Kelty - Discovery Basecamp 4

I think it must be different! Here's a 4-person tent: [https://www.rei.com/product/202471/kelty-discovery-basecamp-4-tent](https://www.rei.com/product/202471/kelty-discovery-basecamp-4-tent) Tent sizes use a standard definition: the number is how many sleeping bags it will hold crammed together. So a 4-person tent will hold four sleeping bags crammed together, about 100 inches wide.

Mine was 10 or 11. He’s in a Kelty Discovery Basecamp 4. It was relatively inexpensive and he can set up and break it down independently! Also big enough for a friend or two when we camp with a bigger group.

I have a base camp 4 and really like it, but it does weigh around 8 pounds. It’s roomy and I didn’t feel cramped whatsoever (5’10” and 260 pounds) with another adult in there. However my dad who is used to a pop up camper or those giant 12 person tents thought it was a two person tent 😂 If you get one, I think you’d wanna ditch the bag it comes in and just fold the actual tent up in your pack and keep the tent pole bag on the outside of the pack because for some reason this is like the one tent that they made the bag too big for and it’s kind of unwieldy to strap to a pack as a unit.

I like kelty stuff, my bigger tent is the base camp 4 and it’s held up really well to a lot of water. It doesn’t have a vestibule, which I really wish it did but I can always throw a tarp up to make one. Super easy setup, good for the price. My new backpacking tent is likely to be a kelty, I just can’t beat the price and I’m not an ultralighter or a thru hiker so a 4 and a half pound tent is perfectly fine for me. It’s somewhere between Coleman and rei brand in quality. The only kelty thing I’ve had some trouble with (and really this isn’t a serious issue) is that my 20 degree down sleeping bag is only comfortable to about 40 and then I can really feel the cold. And I think some of that is due to not storing it properly for the first year I had it and not having a high enough r value pad.

Do you backpack? I have a kelty base camp 4 and it’s held up really really well. I like kelty gear a lot, it’s pretty mid range but good for the price imo

I just bought the Kelty Discovery for an upcoming trip. Fits in my bag well and I think it’s going to do good.

Well if you want advice on a tent I could probably try to help you out! Just took a quick pass through the tent options and I’d recommend the core 4 person instant tent for $150 just because they’re already an established tent making brand with great reviews. I personally own a 4 person kelty tent and the quality is really good imo and they’re easy to setup. Some of the kelty tents have these sleeves that the bottom of the poles go into and it makes solo setup a breeze. My issue with instant tents like the one you mentioned, the gazelle t4, etc. is that they’re heavy and they don’t get very compact. But if you have both storage space and space in your vehicle go for it.

My BF and I have 7 different tents and our favorite one is the 4-person Kelty tent that I bought for myself when I was 17-18 years old. That makes it 36-37 years old. It’s not the same shape as the one OP covets but it has the same basic options with a large back window screen and the zipper screen entrance with the additional layer of solid fabric. Unfortunately it’s so old and the fabric is becoming very brittle and fragile. Wish they still made tents like they used to.

I've had my Kelty for about 12 years now and it has never failed to perform to my highest expectations. I highly recommend them.

We loved our Ozark Trail tent! Set out on a cross country camping trip with a brand new Kelty that we spent a pretty penny on. A week in, a pole broke in the wind and we got SOAKED through the thin floor. Went to a Walmart, picked up an Ozark Trail, and left the Kelty in a dumpster. Never looked back on that decision.

Go with the Kelty version of this same tent instead, better quality and price difference right now isn't much at all with the sales they are running

I used the same Kelty tent for 30 years. Replaced many components in that time. 6 or 7 years ago a pole broke so I emailed Kelty about a replacement. Slow response, no offer of help. They couldn't even tell me the length I should buy. Far cry from my previous experiences with them. Then I found out they had been bought out by exxel outdoors, LLC . So read into this what you want buy it was another buy out where service tanked. exxel has a bunch of other brands they've bought; Kelty, KB Tactical, UD, Sierra Designs, HEX, Slumberjack, Wenzel & SJK. Not sure how service/quality with the other brands has fared. ANNND, I'm also a side sleeper and bought a DeepSleep SOLO MAT SELF-INFLATING CAMPING BED $179.99 to use on my cot. It's 5" thick and has air + foam. Totally love this mat.

Kelty is always a solid bet. Good quality many choices Helleberg tents will last forever. But the price is high. Many other quality suggestions are listed from others too. Good luck and have fun!

Get a Kelty, way higher quality and will keep you dry

Seconding this comment. My first tent was an ozark lasted me almost a decade, upgraded to a nicer Kelty eventually but still have the ozark pop up. Great stuff for the price highly reccomend

Completely disagreeing with this. This is a well known influencer site and list. So, it is merely a sales pitch. Lets check out the list: North Face Stormbreak. 200$ for a polyester tent in 2025! Half of the amazon junk would be more resistant to weather, and weighs half. It is an amazing tent, but only if we are in 2000s. Kelty, is it half covered in mesh, it is horrible in summer and it cannot stand winter. Then there is Hilleberg. Top of the top winter tent. If the list contains a Hilleberg I dont think there would even be a place for MSR in the list. The list then should be dominated by other Hillebergs. Also, where is the Zpacks, or Xmids? Where is mongar, or lanshan? Those are amazing <1 kilo tents .. some of which are on amazon. I agree, Amazon has a lot of junk. But also a lot of very high quality products not paying influencers. There are many better tent makers outside of this list and for many of the items in the list, they are indeed amazing products. However, for many I dont think their brand name justifies their price in 2025 anymore.

Ok let me pitch on the list then: This is an incoherent list: contains tents with different sizes and persons count, so it is creating more confusion than being helpful. Apart from that several of the tents there have well known problems: \- Hilleberg is a winter tent; if you rely on this list and buy it for a summer holiday you will die. \- Elixir does not use seam sealing and instead use a sealing technique mostly seen in cotton fabric tents, and it is known that it leaks. So late autumn it is a dangerous tent. \- North Face Stormbreak is a very old, reliable tent, but uses polyester, so it weighs around 3 kilos. You can easily find a tent with the same specs, much better material for half the price and would weigh around 2 kilos. \- Rei and Nemo tents in the list are all dome tents, which are literally replicas of each other (i would even say knock offs of Big Agnes there with inferior build quality). Many of them are half covered with fabric instead of mesh in their inners, which is terrible for summer. Always go for as much mesh as possible for summer. For early autumn, late spring they are probably good. But definitely master of none. I dont know how they are in a "best" list \- Kelty again is an old reliable tent, but has pole sleeves, so setting it up is a chore. It is covered with fabric again, so not so good for summer, would be good for mountain weather in the summer though. Still, material is outdated and setting it up is much slower than current lines of tents. \- Hillebergs are top of the top, and big agnes clearly earns its place in the list. \- MSR tents there are both very light options, but nothing special there. Personally i would carry 500 grams more instead of paying premium to a tent design that is so common. It is a very good alternative for ultralighters. \- There are other tent types, such as inflatables, such as popup tents, such as summer tents. The list contains none. So, if you are trying to find a tent to buy .. ditch this list and check out other sources. It is incoherent, it misses out a lot of different alternatives and it doesnt factor in criteria such as who? how? where? when? how many people? duration? conditions? It is basically the sunday paper of tent recommendations. A potpourri of cool images.

I just bought a Kelty on sale and it's a remarkably solid tent for the price. They occasionally go up on Sierra (formerly sierra trading post) for steep discounts, so it's worth it to look there as well.

Buy once - cry once Don't skimp on shelter. A good tent (like the big Agnes) will last you a lifetime. Kelty is a decent second option (but usually heavier) and Coleman is more likely to tear or break a pole (I have one for family car camping and it broke a pote...repaired the pole but still swapped for TNF Wawona 4) It only takes one failure to make you wish you'd just spent the extra $. Buy the Big Agnes and move on.

Kelty or Coleman are my recommendations. The Big Agnes tents are certainly nice but but I recommend you go with the cheaper options to make sure you enjoy yourself, then go more expensive later. Kelty and Coleman are budget friendly without being trash for car camping and you can keep it in your closet as a backup if you ever need it again.

Idk why manufacturers keep selling 1 man+some stuff tents as "2 man tents". Even with my vestibule on my Kelty there is barely enough room for me and all my unpacked hiking stuff. I couldn't even share that tent with a dog.

Yeah, I’ve done Shasta with a good 3-season tent and it held up fine — as long as you pitch it well and use proper anchors. A full 4-season feels a bit overkill unless you’re expecting heavy snow or crazy winds. I’ve seen that Kelty model on Ubuy before, and it’s honestly solid enough for trips like this.

I'll start by saying that we camp in the Catskills in a remote area with zero amenities or other campers around. My son started staying in his own tent around age 5 or 6, my aunt had given him an Ozark Trail, probably 2-3 person. His tent was reasonably close to ours, and the dogs slept with him, and I would give him the key fob to my truck, if he were scared or needed us in some way he knew how to use the "panic" button on the remote. He used that tent till the wheels fell off, until I bought him a small Kelty when he was like 17 I think. My daughter started sleeping on her own a little later, probably 7-8, but would switch between our tent and her big brother's for a couple years before that. But same for her, she got the dogs and the key fob and an inexpensive, well reviewed Amazon tent that got replaced in a year or two with a Kelty since since her first tent had gotten damaged, not by her.

Kelty and North Face have the most reps among my son's scout troop. They set up easily and are durable. You can get replacement and repair parts and are comfortable for everything down to below freezing. When things get that low, we tend to move the boys to a canvas tent with a stove.