There’s plenty to love about the NEMO Wagontop 6. Its high walls, sturdy materials, and integrated rainfly are incredibly appealing; it’s also quite stylish and is sure to turn a few heads. However, its $649.95 price tag is a very large investment, and the tent is far from flawless due to the complicated pole system and somewhat strange placement of the room divider. Those who find NEMO’s design choices particularly appealing will not regret adding this to their camping arsenal, however we felt that there are more versatile options available at even lower prices.

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NEMO is a trusted name in the backpacking community, delivering high-end hiking gear at prices of similar magnitude. Case in point: the NEMO Wagontop 6, which has a price tag of $649.95, making it the most expensive tent on this year’s list. The extremely impressive build quality and roomy interior go a long way in justifying this steep price tag, but certain design choices kept this from being a fan favorite amongst our team.

Comfort

Length and width of the Wagontop 6 are 11’8″x8’4″, for a total square footage of 97.3, making it the second-largest floor space of the 11 tents in our review, just behind the 100sqft Coleman Sundome 6. However, the Sundome can’t compete when it comes to vertical space. Not only does the Sundome have much more slanted walls than the NEMO’s nearly vertical cabin-style design, but its rather decent 6’ of headroom is completely dwarfed by the 6’8” peak height of the NEMO. The Wagontop boasts the most spacious interior of any of the tents in our review by a wide margin.

All four sides of the Wagontop have their own window. The front window is especially massive, but so are the panoramic side and back windows, which offer excellent ventilation. The flaps for these windows are opened and secured below the windows using clips at the top of the tent, which is a creative design feature but also not incredibly thought-out. Younger campers and those on the shorter side may have trouble reaching these clips since the tent is just so darn tall. The flaps for these windows are opened and secured using clips at the top of the tent. While it is a creative design feature, younger campers and those on the shorter side may struggle to reach the clips as the tent is just so darn tall. The large entryway at the front makes ingress and egress relatively easy, and while the 26.9sqft vestibule isn’t especially massive, its full rainfly makes it an ideal mudroom.

There’s one particular comfort feature on this tent that gave us mixed feelings. The Wagontop 6 has a deployable room divider that runs parallel to the front door and is deployed from the ceiling by releasing it from its clips and unrolling it. While we like this inclusion in theory, we were less than pleased by the location of this divider. Rather than splitting the tent into two equal sections, it creates one larger room in the back and a significantly smaller room in the front that’s just slightly larger than the tent’s vestibule. It’s barely large enough to fit a mattress and certainly makes entrances and exits a bit more complicated for those inhabiting the back room. Given the massive front door on this tent, we felt it would have made much more sense for this divider to run perpendicular to the front door through the center of the tent so that the interior space would be split up into two equal-sized rooms with their own respective entryways. NEMO could have also kept the divider in its current orientation but added a back door, much like what REI has done with the Kingdom 6.

You’ll find six small storage pockets inside the Wagontop that we felt could have been slightly better distributed. Three run along the bottom of the back wall, and three run along the front. If we had our druthers, we’d have moved the center pockets on either of these walls to the middle of the side walls.

Ease of Setup

You know what they say: the bigger they are, the harder they are to put together. Such is the case with the Wagontop 6, which should take around 15 minutes to erect even after a few practice runs and at least two sets of hands. The pole structure of this tent is unlike any other in our review, so even veteran tent-pitchers may be scratching their heads at first. The frame for the main body and vestibule is supported by two rather lengthy poles that form large U shapes that crisscross on the side walls. These poles have dual hubs located near the top corners of the back wall and vestibule entryway. Then, they connect to four shorter poles to the grommets in the corner. These poles are connected to the canopy using hooks, while another pole loops over the entryway of the tent using grommets at the base, hooks on the bottom half, and a sleeve running across the top. Along with all the complicated connections (which aren’t color-coded, by the way), there’s also one other issue: the Wagontop is incredibly tall, and connecting some of the loops near the top of the structure will most likely have you on your tip-toes.

Once you’ve gotten a handle on this procedure, it becomes far less complicated. And there are, in fact, a few notes in the positive column for the setup of the Wagontop 6. For one, it’s a freestanding tent with several grommets that are much more secure than the pin-and-ring systems used on several of the other tents featured in this year’s review. The Wagontop also has an integrated rainfly that only needs to be unrolled from the entryway and then staked out at the corners. Finally, it is much quicker to tear down this tent than it is to pitch it. The 20.1lb tent packs away into a duffel measuring 27”x12”, which unfortunately felt a bit cheap given this tent’s high price point.

Weatherproofing

As we just mentioned, the Wagontop 6 has an integrated rainfly made of 75D PeU polyester that offers full protection from rain, both for the inhabitants of the tent and any gear stashed in the vestibule. If the forecast calls for high wind, you’ll absolutely want to stake out guylines because its nearly vertical 6’8” walls can quickly transform this tent into a very expensive sail. The Wagontop is three-season rated and makes for a versatile choice both in the summer and fall.

Durability

One of the features of this tent that impressed us most was its build quality. The sidewalls are 75D PU-coated polyester, while the floor fabric is an exceedingly rugged 300D PU-coated polyester. All of the poles are 14.5mm aluminum. While some tents will often go the extra mile when it comes to the durability of one of these elements, it’s not often that you see this approach to all of them. However, we really would have liked to have seen a footprint included in the price of this luxury tent, and if you’re planning to keep this tent in tip-top shape, you’ll need to shell out another $69.95 for the Wagontop 6 footprint.

Other Features

From the room divider to the panoramic windows to the reasonably roomy and well-protected vestibule with easily deployable rainfly, the Wagontop 6 is packed with party pieces that are sure to impress your fellow campers, and its durable construction makes it extremely family-friendly. Although the room divider seemed slightly less ideal for families that might need more than one bedroom, for a camping couple, this could serve as a makeshift changing area or bathroom should you opt to bring along a camping toilet. If money is no object, this high-tech tent could easily make the top of your holiday wish list, but for many of us, these somewhat novelty inclusions may not justify the associated price tag.

The Bottom Line

There’s plenty to love about the NEMO Wagontop 6. Its high walls, sturdy materials, and integrated rainfly are incredibly appealing; it’s also quite stylish and is sure to turn a few heads. However, it’s a very large investment and far from flawless due to the complicated pole system and somewhat strange placement of the room divider. Those who find NEMO’s design choices particularly appealing will not regret adding this to their camping arsenal. However, we felt that there are more versatile options available at even lower prices.

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