Kelty Discovery Basecamp 4

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Overall

#614 in

Camping Tents

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Sentiment score50% positive
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Last updated: May 7, 2026

Reddit Reviews

Reddit IconAcingSpades
3 months ago

Sundome is much lower quality than the other options. If you're looking at Coleman, step up to at least the Skydome. Funny enough I was going to recommend the Basecamp. Ventilation isn't great with the fly on but that's very common with cheap tents. I like wooded campsites anyway where you can angle the mesh portions of the tent into the trees and keep the non-mesh facing the walkway for privacy. Kelty kinda owns the cheap-but-mostly-quality space. The Discovery Trail 3P is very meshy which helps with ventilation but still a lack of fly vents. If you can stretch the budget or find a good sale, the Kelty Rumpus 4 is a killer deal. Lots of ventilation, vented fly, and a great vestibule that you can keep wide open to help with ventilation. The Teton looks fine. I like the look of the higher denier fabric and vented fly. Teton has historically been a cheap crap brand but they've really made some improvements in the last few years. I don't love that their "lifetime warranty" explicitly mentions that things like bent poles are considered normal wear. The marmot is an excellent option if you can get it at a good price and you're genuinely okay with a 2p.

Reddit Iconcupcait19
10 months ago

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.

Reddit Iconj-allen-heineken
8 months ago

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.

9 months ago

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

3 months ago

I have two tents (both kelty brand) a two person for solo backpacking/short trips where bad weather isn’t forecast and a 4 person for trips where I have another person in the tent with me or I plan on having to spend more time in the tent. Totally a reasonable move and the bigger tents really aren’t usually much harder to set up unless you have some huge 10 person multi room situation

Reddit IconChuck1705
3 months ago

Check out Kelty. Bought a basecamp model and it's great. Big enough to stand up in. Room for cots which gives you storage space underneath the cots...

Reddit IconLong_Audience4403
10 months ago

I love my kelty discovery basecamp. It's dumb easy/quick to set up - two poles and everything is color coded (rain fly yellow straps are the front and clip into the yellow clips). I just used it on a road trip where we set up and broke down every night and it was honestly the easiest part of that situation. We have the 6, it's a good budget quick tent! We comfortably slept 2 adults and 2 kids on air mats with room for bags at the bottom.

2 months ago

How long is a long trip, and what are the concerns of failing? Most tents can last a good long time without issue. Make sure you are thinking about takedown time as well, just because it's fast up doesn't mean it'll be fast down as well. We did a month last summer plus a bunch of weekends in a Kelty tent, which I could set up and take down on my own in under 5 mins. Two poles, color coded, didn't cost me one zillion dollars, easy to get back into the bag without folding it perfectly. I think you're overthinking this.

Reddit IconM7BSVNER7s
10 months ago

I have had a normal kelty 4 man and the daydreamer 6. The 4 held up great for almost a decade of use (~6 trips a year with that tent) before we needed more space and upgraded. The day dreamer 6 is pitch black inside which is great for getting kids/dogs to sleep in later than sunrise. The thick fly to keep out light definitely adds a pound or two to the day dreamer vs a normal tent.

Reddit IconCautious-Cat9030
3 months ago

it fits my kelty 6 comfortably with space on the size. it was very tight with my kelty 4

Reddit Iconslknutson7
7 months ago

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.

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