How to Secure Your Pop Up Tent ANYWHERE

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If you’re new to camping, you might find it difficult to understand how to secure your pop up tent, to use stakes, as well as their guylines. This blog post will show you how to secure your pop up tent anywhere, even including a scenario where you can’t use stakes.

To secure your pop up tent, you can use the provided stakes to stake down the tent body. Also, use the provided stakes to stake down the pre-attached guylines. If you can’t use the stakes, then trees, logs, rocks or sandbags can act as replacement anchors.

*This is a picture of my dog sitting beside my Teton Sports 1-Person Vista Quick Tent.*

Table Of Contents

How to Stake Down Your Pop Up Tent
How to Guy Out Your Pop Up Tent
How to Secure Your Pop Up Tent Without Stakes
How Much Wind Can Your Pop Up Tent Take?

How to Stake Down Your Pop Up Tent

First, find the tent stakes, which will usually be provided to you by the brand (such as Coleman, Quechua, and Teton Sports).

Just bear in mind that while most pop up tent brands will usually provide you with tent stakes, they’re not typically very high quality. Here’s what the Coleman ones look like.

*This is what one of my bent Coleman pegs look like. I accidentally stepped on it while camping.*

If you need much higher quality stakes, you can check out the MSR Groundhog Stakes from Amazon.

But for this blog post, we’ll work with the provided stakes. For the Coleman Pop Up Tents, the tent stakes are hidden away in a separate pocket inside the carry bag.

*This is a picture of me taking out the 8 stakes from the pocket of the carry bag of the Coleman 2-Person Pop Up Tent.*

Other pop up tents may not have this pocket; instead tent stakes are usually packed away separately in a smaller carry case. For the Teton Sports Vista Quick Tents, I got this yellow carry case for my stakes:

*This is the stake case provided by Teton Sports for my Vista Quick Tents.*

Using the provided stakes that you’ve just taken out, look for the stake loops at the base of the tent body. For the Coleman Pop Up Tents, the stake loops are black in color, making them easily identifiable against the gray-colored pole sleeves.

This is what one of Coleman’s stake loops looks like:

*This is what the black stake loop of the Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent looks like. I’ve already driven a stake through it.*

Simply put the long end of the stake through the hole inside the stake loop, and drive the stake through the ground. When using stakes, the best practice is to drive the stake at a 45-degree angle to the ground. Push it all the way through until only the hook at the top sticks out (above picture).

How to Guy Out Your Pop Up Tent

Next, look for the guylines that are likely already attached to your tent. If they’re not pre-attached, simply tie a knot to the guy-out point.

How to Tie a Guyline

First, look for the guy-out points on your pop up tent. These guy-out points are usually made of webbing. Here’s what the guy-out point on my Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black Tent looks like.

*This is what the guy-out point (without the guyline) on my Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black Tent looks like.*

After that, loop the free end of your guyline around your finger, or at least until that end of the guyline forms a loop:

*This is a picture of me looping the guyline before tying it to the guyout point of the Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black Tent.*

Put the entire loop through the guy-out point’s webbing, stick your fingers through the loop, and pull the rest of the guyline through that original loop:

*This is a picture of me looping the guyline onto the guy-out point of the Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black Tent.*

This will form a knot against the webbing of the guy-out point, then just pull on the guyline to tighten the knot in place so that it doesn’t unravel:

*This is a picture of me attaching one of the provided guylines to one of the guyout points on the Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black Tent.*

And with that, your guyline should be fully set up, and ready to be staked out.

Pre-Attached Guylines

Here’s a list of the pop up tents with and without pre-attached guylines:

Pop Up Tent	Pre-Attached Guylines?
Teton Sports 1-Person Vista Quick Tent	Yes
Teton Sports 2-Person Vista Quick Tent	Yes
Coleman 2-Person Pop Up Tent	Yes
Quechua 2 Seconds 2-Person Tent	No
Fresh and Black 2-Person Tent	No
Fresh and Black 3-Person Tent	No
Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent	Yes

The guy-out point looks the same as a stake loop, also made of canvas, but are located usually near the middle or top height of the tent, instead of right at the bottom of the tent. Guy-out points are usually located on the rainfly.

For example, for the Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent, the 2 guylines are attached at each end of the green rainfly, and look like this:

*This is what the guy-out point of the Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent looks like.*

Using the other end of your guyline, which will form a loop around your stake, pull the guyline out tight, and then drive the long end of the stake through the ground, until again, only the hook at the top sticks out.

*This is a picture of me staking down one of the guylines of a tent.*

Related Reading: What is a Pop Up Tent, and How Does it Work?

Related Reading: Pop Up Tents VS. Regular Tents – 8 Key Differences to Know

How to Secure Your Pop Up Tent Without Stakes

In the event that you find that your stakes cannot penetrate the hard ground (for example), there are a few ways that you can secure your pop up tent without stakes.

Use Trees

Instead of staking down your guylines to the ground, you can tie your guylines to trees that are around you. Here are some best practices when doing so:

Preferably, use trees with thicker trunks and have more stability.
Use 2 or more trees for more stability.

For example, since my Quechua 2 Seconds Tent comes with 7 pre-attached guylines, ideally I would want to guy out the tent with maybe 4 trees (1 at each corner) for more stability.

After that, you can use the pre-attached tensioners, found usually in the middle of your guyline, to adjust the tightness or slackness of your guyline:

*This is what the pre-attached tensioner of the Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent looks like.*

Use Rocks

If there aren’t any trees near you, another option is to use rocks to anchor down your pop up tent. This is the next option that I prefer, after trees.

Again, use more substantial and heavy rocks to tie your guylines to, and also use more than a couple of rocks for more stability across your entire tent (preferably at the 4 corners again).

However, one downside is that if the rock is too sharp, it may wear down or even cut your guyline, which is something you want to avoid. As such, be mindful to pick rocks that are more rounded, and less sharp.

Use Logs

Instead of using rocks, you can also use fallen trees and logs. This is my least favorite option, as sometimes fallen trees and logs may not be heavy enough. As such, it’s always better to pick more substantial logs, to keep your tent more anchored.

Use Sandbags

If you’re at a beach, and you’re finding it difficult to secure your stakes into sandy ground, grab a few bags, and fill them with sand. Then, you can use these sandbags to weigh down either the inside of your tent, or your stakes. Alternatively, if the sandbag is heavy or big enough, you can tie your guylines to them as well.

Related Reading: Can You Use a Pop Up Tent for Camping?

Related Reading: Can You Backpack with a Pop Up Tent?

How Much Wind Can Your Pop Up Tent Take?

The best camping pop up tent that I have are the Quechua 2 Seconds Tents, as these have been thoroughly tested by Decathlon, using wind tunnels at all angles, in wind speeds of up to 30 miles per hour.

“We test all of our tents in a wind tunnel with a rotary table to expose each side of the tent to the wind. A properly assembled tent with all the guy ropes properly positioned around the tent should remain habitable in wind speeds of up to 30 mph measured near ground level (Force 6).”
From Decathlon website

Each Quechua 2 Seconds Tent from Decathlon has 7 guy-out points, 4 of them being at the front, and another 3 of them at the back:

*This is what the back of the Quechua 2 Seconds Pop Up Tent looks like when fully guyed out with the 3 guylines.*

In contrast, the rest of my pop up tents have much fewer guylines. The Teton Sports Vista Quick Tents have only 4, and the Coleman Pop Up Tents have only 2. As such, I suspect that the maximum wind speed these tents can take would be much lower, perhaps 20 miles per hour or so.

*This is a picture of me guying out one length of the Teton Sports 2-Person Vista Quick Tent. There’s 2 guylines on each length of the tent.*

If you find that the wind is too strong for your pop up tent, my advice is to take the entire pop up tent down, and stay in the comfort of your car instead.

While you can anchor down and secure your pop up tent as best as you can, there’s a limit to the amount of wind the tent can take. The worst case scenario is that your pop up tent breaks and rips while you’re still in it, which can be extremely dangerous.

*This is how thick the poles of the Quechua 2 Seconds Pop Up Tent are.*

This is because the fiberglass poles of pop up tents tend not to be very thick, which severely limits the amount of wind that each pop up tent can take.

Related Reading: Are Pop Up Tents Good in Wind?

Related Reading: Are Pop Up Tents Good in Rain?

This is a picture of me with my 7 pop-up tents. From bottom to top: Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent, Fresh & Black 3-Person Tent, Quechua 2 Seconds 2-Person Tent, Coleman 2-Person Pop Up Tent, Fresh & Black 2-Person Tent, Teton Sports Vista 2-Person Tent, and the Teton Sports Vista 1-Person Tent.

Pop Up Tent	Full Review	Check Price
Teton Sports 2-Person Vista Quick Tent	Read Review	Amazon, Moosejaw
Teton Sports 1-Person Vista Quick Tent	Read Review	Amazon, Moosejaw
Coleman 4-Person Pop Up Tent	Read Review	Amazon, Moosejaw
Coleman 2-Person Pop Up Tent	Read Review	Amazon, Moosejaw
Quechua 2 Seconds 2-Person Tent	Read Review	Decathlon
Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black 2-Person Tent	Read Review	Decathlon
Quechua 2 Seconds Fresh and Black 3-Person Tent	Read Review	Decathlon