Coleman Evanston Screened 8 Person Tent Review

by Ben ·

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Choosing the right tent for your outing can be one of the most important choices you make. It can be the difference between a memorable outdoor experience and one that is more infamous than anything else. Doing your homework on size, reliability, and features can make your camping trip that much more enjoyable.

The Coleman Evanston Screened 8 Person Tent is a great tent for a number of reasons. It is not overly huge, at dimensions of 15 feet by 12 feet, with a 6 foot center height, but this gives it enough space for sleeping and for gear. The screened-in porch is very helpful

The Evanston Screened tent worked quite well for our family of four for a number of seasons (kids were ages birth up to age 8 when we used it). Calling it an eight-person tent is stretching it. To get eight people in the tent, at least two would need to sleep in the screened porch, and there would still not be much room for bags and gear. The main issue with using the screened porch for sleeping is that rain will still make the porch wet. The rainfly covers the porch, but the screens are at such an angle that rain will still dampen the porch.

However, for just the four of us, the space was sufficient. We were able to leave boots and wet items on the screened in porch and had plenty of room inside for cots, sleeping pads, and all our gear.

Reliability

The Evanston Screened 8 was very reliable for us. We never had issues with it getting set up or any water problems in the six years or so that we used it. Once we set the tent up the first couple of times, it ended up taking us about 20 minutes to pitch it and get it staked down.

Size

The 15 foot by 12 foot size of the Coleman Evanston Screened 8 was sufficient for our family of four. During our tenure with the tent, we typically had two cots along with two sleeping pads for the kids. In addition, we had plenty of room for our bags and gear. Calling the tent an eight person tent, though, is not feasible for most people. As mentioned, probably at least two people would need to sleep on the screened porch, and that would probably not be a great idea. But, for a family of four, the size of the tent was very workable.

Porch

The screened porch is a huge asset to the Coleman Evanston. It is a great area to set up camp chairs or to just use for shoes. Be aware that the porch will get wet if it rains. It does drain well, but if there is any chance of rain overnight, your best bet would be to keep anything off the porch that you would not want wet.