Solo Forrest Tent – 210D Oxford Cloth, 7001 Poles, 2.1kg - Swag Tent

The tent seems to be fundamentally OK, with decent materials and quite good design. It has excellent ventilation via double doors. Fit, finish and zips could be better but they work so far (I haven't tested its waterproofing yet). I bought it because it is one of the very few tents on the market which will pair perfectly with a Helinox Cot One. For the footprint, it has a surprisingly large interior and, most importantly, good headroom.

However...there are NO instructions supplied, and setup is not at all intuitive. There are a couple of TikTok videos (google DeftHike) that claim to be assembly instructions but are nothing of the sort - just more marketing, which this company is good at.

The lack of instructions is particularly troubling because the poles are under a LOT of tension, and you want to be really sure you are doing it right and not about to break something. Despite my being very careful when packing down the tent, I pulled a ferrule out of the pole, mainly because of the level of tension on the poles and the somewhat rough socket design.

Apart from these issues, the setup went well. some brighter colours on the top pole connectors wouldn't go astray.

You should be able to expect a lot better fit and finish for $229 - for example Zempire make similar excellent tents at that price point, though not cot-sized.

Instructions - these could be completely wrong, complain to SnapTrek, not me:

My best guess at the setup process:

1. Unpack tent - should be a poles package, a top cover/tent pegs bundle, and the main tent which is all in one piece.
2. Lay out the tent roughly, ideally on a dry surface out of the wind. If the cot is there first, the more you can pull the tent floor out, even temporarily, the better. Bungee might help.
3. Start assembling the poles - might be easier bit by bit so you don’t have any really long projections getting tangled in things.
Using the long pole setup, assemble the first wishbone and put the ferrules through the eyes at the end of the tent. Then either work your way along the ridge line to the other end, or do the other wishbone first and work back towards the middle, until the poles are freestanding with their ends in the tent ends.
4. In the same way, clip the tent to the poles from each end, towards the middle.
5. Assemble one of the two smaller pre-curved pole assemblies and, placing it OVER the ridge pole, push it through the small black connectors on either side of the ridge pole. This is VERY tight. It helps to turn the curve of the pole outward, so you are flexing it outwards along the ridge pole.
Then do the same for the other pole at the other end.
6. Take the top cover, unfold it and place it on top of the tent, then push the precurved poles through the brass eyelets on both sides. Again, this is VERY tight - be careful when taking the tent down not to pull the ferrules out of the poles, it’s very easy to do.
7. Lastly, attach the plastic hook at each end of the top cover, just below the y-junction. Again, VERY hard to do - it’s best to attach them both on the same side of the Y-junction. This is the step I’m least sure of.
8. If not done already, use the straps under the tent to connect it under the bottom of the cot.

I like the design of both but the quality of material tent is made out of us yet to be proven & the means of fitting tent to stretcher could of been greatly improved with the fitting of 4 dedicated webbing/eyelets fitted to underside of each corner of stretcher
Cheers

Very easy to carry and pop open. I’m not an experienced camper, so I appreciated how intuitive it was. It's not super spacious, but enough for one person and a backpack. Would recommend for solo hikers or spontaneous road trips.