Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent

May 4, 2023

Crafted specifically with young explorers in mind, the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent is a child-friendly shelter for 3-season car camping adventures. This tent comes with all the standard features you’d find in an adult tent, but it’s sized for younger campers. It uses Coleman’s WeatherTec system for waterproofing and has a spacious interior for maximum comfort.

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Comfort and Space

A girl and a woman play with the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent

As a dedicated children’s tent, the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake is designed to keep your young campers cozy at night in the woods. Here’s a quick look at how this shelter compares when it comes to comfort and livability.

Floor Space

The Kids Wonder Lake is approximately 7’ (213 cm) long and 4’ (122 cm) wide. Even though this is a kid’s camping tent, these dimensions are quite spacious.

In fact, this shelter is long enough to accommodate a quickly growing teenager. But the relatively narrow width of the Kids Wonder Lake might feel a bit small for two older children. So the floor plan of this tent is better suited for 2 younger kids or for 1 older teen.

Head/Shoulder Room

When designing this dome-style shelter, Coleman built it with a 3’ (91 cm) center height. For the vast majority of children, this center height will be more than sufficient for sitting upright and relaxing in their tent at night.

Interior of the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent

However, only the youngest children will be able to stand up in this tent. While most kids are just fine with crawling around on the floor of a tent, this limited center height is something to consider if you’re looking to get a shelter for an older teenager.

Rooms/Vestibules

This tent features a single room design with no option for a removable room divider. So it’s better for young campers that are okay with sharing their personal space.

The Kids Wonder Lake also doesn’t have any vestibules or screen porches. As a result, it offers limited external gear storage or living space for your young camper. It does come with a set of internal storage pockets, though, so there are options for keeping gear organized during your child’s adventures.

Storage pockets of the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent

Breathability and Ventilation

As far as breathability goes, the Kids Wonder Lake offers mixed results. When pitched without its rainfly, this tent has a large overhead mesh canopy that provides a lot of ventilation. But if you need to keep the rainfly on your tent to protect you from foul weather, this mesh canopy doesn’t provide much by way of breathability.

To combat this issue, Coleman crafted this shelter with a zippered mesh window on the door. Since the door is slightly protected by a built-in awning, this mesh window is functional in light rain. However, it still won’t provide the same level of ventilation that you might find in a tent with integrated floor vents.

Weather Resistance

Although the Kids Wonder Lake is a youth camping tent, Coleman didn’t skimp on this shelter’s weather resistance.

It features the same WeatherTec system found in all of the company’s most popular tents. This means that it has welded floors and inverted seams that help stop water from seeping into the shelter’s sleeping area at night.

Do note that, although this tent does come with a rainfly that features a small awning, it’s not designed for use in heavy rain. That’s because the rainfly on the Kids Wonder Lake doesn’t provide full coverage over the tent. So while this shelter is fairly water-resistant, it’s not engineered for use in a deluge.

Rainfly of the Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent

Despite some of its shortcomings in heavy rain, the Kids Wonder Lake is naturally fairly wind-resistant. Since this is a dome-style tent with a relatively low center height, it’s inherently designed to hold up well in moderate winds. Again, this shelter isn’t made for use in a gale, but it’s suitable for brief periods of inclement weather at the campground.

Durability

When designing this tent, Coleman used a relatively thick 68D Polyguard polyester taffeta fabric. This fabric is somewhat standard in budget-friendly tents because it offers a good mix of cost savings and durability.

Keep in mind that polyester taffeta isn’t as tear-resistant as the ripstop nylon you might find in some premium tents, but it’s okay durability-wise for occasional car camping trips.

However, the poles on this shelter are made from fiberglass, not aluminum. As a general rule, aluminum is preferred for use in tent poles because it offers more durability over the long term. Fiberglass is also a great material, especially when cost is a concern, but it’s not going to hold up as well over the years.

With all that in mind, the Kids Wonder Lake is still a solid tent for family car camping adventures every once in a while. But you may want to look elsewhere if you need a shelter that your kids can use on an extended backcountry trip.

Ease of Use

The Coleman Kids Wonder Lake 2-Person Tent features the company’s conventional pitch system. This system uses a set of 2 snag-free continuous pole sleeves that makes it relatively easy to set up your shelter in about 5 to 10 minutes. However, this tent does not have color-coded or hub-style poles, so it can take some practice to learn how to set it up efficiently.

For quick packing, Coleman also includes an expandable carry bag with this tent. Since it can be challenging to re-pack a tent into its carry case, this expandable stuff sack makes packing up camp easier for young adventurers.

Packed Size and Weight

Although the Kids Wonder Lake is designed for just 2 young children, this shelter is just as heavy as an adult-sized 2 person tent. Tipping the scales at 6 lbs (2.7 kg), this tent is slightly heavier than the Coleman 2-Person Popup Tent, which is sized for 2 adults.

ALSO SEE: Coleman Tents: Full Model Lineup and Reviews

When it comes to packability, the Kids Wonder Lake folds down into a stuff sack that measures about 22” x 5” x 5” (59 x 13 x 13 cm). As far as tents go, this is a pretty small packed size, which is to be expected given that this is a child-sized tent.

All of this means that, even though this tent is a bit heavy for a child-sized shelter, it’s surprisingly compact when folded up into its included carry case.