If you are doing research before joining the more than 80,000 customers that have rented our camping and travel gear, or have already received your camping gear rental package from us, here's where you can learn a bit more about the setup and usage of a specific camping or travel gear item before you head out on your big adventure.

The information below provides more details on how to set up the car camping tent, but we encourage you to give us a call or find more resources online if more details are needed. For more information on this rental item including rates, check out the main product page at Rent Tent - 4-Person Family Tent for Car Camping. There are more how-to pages on nearly all of our most popular rental items; find most at our video and user guide to rentals main page .

The car-camping tents you can rent from us are easy to setup.  Inside the tent stuff sack will be the tent body, the waterproof fly cover, tent stakes and 3 sets of poles - 2 longs ones as shown for the body, and the third shorter pole set for the fly cover.  One person can setup the tent, but it is easier with 2 people to help hold it steady at the beginning.  The majority of our car-camping rental tents, from 2-person to 6-person, are from the same brand and setup similarly to the process we describe below.

rent family car-camping tent


A good first step is to lay the tent body out and then create an "X" with the 2 long poles.  They are the same length.

rental of car-camping tents for wilderness adventures


Attach the tent body to the 2 tent poles one at a time.  The tent body is attached to the poles in 2 ways - first, insert the pin at the corner into the bottom of the pole, and then connect the plastic snaps on the length of the pole.

renting family-style tents     rental of family car-camping tents


Your body setup should look something like this.  Colors might be different, but the structure is the same.

we rent tents for camping      find family car-camping tents near me


If needed for weather protection, add the fly cover.  First drape the fly over the tent.  To position it correctly before attaching, drape it so the logos on the fly are on the window sides, not the door sided.  Attach the corners of the fly to the body by using the buckle (some models may snap on rather than buckle).  

how to setup rented camping tent


Finally, run the 3rd, short pole under the fly between the doors.  Above each door you will see a sewn-in pocket to hold each end of the pole.  The second one will be harder to fit; there is quite a bit of tension by design.  This fly pole extends the fly over the door to crate a bit of a porch for better rain protection when getting in and out of the tent.  

rented family tent set up      installing the waterproof fly on rented tent


The finished setup looks like this - just spread out the poles to eliminate slack and use the stakes on each corner to keep it taut.   Throw in the rest of your rented camping gear and close up the doors to keep the critters out.  And we trust your camp site is better than our parking lot!

rented tent shown with fly cover      double doors in family rental tent


This setup video for our rental car-camping tent shows most of the above, but in even more detail.