on Facebook
- For more information and to join the mailing list visit Slumberjack online.
- The Slumberjack Trail 4 is on sale right now for $122 at Amazon.com!
