The 5 Best Waterproof Tents for Heavy Rain (Bought & Tested!)

The video

Table of contents

1. 1. The North Face Wawona 6
2. 2. REI Co-Op Base Camp 6
3. 3. Teton Mountain Ultra 2
4. 4. Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black 3
5. The Rest of the Best
6. What Makes a Tent Waterproof
7. All Test Scores
8. Why You Can Trust Me

Overall Best Waterproof Tent

The North Face Wawona 6

My heavy rain test with the Wawona lasted a whopping 3 days. It rained so heavily that my entire yard completely flooded, every single day.

The water was up to my ankles, and the tent floor was sitting in 2 inches of it. But after 3 days of heavy rain and flooding, I didn’t find a single drop of water inside the tent.

That’s because the seam taping all around this tent is very thorough. Every single seam not covered by the rainfly is perfectly taped, and I didn’t have to do any waterproofing prep work on my own. I could literally use my Wawona out of the box.

Take note that after the third day of rain, the back wall was slightly damp from the inside. It didn’t drip into the tent or anything, but that’s the breaking point of the Wawona.

The other big reason I’m recommending the Wawona is its humongous vestibule, the most livable I’ve ever seen in a family camping tent. This single vestibule comes in at a whopping 51 square feet, and fits a couple of huge camping chairs with space left over for a big camping table. Simply perfect for wet gear and dirty shoes on rainy days.

The vestibule’s peak height is 74 inches, and its lowest height is still a whopping 65 inches, so I could stand up everywhere inside it.

The Wawona also has the best wind protection of any family camping tent I’ve tested. My friend had the previous (single-walled) version, and took his through 50mph winds. The high quality DAC MX poles bent a little bit after that, but are still going strong:

I also put my own Wawona (the newer double-walled version) through 15mph winds, and it held up perfectly fine. It has a nice aerodynamic dome shape, a whopping 11 guylines, plus those DAC MX aluminum poles, so naturally it’s the best against wind here:

A quick comparison of the larger family waterproof tents in this review.

However, I would’ve really liked the Wawona to have a longer rainfly. Right now, it covers only half the tent body. With a longer fly, I think it could easily go a week in pouring rain without a single leak through the fabric.

The 2 side windows and 2 side vents could also be more user-friendly. These cannot be opened from the inside, which I didn’t like. Thankfully, none of them leaked at all, even in such heavy rain.

Best for Off-Season Camping

REI Co-Op Base Camp 6

There are 4 main reasons why I love this tent too. First, it has a full-length rainfly that extends almost all the way down to the ground.

So, even when I sprayed tons of water on my Base Camp for one full hour, the water dripped off the rainfly and onto the ground directly, and the tent stayed completely dry.

Second, it has a whopping 4 vents (2 roof vents and 2 floor vents), and I really loved that I could open and shut all of them from inside the tent. Their placement creates what REI calls a ‘chimney effect’, and I’ve never had any condensation issues in this tent, so I suppose it must work.

Third, it has a whopping 2 vestibules, more than most other family tents I’ve seen. The front one is pretty big at about 31.1 square feet, and easily fits 2 camping chairs.

The back vestibule is much smaller and couldn’t even fit 1 chair, but at about 21.3 square feet, it’s great for storing wet gear.

And fourth, I love the mountaineering-inspired crisscross pole design. Generally, the more poles that criss-cross across a tent, and the more pole-ends that touch the ground, the better it’ll be against wind.

The Base Camp has a whopping 5 poles. It’s much more stable than a simple dome tent with just 2 crisscrossing poles (like the Coleman Sundome!), and the poles also pull the fabric outwards to increase livability inside.

REI typically doesn’t provide hydrostatic head ratings of their tents though, and in my experience, they don’t last quite as long as my Wawona (maybe 20% less).

Best Budget Pick

Teton Mountain Ultra 2

I put this tent through 1 hour of heavy rain, which turned into light to moderate rain for many hours, way into the night. It was still raining the next morning.

The rain finally stopped after 12 hours, and there was not a single drop of water inside the tent.

I really loved that this tent has a full-length rainfly, extending almost all the way down to the ground. There’s only a little gap at the bottom for some ventilation.

Also, every single seam in this tent has been very thoroughly taped, especially at the corners. After my rain test, I checked all the seams, and none of them let in a single drop of water.

The tub floor height was also perfect for preventing back-splashing in heavy rain. It measured about 10 inches at the width, more than enough to keep water out. Most other budget tents I’ve tested run between 5-7 inches, which lets water and dirt in. Not pleasant.

And on top of the 34.3 square feet of inner space (which fits up to a queen bed), I got 2 huge vestibules, which gave me an additional 14.1 square feet together, for a whopping 48.4 square feet of space in total.

However, the 2 rainfly vents at the top can be accessed only from the outside, and their angle tends to let in water, so I’d recommend just keeping them closed if you expect any rain.

Thankfully, there are 2 more vestibule vents (1 in each vestibule), and I could open and shut these from the inside of the tent.

Pro-Tip: if you can spare the weight and slight extra cost, I’d recommend the Mountain Ultra 2 over the Mountain Ultra 1. The 2P model’s rainfly can be pulled away at the widths of the tent, creating 360-degree ventilation all around. The one-person tent’s cannot.

Best Pop Up Tent

Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black 3

I have both the regular and the Fresh and Black models, and I put them through not just a 1-hour heavy rain test, not just some light flooding in my yard, but also a 3-day heavy afternoon rain test.

And wow, these tents were surprisingly bomb-proof, for three main reasons. First, both tents have full-length rainflies, covering the entire inner tent.

These tents may seem like single-walled tents, but they’re not. The outer layer is the rainfly, and the inner polyester layer is completely separate, which keeps your tent bone dry even in heavy rain.

Second, the seam taping is really thorough in this tent. All the important seams, like those on the flooring, have been factory taped.

And third, the ventilation. The Fresh and Black has 2 huge rainfly vents (1 at each length of the tent), and I could leave these completely open in the heavy rain. I could even shut them from the inside of the tent, just in case water got in.

Sadly though, these 2 Seconds tents do not have vestibules. Pro-Tip: I’d recommend upgrading to the 2 Seconds Easy instead, which is Decathlon’s much newer model of these 2 Seconds tents. It has a small vestibule at the front where you can fit wet gear and dirty shoes.

One thing I didn’t quite like is the thin fiberglass tent poles (these are pre-attached). It’s the only waterproof tent in this review with fiberglass poles, so it won’t stand up against wind as well as the others (which all have aluminum poles instead).

The methodWhy You Can Trust Me

I bought all the tents in this review with my own savings (more than $1,500 on just the 5 tents above!), and tested them against not just light rain, not just moderate rain, but heavy rain as well. Some of them even went through a whopping 3 days of rain, plus some flooding too. My top camping tents went through the same rain testing too.

I hope this helps, and feel free to reach out to me on my YouTube channel if you have any questions. I’m only a YouTube comment away, and I do my best to answer everyone.

Every figure above is from my own testing – measured by hand, bought with my own money.