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Tent Camping Tip: Keeping Your Tent Dry and Clean

Many tents have a "footprint", a "tub floor" and a "rain fly", which are available from the manfacturer. A footprint is a piece of heavier gauge coated nylon that goes under the tent to keep it clean and protect the tent bottom. Footprints should be the same size, or slightly smaller than, the bottom of the tent - not larger. If a footprint is larger than the base of the tent, rain water will flow down the tent and onto the footprint and seep under the tent. A propperly sized footprint allows rain water to hit the ground around the tent and footprint.

REI Camp Dome 2 Person Tent Without Rain Fly
REI Camp Dome 2 Person Tent
With Rain Fly

REI Camp Dome 2 Footprint

If your tent does not come with a footprint, I recommend creating one out of heavy gauge plastic.

A rain fly fits over the tent to provide protection from the rain while still allowing for proper ventilation. A rain fly should come about half way down the sides of the tent, and have cords attached to the corners. These cords are used to attach the rain fly to the tent, by hooking into the tent stakes, or into tabs sewn into the seam of the tent. The heavy-weight tents have rain flys with guy lines for staking beyons the actual tent.

Many of the modern tents have a tub floor, which is basically a heavy guage waterfroof material that lines the floor of the tent and comes up the wall a few inches. It is affixed to the tent walls and serves to keep seams away from the wet ground.

You may be able to set up a rain/sun shelter with just the footprint and fly, leaving the tent body out. Other features to look for are vestibules, annexes and gearlofts. Tent vestibules are areas outside the tent body covered by the rainfly. This is a handy area to store gear, wet items, muddy boots and small amounts of firewood to keep it dry. Annexes are add on tarp like attachments that come off the tents rainfly for added sheltered area. Gearlofts are mesh attachments that clip in the inside of the ceiling of the tent to hold small items out of the way or to hang damp items to dry.