I Tested the Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent (Review)

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The Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent is my least expensive tent for the size, and it even comes with a gear loft and room divider. Plus, there’s tons of livable space inside this Ozark Trail Tent, and I couldn’t even reach the top!

But you do get what you pay for though. Because it’s ridiculously inexpensive, the quality, design and weather protection isn’t the best, though I think it’ll work decently in summer (without rain, of course).

Will it work for you though? This blog post goes through everything you need to know, so read on to find out!

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Check out the Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent:

Here’s what we’ll discuss here:

• Unboxing
• In the Box
• Specifications

Unboxing

I bought this Ozark Trail tent at a very, very inexpensive price, and here’s what the packaging looked like before I opened it:

In the Box

Inside the packaging, I got the following items:

• The tent body;
• The rainfly (with 8 pre-attached guylines);
• Poles (both fiberglass and steel) inside a carry bag;
• A gear loft;
• A room divider;
• 14 steel stakes inside a carry bag;
• A tent floor repair kit; and
• Warranty information.

Specifications

Here’s all the data (including my personal measurements) that I gathered on this Ozark Trail 10-Person Family Cabin Tent:

• Peak height: 88 inches
• Lowest height: 65 inches
• Length: 13 feet 9 inches
• Width: 9 feet 11 inches
• Base Area: 136.4 square feet
• Floor material: Polyethylene
• Bathtub Flooring: Yes
• Tent body material: 68D Polyester
• Rainfly material: 68D Polyester
• Poles material: Fiberglass x3 (roof), Steel x6 (walls)
• Packed size: 29 by 18 by 13 inches
• Weight: 30 pounds
• Number of guylines: 8
• Number of stakes: 14 (steel)
• Number of windows: 5
• Number of doors: 1
• Number of vents: None
• Number of pockets: 2
• Number of gear lofts: 1
• Number of lantern loops: 1
• Room divider: Yes (1)
• E-port: Yes (1)
• Black-out: No

I also did some testing on my own, and came up with this data:

• Set up timing (2 people): 10 minutes
• Set up timing (1 person): 20 minutes
• Take down timing (2 people): 6.5 minutes
• Take down timing (1 person): 12 minutes
• Number of single sleeping pads: 10
• Number of queen-sized mattresses: 4

I go through all the above specifications in the sections below, in more detail, if you’re interested.

I put the Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent through these 7 tests:

1. Ease of Use
2. Spaciousness
3. Comfort & Features
4. Ventilation
5. Rain Protection
6. Quality
7. Portability

Here’s how the Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent performed.

Ease of Use

For ease of use, I looked at how easily I could set up this Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent on my own, and with 2 people as well. After, I looked at how easily I could take down and pack up this tent.

How to Set Up

There are 3 fiberglass poles for the roof, 6 steel poles for the walls, 8 pre-attached guylines, and 14 stakes. (6 stakes are for the tent body, and 8 stakes are for the guylines.)

To set up the Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent, first slide the 3 fiberglass poles through the roof pole sleeves. The poles are not color-coded, but the pole sleeves are.

The 2 green pole sleeves are for the longer diagonal poles (with 9 fiberglass segments), and the 1 blue pole sleeve is the for the shorter pole (with 5 fiberglass segments).

Here’s what the roof will look like after you insert all the fiberglass poles:

Then, connect the fiberglass poles to ribbed side of the elbow connectors, which is the side with these protrusions inside the connector:

Tip: It’s much easier to secure the 3 fiberglass roof poles into the elbow connectors when you get someone else to go inside the tent.

When all the fiberglass poles have been secured in the elbow connectors, the roof of the tent should be propped up like this:

Next, attach the 6 steel wall poles to the elbow connectors (the top of each pole) and to the pin at the other end (the base of each pole). See the 2 pictures below.

Tip: 2 of these 6 steel poles will have these silver hooks at one end, and these are to go in the middle of your tent (with the silver hooks at the top). The other 4 steel poles are for the 4 corners of your Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent.

Finally, attach all the pole clips, place the rainfly over the Ozark Trail tent, secure it, and stake out the entire tent.

Set Up Timing

The entire Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent takes about 10 minutes to set up, when my brother and I were setting it up together (2 people).

It took me about double the time to set it up on my own (so, 20 minutes). But unfortunately, because I’m not tall (I’m 5’3″), I couldn’t get the rainfly up on my own, and that’s where I got stuck.

Take Down Timing

Taking down the Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent and then packing it up takes about 6.5 minutes with 2 people, and about 12 minutes on my own.

If you want more detailed instructions on how to set up and take down this Ozark Trail 10-Person Family Cabin Tent, you can watch this video that I uploaded, right here:

Spaciousness

Peak Height

The Ozark Trail 10-Person Family Cabin Tent has a peak height of 88 inches, and I couldn’t even reach the top with my arm stretched out, and here’s a picture of me trying to:

The lowest height in the tent, which is at the four corners, is about 65 inches. This is slightly taller than my height, so I could stand up everywhere inside the Ozark Trail Tent, even at the corners.

Dimensions

The length of the Ozark Trail tent is about 13 feet and 9 inches, while the width is about 9 feet and 11 inches, so slightly smaller than the marketed dimensions of 14 by 10 feet.

Also, there’s no vestibule, so if you leave your shoes out, it will get wet if it rains.

Mattress Sizing

This Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent can accommodate 10 single sleeping pads or sleeping bags, and here’s what having 10 pads in this 10-person tent looks like.

To accommodate 10 people in this tent, it’s almost shoulder-to-shoulder sleeping, although there’s some space down the middle for just a tiny bit of camping gear.

This Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent can also fit 4 queen-sized camping mattresses, and here’s what the tent looks like with these 4 mattresses:

The mattresses that I used in the picture above are slightly smaller than queen size, but almost queen-sized, give or take a couple of inches. These 4 mattresses take up the entire tent, and there’s hardly any space leftover for camping gear.

Comfort & Features

Windows

The Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent has 5 identical windows, each measuring about 43 inches in length and about 25 inches in width. (This is the longest length and the longest width of each window.)

There are 2 windows along the length of the tent, and 1 window on the width of the tent.

Each window has 2 zippers, which are a little bit noisy, but are generally quite snag-free.

If there’s no rain, you can unzip the windows for more ventilation, and there’s a bug net to prevent larger bugs from getting in.

The holes are quite large, so I’m pretty sure that this is not no-see-um mesh.

Door

The Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent has just 1 door, which is a D-shaped door, and it’s located somewhere along the length of the tent.

The single door measures about 54 by 39 inches in dimensions, although it’s about 62 inches from the floor to the top of the door. This is almost a full-sized door, but I do need to duck a little when entering.

The door is quite big as well, about twice my size, though I think it’s probably a tight fit for 2 people to enter through the door at the same time.

The door does have a bug net, but it’s only for half the door, and not the full door.

If there are no bugs though, I like to unzip the entire door and leave it open by rolling it up and clipping it to the side.

If there are bugs though, the amount of ventilation that you get through this door will be about the same as each window in the tent. (Yes, I actually calculated this!)

The door has 2 zippers for the bug net, and 2 for the door itself. The door can be zipped up from both the inside and outside. The zipper quality is not the best, it’s a little bit noisy, and it always, always snags from the outside because of this green rain cover.

Every single time I open this door, the zipper will snag at least once, sometimes twice, which can be annoying.

Storage

This Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent has only 2 pockets in the entire tent, and both measure about 13 inches in length and 6 inches in width, which is very tiny for such a huge tent.

It also comes with a gear loft for more storage space, but it’s not the biggest.

Also, I’m not tall enough to attach it without some help, but if you’re slightly taller you should be able to attach it no problem.

There’s also 1 lantern loop at the very top of the tent for some lighting at night. I can’t reach this either, but you should be fine if you’re a little taller.

Room Divider

The Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent also comes with a room divider, so you can split the tent into 2 rooms, and each “room” can fit 2 queen-sized camping mattresses.

Because there’s only 1 door in the entire tent, only 1 “room” will have the door, and the other “room” will only have windows.

What I don’t quite like about this divider is that it’s sheer, so not completely opaque, and also, it’s not exactly full length.

There’s some space at the bottom that’s not covered, and also some space at the top that’s not covered by the divider.

On top of that, there’s also no zip down the middle of the divider for easy access into either room. To get into the other room, you’d have to remove the divider and then put it back up.

Other Features

This Ozark Trail Tent also has 1 e-port at the bottom of the tent, with no zippered or Velcro closure, but I didn’t notice any leaking when it was raining (because the green outer fabric overlapped the inner fabric quite a bit, so water didn’t leak through).

There’s no dark room technology though, and it’s quite bright throughout the day.

Ventilation

Ceiling Mesh

For ventilation, this Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent has a lot of mesh on the roof of the tent.

The rainfly is removable, but only from the outside. You can also leave the rainfly off, and stargaze at night when it’s not raining.

Window + Door Mesh

Apart from the roof though, there’s not a lot of mesh from the 5 windows and the door, because they’re not very big.

Rainy Day Options

Also, when it’s raining, there’s hardly any ventilation. There are no vents in this Ozark Trail 10-Person tent at all.

Plus, the rainfly is pretty small (it doesn’t cover much of the tent at all, except for the ceiling mesh), so it provides only partial protection from the rain:

All the windows and doors also have to be closed, because otherwise, the rain would drip right into the tent. Even in light rain, the rain does get on to the window and door mesh, so it’s best to keep them full closed.

The rainfly has to be in place, so the ceiling mesh will be covered. You might get a little bit of ventilation through the gap between the ceiling mesh and the rainfly, but I think it’s pretty minimal.

Weather Protection

For weather resistance, I looked at rain and wind protection.

Rain Test

It rained for about an hour while I was using this Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent, with about 20 minutes of moderate rainfall and about 40 minutes of pretty light rain.

After about 15 minutes of mostly light rain and some moderate rainfall, I started to see quite a bit of leaking through this seam, which connects the blue part of the main body of the Ozark tent to the bathtub flooring.

This is an inverted seam, but it’s not taped or sealed.

Also, I noticed that some water was already seeping through the blue fabric at the bottom of the tent, and the fabric is pretty much soaked.

Overall, because a lot of water leaked through the un-taped seams and even the tent fabric after just 15 minutes of mostly light rain, I would say that this Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent is not waterproof at all.

For more info on this rain test (such as which seams are taped, the waterproofing of the rest of the fabric, etc.), you can check out this video that I uploaded, right here:

Wind Protection

I don’t think this Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent will do very well against strong winds. This is a cabin tent, so the shape isn’t aerodynamic at all.

The pole structure is very simple, there are only 8 guylines in total, and the stakes aren’t your super high-quality stakes.

Quality

For quality, I looked at the flooring, tent body, rainfly, stitching, zippers, mesh, poles, stakes, guylines, and general overall quality.

Flooring

There was no info provided by Ozark Trail on the material of the flooring, but it feels like your regular polyethylene bathtub flooring, and doesn’t seem very thick. I forgot to measure the height of the bathtub flooring, but I think it’s about 5 inches.

After my 1-hour rain test, I noticed that no water seeped through the flooring itself, and it was still bone dry.

Body and Rainfly

The material of the tent body and rainfly are made of 68D coated polyester fabric.

When I run my hand over the tent fabric, it feels a little bit sticky, but I’m not sure why, or maybe it’s the coating wearing off or the material degrading, or something like that.

I also found a bunch of loose threads on the floor when I first got into the tent, and excess material on some parts.

Stitching

As for stitching, I found loose threads all over the tent, something like this.

Some parts of the stitching aren’t that great as well, and there were fairly big holes, especially where the guylines are connected to the main tent body.

The stitching especially around the doors and windows don’t seem that well done either, and I found a lot of excess threads as well.

Zippers

The zippers worked fine for the windows, but kept snagging on the door because of this rain cover. My other tents with similar designs did not have this serious of a snagging problem.

Mesh

The quality of the mesh was okay, but not great. There was quite a bit of this sort of inconsistent mesh in some places, so not very well put together.

The mesh doesn’t exactly feel soft and silky, and I’m pretty sure it’s not no-see-um mesh, though it’ll keep the bigger bugs out.

Poles

The 3 roof poles are made of fiberglass, which are a bit more flexible. I wouldn’t recommend putting this 10-person tent up on your own though, because it’s quite difficult to get the roof to prop up by yourself. Sometimes I worry that these fiberglass poles will break, because they’re not that sturdy.

The 6 wall poles are made of steel, I think, but they’re probably not stainless steel, because I found some rust on one of these steel poles. So after washing your tent and I also do rinse off the poles, do let them dry first before storing it away.

Stakes

The 14 steel stakes that came with the tent are just your standard tent stakes, nothing impressive.

Guylines

I had no issues with the guylines, though it would be nice if they were reflective at night. They don’t seem to be.

Carry Bag

The carry bag seems to be of okay quality, and it can be made bigger for easier packing up. It wasn’t too difficult to get the tent, poles and all other accessories back into the carry bag.

Overall Quality

Overall, I can’t say that I was very impressed with the quality of this Ozark Trail 10-Person Family Cabin Tent. I even noticed some black stuff on my hands once I took it out of the box, which was weird.

Portability

This Ozark Trail 10-Person Tent has a packed size of 29 by 18 by 13 inches. For a size comparison, here’s what it looks like beside a Coleman 2-Person Sundome Tent, as well as a 32-ounce Nalgene bottle, and it weighs about 30 pounds for everything.

Pros

For pros, the Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent is very, very inexpensive, and is by far my least expensive tent for the size. And it even comes with a gear loft and room divider.

It also has a nice high peak height of 88 inches, plus its side walls are vertical, so it offers a lot of livable space. I could stand up everywhere inside this Ozark Trail Tent.

Cons

For cons, there’s only 1 door in the entire 10-person tent, there’s almost no ventilation at all when it’s raining, and it also leaks within just 15 minutes of light rain.

And finally, the biggest con is probably that the quality isn’t the best with the slightly sticky tent fabric, loose threads, snagging issues and inconsistent mesh.

But ultimately, I think you get what you pay for. I didn’t pay much for this tent (just slightly over $100), and I don’t think there’s any other brand apart from Ozark Trail that you can buy a 10-person tent for this price.

I think it works totally fine in fair weather, so you can take the rainfly off and open all the windows for a decent amount of ventilation. It definitely won’t be great in strong winds, heavy rain, or even light rain though.

If you’re expecting no rain at all, this is a great, reasonably-priced tent.

But if you need something higher quality with a bit more weatherproofing, or if this doesn’t suit your needs, check out this blog post where I bought, tested, and compared this Ozark Trail Tent against 5 other 10-person tents.

Or, check out the Ozark Trail 10-Person Cabin Tent: