Kelty Night Owl Backpacking Camping Tent, 3-Season 2P or 3P Thru Hiking Shelter – Lightweight Aluminum Frame, Ceiling Pocket 2 Doors 2 Vestibules

I bought this tent to take my son camping in the backyard or car camping. So far we have been on 4 outings and my son and I love it. I have had another Kelty tent in the past which worked very well, so I went with Kelty again for this purchase.Setup is easy enough and it comes with all the needed stakes and guy lines with built in tensioners. The interior is pretty roomy with just enough space to blow up a queen size air mattress. Our air mattress is 13" tall, and we have enough room around the tent sidewall so that our feed and head do not touch at that height. With that mattress, we also have enough room around for backpacks, gear, and shoes.When not using that mattress, there is enough room at floor level for two 30" wide self inflating mattresses (adds up to be basically same width as our queen sleeping bag) plus a 20" wide mattress for my son.We also have really enjoyed rolling the rainfly halfway up to gaze at the stars. To put it back down you still have to get out of the tent if you want to guy it out, but it only takes a minute or so to do. Although we haven't used the vestibules, it is nice to have one over both doors and there is plenty of room for a small backpack and everyone's shoes under 1 of them.There are also integrated pockets on the rainfly to store the guyline when packing up which is a handy feature. I did purchase a footprint which I do on all my tents (REDCAMP tent tarp in 95 x 83" fits great and can be packed into the tent's bag).If you are looking for a good quality tent for family camping, this Kelty Night Owl is a great option.

Bought this tent to replace a cheaper one I bought off Amazon a few weeks ago that broke on my first night out. I’ll start off by saying, you can definitely tell the difference between a $200 name brand tent and a $100 “never heard of it before” tent. Everything from the poles, to the stitching, clips, etc. were of much better quality. Everything lined up perfectly, the rain fly fit like a glove, and it had loops to clip the fly to the cross stake on the top. Set up was easy, and the pockets on the rain fly for the guy lines are very convenient. The numerous pockets inside were great as well as the loops to hang a small fan and a light on. It fit a full size air mattress without a problem for me and my son.As far as performance, it rained on us for about 24 hours straight, with a lot of heavy downpours, and we never got wet. The only moisture I got was on the floor beneath the air mattress, but that was because the tarp I used as a footprint came untucked and a lot of rain ran down beneath the tent, but again, only a very small area, no standing water. Everything else stayed perfectly dry.Can’t beat this tent for $200. Save the hassle and spend a little extra on a tent like this, I wish I would have.

I comfortably fit myself and 2 kids in the tent with packs at the kids' feet, since they are not full length. The vestibules were great to also store extra gear that we either did not want in the tent or would not fit. While I got this particular version for the stargazing capability, I doubt I will be able to ever use it based on where I usually camp, but I like having the option. How I did use it was during the day time to keep the internal temp of the tent much cooler when it was sunny. This tent is incredibly easy to set up, but part grey and blue are quite close to each other in color and easily missed. I would think this would especially be an issue for folks who are partially color blind. I am not, and it was still difficult. The effort to set up and take down this tent alone makes it worth it to me. If I am hiking to a site, the last thing I want to do is expend lots more energy fighting with the tent. The same goes for when I am ready to leave. I want it to be quick and require minimal effort. This checks all those boxes. I also get lots of satisfaction from the aluminum poles snapping into place.As others have said, it is a bit heavy for backpacking, but it is also for 3 people. You should be able to split the components or make another member of your party carry extra weight in something else. I have already recommended this tent to many of my friends and family and would recommend it to anyone in looking for a 2 or 3 person tent. This one strikes a nice balance of being big enough for 3 people, but not too large/heavy if you want to have a bit more space to layout and camp a bit more luxuriously.

I bought the 3 person version. It was very easy to set up. After the first time, I had it set up within 5 minutes. Breaking it down was pretty easy too. We had pretty good storms the first night of camping. No leaks and everything stayed put. I had been sleeping with the front part of the fly rolled up. It was really easy to unroll it and zip the fly shut when the thunder started. It was tall enough for me to sit up in the tent. The tent packs small, which is great. I had to fly across the country to meet up with my camping friends, and the tent easily fit in my standard size suitcase along with a sleeping bag, blanket, sleeping pad, lantern, etc. My previous Kelty was a rather larger 4 person tent and bulky. Overall, I’m very pleased with my purchase. I forgot to take a photo of it while camping, but here’s the test run photos in my basement. Lol.

I set it up in the backyard for a trial run and here are my initial thoughts.Easy up and down after the first try. The color coded poles and corners are very helpful. It's pretty spacious with plenty of head room inside. Didn't leak at all during a brief monsoon.This tent is too big for backpacking unless you can distribute the weight among 3 or 4 people.I also noticed I couldn't feel a breeze through the mesh. I even tried to use a box fan to blow directly into the tent through the mesh and I couldn't feel a thing. The 2 doors are opposite one another so you could leave them open for ventilation but since I hate mosquito bites that wasn't an option for me.There are no instructions on how to use the "stargazing rain fly" and I haven't figured it out yet.The tent,poles, rain fly, and footprint (bought separately) folded easily and only took two tries to get back in their bags.

One of the easiest tents to put up. And take down. And it can be done by one person.The star gazing is a amazing,You can go the smaller side. Or open it too the biggerSide. Or not put it on at all.Would I buy this product again? Yes!!

I bought this tent to do small backpacking trips with my 5 year old. I decided to go with the 3 person tent in order to have more than enough room for both of us and our gear. We did our first trip this past weekend. I had a heavy pack on already because I had to carry the majority of the supplies, so all in all the tent being a kilo lighter would not have made a huge difference. But it is bulkier than I thought it would be.I know I bought a 3 person tent. If I wanted to go lighter, I could have gone for a 2 person tent and been pretty comfortable too.But the weight more than made up for itself. For one, it has a lot of room inside, and was tall enough that my 5 year old could stand up inside. Which made things like setting up our sleeping pads and bags, getting ready for bed, and packing things up in the morning a lot easier.It was a really hot day so we did not spend a whole lot of time during the day. Just once when there was a little bit of rain. However, at night, a thunderstorm rolled in. And it poured rain for a couple of hours. My kid slept through the thunder, lightning and rain, but I was awake. I am happy to report that we stayed completely dry. I made a mistake when setting up the tarp I used for the footprint so there was a little pooling under the tent by our feet but nothing soaked through.All in all a good tent that I think fills the gap between car camping and backpacking. I would not take this tent for the Pacific Coast Trail (unless there were people going where we could share the load) but for shorter backpacking trips with the kids it is great!It also has a lot of storage pockets...I think 6 in total. Two of which are diffusion pockets for your headlamp to light the tent.My only complaint, and it is probably because I am not super observant, is the pole system. It says there is a color coding system but every time I look try to figure it out I don't see it and set it up wrong. The poles look like the same color to me. I had a REI tent that was idiot proof where the poles were orange and sliver. There was an orange and silver stripes showing exactly where the poles went.Anyway overall a great tent for the price point.