My kid wants to camp. I don't want to sink a bunch of money into an expensive tent right now, so I'm looking for the best of the cheap ones. I went to Academy today and looked at what they had, and anything under $100 was absolute crap. Looking for not crap under $100 (preferably under $50), does it exist?

Cheapest you can go is a tarp with some rope.  Pick a weekend you know it won't rain and your good.   With a fire close by and repellent bugs shouldn't be much of a problem


You'd be out $20 max and there are dozens other good uses for a tarp.

Alternatively,  sleep under the stars and buy a cheap hammock you can both fit in.  Tarp optional.

LOL, you dont have daughters I take it. I need a tent with netting, preferably with a full rain fly.

 

There was a article in a recent Backwoodsman magazine on how to use specific size tarp to make shelters.

Amazon has a 8 man Coleman on sale for $97.99 for the next 8 hours. Seems to be a good tent with good reviews.
Coleman Montana 8-Person Tent https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001TSCF96/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_LCrwvb0WTKEY6

Funny you mention Academy... Mine has some MH tents on deep clearance. They had a 2P model for only $67 which I grabbed for a friend, and have a couple 3P for like $89.

Otherwise, it's tough to find something good under $100. For $130-150 you have many options.

Best I can do

That's only $67 after 35% off coupon plus free shipping, that's a great deal!

Where does one find 35% off coupon plus free shipping
ETA never mind it's sold out

In my opinion cheap tents usually have 2 issues.  One is poor construction which causes issues with zippers etc...I don't have any help for that, sorry!
The second is poor design/construction leading to leaks.  EASY fix for that is to hang an oversized tarp over the tent.

Get on their email list, check their fb, or check coupon sites like retailmenot.com. They regularly have 30-45% off coupons, sometimes limited to a set group of X thousand products.

I will do. thanks

Says in stock, sign up for their email spam, and they will send you some kind of discount code almost every day. There are some very god deals to be had on STP.

timber creek tellico 2 from academy.  25 dollars and I have used one through some weather.  Iam currently looking for a higher quality upgrade, but with some extra rope and better stakes, itll do.

I know the cheap tents are pretty shoddy; unless you will be doing hard use, back packing, or plan on making it a very frequent hobby the cheap tents at Walmart-mart will serve you fine. Keep the fly clean and spray with dwr every couple of uses and you shouldn't have any problems. With girls ease of setup, interior storage pockets, a place to hang an overhead light, and privacy were the big features that made camping fun for mine.

I've been using a 6p Coleman I grabbed at Walmart for around $40 for the last few years with no issues. For me personally I have much higher quality gear for sheep hunting and whatnot but for simple camping you don't need much. Good luck and have fun!

Eureka has a factory second and refurbished site on the internet.  Good tents at great prices.  I got a couple of sweet deals there.

I'll second the ALPS mountaineering tents.  I wouldn't want to bring them on a backpacking trip; but they work great for car camping or canoe camping.

Good enough for what I need them for and pretty good prices too.

Check Amazon too; I think that's where I found mine for less than $100

Six person Coleman Sundome tent will sleep 3-4 nicely.

http://www.amazon.com/Coleman-2000007827-Sundome%C2%AE-4-Person-Tent/dp/B004J2GUOU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1434165346&sr=8-3&keywords=coleman+sun+tent

Its a good budget tent.

I picked up an ALPS Mountaineering Jagged Peak 2 2-person, 4-season for maybe $150 on steepandcheap.com a few years back, and like it a lot. You'd better be very friendly with whoever you share it with, but it's a great 1-man tent. It's no North Face or Hilleberg, it has no free-standing setup option, and with only 2 guy lines I wouldn't use it above the treeline, but it's a very nice midrange tent that will last a long time with proper care. They're out of production now but I'd be comfortable buying any ALPS tent. Their Crescent Lake & Echo Lake sleeping bags are pretty nice, too.

Kelty domes
http://www.amazon.com/Kelty-Ridgeway-Person-Elevation-Sport/dp/B005QB7RW2

Or shop the sales for better stuff. A little over $100 can go a long way toward a high quality tent. Check out some of the Cabela's ones and some of the EMS house brand tends when on clearance. The problem is space. Four person tents seem to come in two categories. Junk, and $150+. For $150-200 you can get a decent tent, but under that is likely to be low quality. On the other hand, who cares? If it holds up a few trips you will know whether there is a real need and can either get something better or not bother.

You could also check the used market, or just rent one from an EMS in your area. They rent decent stuff and the prices aren't bad. You'll probably need other stuff they rent too.

My advice when camping with kids? Keep it simple, don't do any food they don't like at home and aren't fussy about. Find a "campground" that has a real bathroom, young girls are young girls, starting out you'll do better with a little civilization.

2 person:  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008QWIYIO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B008QWIYIO&linkCode=as2&tag=thetalhea-20&linkId=NWD5HIQJ5DEV4I6S

3 person: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AKHCE5C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00AKHCE5C&linkCode=as2&tag=thetalhea-20&linkId=YIMSBUDO42UMBBQF

Again, it is going to be difficult to find a 3 person under $100.  Open upto $150-200 and things get way better.

Not sure about below $100.00, but Kelty makes a lot of good stuff just over $100. My $115 Grand Mesa 2 has been awesome on dozens of backpacking, car camping, and canoe trips.

REI Halfdome isn't terribly expensive and will hold up for many years

I just got an email from Eastern Mountain Sports (a northeast region outdoor gear chain similar to REI) spotlighting their new Sunapee tents. I've always had good experiences with EMS-brand gear, and they 100% stand behind everything they make and sell. These tents look pretty nice, have good specs and decent room inside, and the 2-person is pretty light.

http://www.ems.com/ems-sunapee-2-tent/300038851.html

I like construction garbage bags, duct tape and para cord.
Make your shelter as big or small, and any configuration.

+1 I bought a 3 man tent from Wally World for about $35.  It's small for a three man, but it has worked well the few times we've used it.

I'm late to this thread, but I just picked up a Eureka Tetragon 4 for $79.   always had good luck with their tents

Where? Nice deal!

 

Please --- you can't cheat the axiom, "you get what you pay for", and vice versa, you get only what you don't pay for, and if you pay very little, you get crappy stuff, almost certain to fail and be inadequate to the most minimal performance criteria.  You can get one or two, maybe three, acceptable silk neckties for $100, maybe two long-sleeve nylon fishing shirts, several pairs of   really good boot socks, for $100, but does anybody really think they're going to get much of an entire tent for $100, or less? C'mon --- get serious --- if you so little value your outdoor experience as to try to do it with shoddy equipment, certain to fail, and prove that "it's not for me", or poison the attitude of your children for outdoor activities, because cheap gear ruined their initial experiences, well, way too  bad... If you can't afford decent equipment, by which I mean decent enough to ensure that kids' first experiences are positive and rewarding, then, please,scale back the mission so as not to require decent/expensive gear to make it a rewarding success for your kids (or other initiates...). Maybe a motel room and a day trip are better bets than a camping fiasco?

If I amortize the cost of my moderately priced (but high-quality) Eureka Timberline SQ Outfitter 4, the mostly commonly used in my tent inventory, I reckon its +/- $300 cost can now be amortized at somewhere around $4.50/night, after about 3 years of fairly regular use (I'm guessing, conservatively, I think, about use, so cost-per-use may be lower...). Quality costs, but also pays for itself.  Cheap crap is not only no bargain, but is also a disservice to newcomers who don't know any  better.  Those of us who do know better have an obligation to teach those who don't. "Teach your children well..."

Already took her camping 3 times since I started this thread using a $39 Embark 4 from target. We've survived splendidly, it even rained once. Go shit on someone else's thread.


 

PIcked up a Daisy geodesic dome from Bass Pro outlet twenty years ago and stuffed 6 of us in it for plenty of camping over the years. Ran about $60 at the time. Did it wear out, sure, just like the canvas one before it. Put three barely teen age boys in it and they can destroy a $1000 expedition grade tent.

Put 25 guys in a GP medium for 20 years just for annual training - two weeks at a time - and it will be toast. Check your local surplus supplier on the internet. It makes no difference how something is priced - it's how you USE it that counts. A tent is a flimsy shelter for year round use, it's subsistence level at best. A good thunderstorm will tear them up. We've suffered that plenty of times with GI gear.

For the camp out - a few days at the Grand Canyon, whatever, the less expensive tents do the job fine IF YOU TAKE CARE OF THEM. Leave rowdy kids in them, pitch them on rocky ground or fail to clear plant stobs, let them deteriorate or store them wet - you get what you cared about. If you think they are cheap crap it then goes to treating them like cheap crap and you very well do get what you pay for.

You want nice, it's made of extruded aluminum with a metal skin and you haul it there attached to your bumper on it's own wheels. That can result in something durable that can last for decades. Any shelter made of fabric with support sticks to hold it up - not.

As for being under $100, there is a multiplier you need to add in to understand the price. A tent fully sewn in the USA will cost 3X more because of labor, overhead, etc. Our cost of living does that, and it's why Berry compliant US made military gear costs $$$. It's why an expedition grade tent made here - and they DON"T make 10,000 of them, just a few hundred - will cost a lot. Having almost 95% of the general use camp tents made overseas means they have a dominant supply chain of volume produced fabrics, notions, and supports that are less costly, and they don't add Social Security and Obamacare onto the overhead, either.

It's why a Coleman  8 man is cheaper than some backpacking tents and distributed in a chain of store with 5,000 locations. Two tents in stock @  means a production run of 10,000 up front shipped to distribution centers nationwide before the annual planogram changeover.

Yeah, get me an expedition grade tent made in those numbers and It would cost $225.The 8 man Coleman - which replaced the Daisy quick pitch - was $89, bigger, had more features and was nearly as warm. It's a better summer tent but we did Ok at 8,500 feet in June. It was camping - a morning cup of coffee warmed you up after you got out of the sack. Much better tent by far - even tho the basic materials don't seem to have changed in 30 years. Most tents are nylon or polyester fabric with fiberglass poles Same old same old.

By all means, define crap and then rate the materials and construction techniques so that we can all understand what is being communicated. In the meantime I and millions of others will buy what's on the shelf and largely be happy. It's a recreational tool, something for disposable income. If it's more than that - I'd rather haul it behind me with the vehicle I came in. Just like the gypsies in Europe. I'd say the minimum standard in transient housing means materials that can stop an arrow from a 50 pound recurve or 50 mph winds. Anything less, regardless of the price, won't ever be good enough. It can be fun, however - if it keeps the mosquitos out.