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The Best Backpacking Tents for Getting Away From It All

The Best Backpacking Tents for Getting Away From It All

WIRED07-06-2025
WIRED TIRED Built like a tank, yet light Nothing Excellent performance in adverse conditions Full-length rainfly Good ventilation for a four-season tent Simple and fast to pitch The Hilleberg Akto (10/10, WIRED Recommends) is my favorite tent—in 10 years of testing products, it's the only thing I've ever given a 10/10 rating. Made of Hilleberg's Kerlon 1200 fabric (a silnylon) it has stood up to rain, snow, high winds, and everything else I've encountered. It's a weather-proof fortress. It's not the roomiest one-person tent, especially the peak height, which is low, but that low wind profile is part of what makes it so storm-worthy. The Akto has a peak height of 36 inches. I am 5'11', and sitting on a Nemo Tensor Trail air mattress (about 3 inches thick), I am just able to sit up in the Akto without pressing my head into the roof. The Akto's single-hoop design is different than most tents you've probably used. It's not freestanding. The design consists of a single curved pole in the middle of the tent. The ends are then pulled out from that center and staked down, creating a very strong structure, with six points pulling off a single central pole. The Akto pitches as a single unit, tent and rainfly attached (you can separate them, though, if you want). The rainfly is the main structural element of the tent. The pole passes through the rainfly and the guylines all attach to it as well. The inner tent hangs from the rainfly by clips and gets all it's structure and support from the rainfly. The floor plan is a slightly five-sided rectangle. The back wall points out a few inches in the middle where the pole is, which gives you a bit of extra space along that side to stash some gear. Lengthwise, I had plenty of room, and neither my pillow nor the foot of my sleeping bag touched the tent walls. The vestibule is roomy too, and it can be unzipped from top or bottom to help with ventilation. I have had no more issues with condensation than in any other tent, thanks to the multiple ways to ventilate the Akto. As much as I love this tent, especially for where I live in northern Wisconsin, it might be overkill for some. Hilleberg also make the Enan, which is very similar, but lighter, and worth considering if you don't need the four-season robustness of the Akto. Specs Use 4-season Weight 3 lbs. 10 oz. Capacity 1-person Peak Height 36 in. Interior Space 18.3 sq. feet Vestibule Space 8.6 sq. feet
WIRED TIRED Short poles for bikepacking Thin, somewhat delicate Lightweight and freestanding You want the footprint ($80) Large twin doors Good interior space for the weight
The Big Agnes Copper Spur bikepacking tent is very nearly a clone of our top pick—lightweight, easy-setup, steep sidewalls, good living space for the weight—but the poles are shorter, making then easier to fit between drop handlebars, in panniers, or other spots on your bike. You get the same twin vestibules and doors, but there are a few other bike-friendly features, like helmet storage, and external webbing for hanging out wet clothes. And yes the awnings do still need poles, which is sort of nonsensical for a bike-specific tent, but that's about my only complaint here.
As with the regular Copper Spur, I would size up for longer journeys. For example, the two-person is fine for shorter trips without a ton a gear, but if you're doing the Baja Divide I'd go with the three-person model for two, the two-person model for solo trips. Specs Use 3-season Weight 5 lbs 14 oz (2-person) Capacity 2-, 3-person Peak Height 40 in. Interior Space 31.8 sq. feet Vestibule Space 9.17 sq. feet (2)
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Povilas Kondratavicius, a 25-year-old Vilnius native who worked as a sales manager at a military industry company, first saw Speed on TikTok three years ago and has watched him ever since, admiring his high-energy social interactions and feats of athletic talent. While watching Speed's China videos, he remembered thinking that the country he'd been taught was 'underdeveloped and authoritarian' actually seemed pretty advanced and culturally rich. So when Speed announced on stream that he'd be heading to Lithuania, Kondratavicius emailed the national tourism development agency and encouraged them to 'follow China's example' by taking the visit seriously. He said he felt it was his duty 'as a patriot' to ensure Lithuania looked great online. 'We're a really small country, we're in Eastern Europe, so we immediately have a bad reputation,' he said in an interview. 'And for my generation, and Gen Alpha, he's one of the most famous people there is.' After they got Kondratavicius's email, agency officials met with the tourism boards in Vilnius — as well as in Estonia and Latvia, the other Baltic countries on Speed's European tour — to pull together an emergency plan, Lesauskaitė-Hu said. Speed had promoted the tour with an online poster showing him on a throne near the Eiffel Tower, but officials didn't learn his exact visit date until it was only a week away, thanks to a tip from the manager of a popular Latvian TikTok star. Members of Speed's team did not respond to requests for comment. But on stream, Speed has said his security detail works to keep his plans secret until the last minute, in hopes of heading off public mayhem. Speed's plan, the officials learned, was to visit all three Baltic capitals in a single day, spending a few hours in each before racing to the next in a charter jet. So when he began the day in Estonia, Lithuanian officials watched his stream closely, expecting he'd get a meager reception; the fellow Baltic country's culture, Lesauskaitė-Hu said, is 'very Scandinavian … very reserved.' Instead, Speed was mobbed at every turn — so much so that a waterfront dock swarmed by onlookers collapsed. (Speed raced over dramatically on a water scooter, though no one appeared to be hurt.) When Speed landed in Vilnius later that afternoon, crowds had already amassed in the rain outside the airport and in the city center, half an hour's drive away. His videographer — a minor celebrity in his own right, known as Slipz — trailed Speed closely as he exited the jet, wearing only bulky slip-ons and shorts covered in the McDonald's logo. 'Lithuania, we are here,' he shouted, mispronouncing its name. Speed shook hands with Lukas Savickas, the country's sharply dressed minister of economy and innovation, and was given a tie-dye shirt like one the Grateful Dead gave to the country's bronze-medal-winning Olympic basketball squad in 1992, a source of national pride. Then he continued his whirlwind tour, first with the folk dancers, then some basketball, a medieval sword battle with members of the military, a meeting with a Lithuanian illusionist and a flight in a hot-air balloon. 'Yo, look at the whole of Lithuania, though,' he said from the top of the Vilnius TV Tower. 'This looks so beautiful, bro.' Speed's sprint through the Baltics drew frustration from some locals, including in Latvia, where he did a backflip at the Freedom Monument honoring soldiers killed in the country's 1918 war for independence and sung to fans from the balcony of the nation's ailing public radio station. One journalist there wrote that the moment — in which 'an unregulated content creator [was] peacocking at the home of Latvian broadcasting' — offered a foreboding symbol of how modern media had changed. The biggest debates, however, centered on the cost. Lithuania had offered 20,000 euros (about $23,500) to Speed's team, and the other Baltic countries extended similar packages, sparking debates in the local press over whether the streamer and his entourage truly warranted public funds. A columnist for the Lithuanian newspaper, Kauno Diena, wrote that the money could have helped stimulate the economy but was instead spent on an event whose main audience was minors — 'economically inactive people with unformed views and sporadic needs.' Others argued the cost was worth it, compared with the price of a travel-agency billboard or TV ad. Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas wrote on Facebook that it was a bargain for that kind of global name recognition, particularly among a young generation for whom 'there's simply no other way to catch their attention.' 'Now parents have seen what drives their kids crazy,' he wrote, in Lithuanian, 'and maybe even had something to talk about with them over dinner last night.' Beyond branding, some in the Baltics argued the money was an investment in national security, given their borders with Russia and Belarus. Gediminas Užkuraitis, the co-founder of a consulting firm in Vilnius, told Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT that raising national awareness was critical given the country's 'image as a front-line state' to the war in Ukraine. 'If, for example, the American public had to decide whether Lithuania is worth defending, it helps if they've actually heard of us,' he said. After about 12 hours of streaming, Speed ended his Lithuania trip at Hotel Pacai, a converted mansion from the 17th century, bidding the country a live-streamed goodbye as young people ran alongside his car. He continued his European tour the next day with a visit to Poland, then Slovakia and France. By then, Vilnius's social media team had already posted their own video recap of the trip to Instagram. 'IShowSpeed caused minor chaos in Vilnius,' the post said. '10/10 worth it.'

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