10 Best Eureka Tents in 2018

While there’s a bunch of excellent brands like Coleman and The North Face, there’s something significant about these guys. There’s two types of products: cheap, and ones that don’t suck. Eureka doesn’t hide behind crummy price tags to lure you in, they lay it all out there in the open. If you’re lucky enough to spend a night in a Eureka tent, you’re basically being pampered outdoors.

How We Chose Our Selection of The Best Eureka Tents

Quality - This is the end-all feature we look for. Everything from materials, construction, weight, specs, weatherproofing, capabilities and more all wrap up into the mark of quality.

Reviews - You can’t avoid user reviews (technically, this is one long user review with more structure, since we’ve tested these ourselves). If you’re like us, you scan through nearly one-hundred or more reviews per item you look to purchase, and weigh the pros and cons against each other. Fortunately for you, we’ve laid it all out in this buying guide.

Price - Price will always be a determining factor. If you don’t have to check your bank account and budget before you get started on this, then we envy you. Eureka tents aren’t exactly cheap; you’re in median to high-cost territory here.

Features to Look For in Eureka Tents

Size - Going it alone, on a romantic getaway, or bringing the mates along? Either way, users severely underestimate how much space they’re going to need, and always end up cramped in with their bags and campsite companions. Pay attention to the dimensions.

Height of the Peak - Do you want to stand up and bang your head off a pole? We didn’t think so. Touching on the first feature to look for, if you have sufficient space, that’s great, but don’t overlook the total height. Taller gents will already be frustrated with cheap tents they’ve purchased in the past, which is where Eureka’s larger size comes into play.

Weight - You have to think about every piece of camping cookware, hiking backpack pound and ounce of EDC items you have with you, and your tent is no exception. Rolled-up, you want your tent to be easy enough to carry down the trail, and toss back into the car.

Construction - Without proper materials, the construction won’t matter. If you’ve got a solid foundation, you should have solid poles and a sturdy build when you’re (properly) set up your pop up tent.

Material - You want fabrics and materials that are difficult to tear, and preferably ones that keep a waterproof tent finish for all instances you find yourself in. Good materials aren’t the only make-or-break attribute of a good quality Eureka tent, but it’s definitely part of the final score.

Design - This could come down to height, width, and just how the shape of the tent is. Depending on how it’s designed, you might see better water flow management (curved tents that repel rain in a stream), and other features that coincide with a quality design.

Ease of Assembly - Even if it says pop up tent on the box, you have to admit, you’ve tried or heard about some rather crummy tents. Ease of assembly isn’t everything, but nobody wants to start their camping or hiking trip out on a bad note.

Durability - Never just go for what’s going to ship to you the fastest: you want it to last for far beyond a handful of camping trips. Durability is all about how well it performs under weather conditions, to your wear and tear from using it, and being packed/unpacked so many times.

Waterproofing - Now, not all of these are going to come with built-in waterproofing, which is where you can use an all-purpose waterproofing spray. However, you should still look out for materials that naturally ward off rainfall and make it easier for you to get on with your camping trip.

Wind Protection - Windscreens, the design (so it doesn’t bend and collapse), and everything else you can think of that the wind can interfere with. A few gusts shouldn’t rock the boat and keep you awake through the night.

Features - Rainflies, zipper compartments and sunroofs oh my! Seriously, added features are great for these tents, especially two-way doors, and quick assembly capabilities. Take the added features into consideration, but don’t let it dictate your choice entirely.

Packability - How well it fits in the trunk of that little Hyundai (terribly sorry hikers slash Hyundai owners) or in the flatbed of the truck. It’s also how simple a time you have loading it back into the appropriate carrying case, since we all know that’s the final hour of packing up where we bring out every curse word in our playbook.

Eureka Tent FAQs

Q: Eureka: About the Brand

A: Eureka was sick and tired of the same old, same old. Everyone always seemed to be in a rush to grab whatever the cheapest tent was, but that never means that you get the right level of quality when you do that. Eureka’s built differently, focusing on the quality of your tent first, and worrying about the retail price at the end. Eureka also often includes their manufacturer warranties when selling through third-party sites, like Amazon.

Q: How to Clean Your Tent?

A: Eureka tents have a very quick cleaning and drying process. Just follow the steps below, and when it comes time to pack up the campsite, you’ll have a perfectly clean and dry tent to stow away.

1. Have the tent completely set up. It’s ideal to clean your tent on the morning that you’re packing everything up and heading home.
2. Make a mild soap solution. You can either bring single packets of laundry detergent, or use a bottle of Dawn if you also brought camping cookware with you.
3. Using a cloth, take your mild soap solution and wipe down the tent. Sounds straightforward, but there are the areas you want to put some spotlight on, as they’re often overlooked: inside the seam of your D-door zipper, along the spine of your external fiberglass poles (those get really dusty), underneath window canopies and/or inside the sewn seam that surrounds the mesh.
4. Give your tent a quick wipe down with a dry cotton cloth. This dries it, and gets any residual dust off of it that might’ve been rustled up from packing up the campsite.

As a word of the wise, don’t leave this in direct sunlight when it comes time to dry. Most tents, including Eureka tents, are very susceptible to UV damage from direct sunlight. It can wear down your shell material, but it can also severely bleach the color out of your tent as well.

Q: How to Prevent Tent Mildew and Mold?

A: If your tent has a bit of stink going on, it’s probably mold and mildew. Don’t be alarmed, it doesn’t mean you’ve been sleeping in an abhorrently disgusting environment, it just means it’s time to give it a wipe down. Mold and mildew can form in as little as twenty minutes after moisture is introduced to any specific area.

When you’re out in the wilderness, you’ve got rain, general humidity in forested areas and summer months, and it’s all a recipe for naturally occuring mold and mildew. Follow these tricks to prevent it, and you’ll be good to go.

Spray the Interior - If you use some waterproofing spray on the inside of your tent, you might affect the breathability of the material (especially if you’ve already done this to the exterior), but you’ll be preventing moisture from building on the inside. The most common spots for mildew and mold to accrue is in the corners where the seams and stitching meet.

Wash it After Every Trip - If you don’t wash and air dry your tent when your trip is over, it gets packaged up with bacterial growth already. Mold and mildew can occur in storage, and if you go a month between trips, that’s going to be a disgusting surprise to find when you open the tent next time.

Use This Mixture - It’s going to sound weird, but it’s super cheap to make. If you use these ingredients below and make a salt and lime mixture, it will prevent bacteria from growing and spreading, stopping mold and mildew in its tracks. Just think of how they used to use limes on ships to prevent scurvy and salt meat to cure it: same basic principles apply.

• ½ cup of lime juice
• ½ cup of salt
• ½ gallon of water

Craft it, use it when cleaning the inside (and outside) of your tent, and you’re protected. As a bonus, it actually smells fantastic, and the scent lingers for quite a while.

Q: Why Choose Eureka for Your Tent?

A: Eureka’s quality is unmistakable, but that’s not all there is to it. For one, they have impeccable customer service. When we put an entire guide devoted to one type of brand here at Gear Hungry, it’s after digging through every possible aspect of why they’re the best of the best. Eureka genuinely wants your experience with their products to mean something and be impactful in your camping experience, which is why they’ve built one of the best support teams we’ve ever dealt with.

While that’s all well and good, the actual products speak for themselves. Materials, stitching strength and even the quality build on the poles, all play a vital role in setting up and taking down your tent. How many times have you fumbled with a garbage quality tent, snapped a pole here and there, or just plain despised the way it felt when you were sleeping in it?

Last but not least, unlike many other chemically-treated tents, these are basically odor-free when you open the package. Some larger models might have about five minutes worth of that scent, though that will fade as they’re being constructed. It makes the outdoors feel a little bit more like the outdoors.