I have a jeep overland, the tent fit great!

I got this Backloads tent to influence my wife to camp with me. She was pleased with the tent as we set it up on our driveway the first time. We then set it up for the first time on a camping trip and came away disappointed. Read on for our impressions of this first setup and actual use:

Just took this tent out for its first camping trip, and it did not disappoint! It is a very well-made product, and if you have two people, is easy to set up and take down in minutes. We loved being able to sleep in the back of our SUV, and use the tent as a room to hang out in, play games in, and store our cooler and gear in. There is a ton of headroom as well as room to move around, and the lantern hook is great. We had sunny weather so I can't attest to how it would hold up in the rain, but it certainly held its own with the winds we had. Two words of advice -- 1) once you have the two sets of tent poles inserted into their respective sleeve in an X formation, have one of you stand inside the middle of the tent and hold it up while the other basically pops the tent up into shape and secures the pegs at the bottom corners. 2) no matter how tight you fit the SUV sleeve to your vehicle, there will still be a few gaps; we just used some painter's tape to secure the SUV sleeve even further and had no bugs as a result. All in all, a great purchase!

I read reviews before buying this product and was a bit apprehensive about putting together myself. I had some friends standing by to help but was so excited that I was able to assemble everything but the rain fly by myself- I know I can get it over the top but am nervous about the roof over the door because it’s so high and I’m 5’3” ( maybe I’ll get a small step stool). Once assembled I was so impressed with how big it is - plenty of space !! It didn’t rain so I don’t know how that will work out for me and my Subaru. I was able to keep the tailpipe out of the tent but also unclear how long the car needs to be off to prevent melting fabric after a ride. There was a gap on the sides of the car but I think a magnet or 2 will fix that. I was able to pack back into the carry bag. Worth mentioning I am a novice with camping maybe have put a tent together half a dozen times. Now I’m ready to research campgrounds and hit the road !!

This tent works, having it hooked up to the vehicle has limitations for using the vehicle. we hooked it up once and that night we got hit with a heavy rainstorm. Very little rain got past the seal only after we were taking the tent down the next morning. we sleep on cotes so accessing stuff in the Jeep is a hassle because a Jeep rear door opens left to right. It is very roomy even with two cotes. When not hooked to the vehicle, the extra-large opening material flaps in the wind making extra noise in the tent. we are going to transition to a hard-shell rooftop tent as soon as possible.