This is motivated by a couple of comments from a reader who was interested in finding a zipperless tent. So, as of this moment, I do not know any tent of that type on the market, but there are some types of tents that are close to this, keep reading.
The text is here because of two questions I received recently, one in this post and the other here.
As far as I know, there was an example earlier of a zipperless tent, the Big Agnes Fishhook UL2 Tent which was described as revolutionary when it appeared on the market in 2013 or so. But i) this was a small tent and not a family camping tent, and more importantly ii) they seem to have abandoned the idea of building such tents. It was around for a few years but I do not think you will find it anywhere.
The only zipperless tent type that comes to mind is the traditional teepee. I stress the word traditional because those modern teepees that you can find on Amazon or elsewhere, are with zippers of course.
The closest options that may work at least partly as zipperless tents are the following:
- The tents with hinged doors. If you are not familiar with this term you can read more in my separate text.
- The tents with magnetic doors.
Hinged door tents: The reason for mentioning such tents in this content is that you have an almost rigid door, which is indeed equipped with zippers but you do not have to use them all the time. You have Velcro tabs around the perimeter, which will keep the door closed, and even without them the door will close by its own weight and gravity as long as the wall and the door are not completely vertical.
So this is one option to avoid using zippers all the time. Zippers can get damaged and they will not work after that, this was the reason for the mentioned comments which I have received. Here is one typical example, the Coleman Evanston 8 Tent.
So as you see from the picture, the door is at an angle and it will stay in place without the zipper, and you will be safe from insects most of the time. Many similar options is in my list with hinged door tents so please follow the link for more.
Tents with magnetic doors: This design is quite frequent in screen houses, and such items have been on the market for several years. In this case you have no zippers at all. One example of a screen house with such a design is this Wenzel Durango Magnetic Screenhouse.
But as of the moment of writing this text, the only real tents with such magnets are those from Columbia Modified Tents series. You can see this in Columbia Modified 6 Person Dome Tent (shown below) and also in Columbia Modified 8 Person Dome Tent.
These tents have both zippers and magnets, so during the day you can rely on magnets only, and during the night or when it is raining use its zippers.
Thank you for reading. Do let me know if you have recently seen an example of a true zipperless tent and I shall add such a piece of information here in the text, it may be useful for some people. There is a comment box below.
The German Scouts use several zipper less tents that would be big enough to be used by a family. One would be the “Kohte”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohte
Thank you Manuel. I know about them, there are also some other options on the market with that level of protection. They are without an inner tent so you are not safe from flying and crawling insects, and snakes.
I have spent roughly 500 nights in tents — most of them in those mentioned above. I dont remember that I had issues with mosquitos just once. Also they are derived from shelters used by the Sami people in north Scandinavia for hundreds if not thousands of years. I am sure that you are aware that these lands are plagued with those bloodsuckers. I would not be surprised if the shelters are designed to be unappealing for mosquitos. and if not, one just can light a small fire in them as wood fire smell is the best repellent.
That said: these tents are so big, you can easily just use mosquito nets within them. This is how I used them in the jungles of Bolivia. No spider, no snake ever made it into them.
if one needs more protection than the, my suggestion would be: stay in hotels.
Hi Manuel, I have spent thousands of nights in my room, and I have had mosquitoes inside whenever they were able to get in. One is completely enough to have a sleepless night. If you do not remember any issue with them, then you sleep deep and this is good for you.
Mosquitoes do not care how shelters are built, they care about blood, and they have tens of receptors on their body to find you in the dark. Sami people were using what they had at hand, no more no less. This does not mean they did not suffer from insects.
Also, I have had night climbing to peaks close to 4000 meters and in the light of my headtorch I could see spiders moving around even at such elevations. I have also had a bad case of Lyme disease, yes this happens in an unprotected tent. So let’s be serious.
As for putting a net inside, this would probably mean a zippered net and then we would not have a zipper-less tent.
Regarding wood fire as a repellent, I would not count on this. Who is going to take care about the fire when you sleep? Besides, this will not save you in any case. On the other hand i) you do not have wood everywhere to make a fire, and ii) you are not allowed to use fire everywhere.
The fishhook was an awesome tent. Yes was a backpacking but i loved the design and that was the purpose I used it for. Unfortunately it’s material and weight is outdated by today’s standards. But I still have it and use it. Without a zipper the stress on the material makes it last. Because I can’t find a replacement for the zipperless is the reason I still use to rhis day on certain trips.
Thank you Guy, it is indeed great to hear from an owner of that zipper-less tent. I wonder why they abandoned the idea.
to sell more tents, of course!
because you have to throw it away when the zipper stops working