If you spend enough time camping in the backcountry, at some point, you’ll wake up with a tent full of condensation. The good news, however, is that it is possible to prevent condensation in your tent while backpacking.

Here are 5 steps to help you prevent condensation:

Choose your campsite wisely
Pitch your tent properly
Ensure adequate ventilation at all times
Keep wet gear outside your tent
Keep the rainfly off in good weather

Now, even though you may strictly follow all of these steps, sometimes certain environmental factors (like humidity) can cause moisture build-up inside your tent regardless of whatever you do. However, following these steps can give you the best chance to keep moisture in your tent to a minimum so you can enjoy your backpacking trip as much as possible. Let’s now take a closer look at each of these steps.

5 Ways To Prevent Condensation in Your Tent

1. Choose Your Campsite Wisely

It might seem a bit odd, but where you decide to camp for the night actually does affect how likely you are to experience in-tent condensation in the morning. Some places are just more conducive to condensation formation than others.

In particular, pitching your tent under a stand of trees or in a forest will generally result in less condensation than setting up shop in the middle of an open field. This is mostly because of the fact that condensation is most likely to form in chilly weather conditions during the night.

Warm air generally likes to collect in forests because the trees act as a sort of insulator from the sky above. Therefore, camping in a forested locale will mean warmer temperatures and a lower chance for condensation build-up during the night.

Conversely, camping in an open field or alpine area means that your campsite is subject to massive temperature fluctuations at night. These temperature fluctuations are bad news when it comes to condensation, so you can expect a wet tent come morning.

You should also avoid camping near streams, lakes, and ponds. They may seem like great places to stay the night, however, humidity levels will be much higher there, causing more condensation inside your tent.

For the best camping experience, check out my 8 tips for choosing the perfect backpacking campsite.

Camping near a stream will create condensation problems inside your tent

2. Pitch Your Tent Properly

It’s also essential that you pitch your tent properly if you want to avoid condensation at night. While a well-pitched tent certainly isn’t guaranteed to be condensation-free, it will definitely help.

Why?

Well, a well-pitched tent boasts a taut fly that offers plenty of space between the fly and the tent’s mesh body. Meanwhile, poorly-pitched tents often have rainflies that sag and rest directly on the mesh canopy. As a result, these poorly-pitched tents offer little by way of ventilation or airflow through your tent’s mesh canopy.

Furthermore, a sagging tent is more likely to collect water at night if it starts to rain. While rain and condensation are not the same thing, they both result in the same problem: wet gear. Therefore, a properly pitched tent can do wonders for you, both when it comes to preventing condensation and when it comes to staying dry in the rain.

3. Ensure Adequate Ventilation at All Times

Even with a proper pitch, the air inside your tent will always be more humid then the air outside, that’s why good airflow is essential if you want to avoid excessive condensation each morning. So, then, how can you increase airflow in your tent?

Well, every tent model is a little different, however, chances are that your shelter comes with some sort of built-in ventilation system. For most tents, this system involves roof vents built into the rainfly and low vents around the perimeter of the shelter. So, make sure all the vents are open to promote good airflow.

Sometimes the moisture in the air can be so great that these vents alone aren’t enough. If this is the case, you can always roll back the vestibule doors of your tent to encourage additional airflow. If it would start to rain, you can just simply reach out and zip up your tent door to stormproof your shelter.

So, we see here, that the key is to make ventilation a priority while you’re outside. Even if you’re expecting cold temperatures at night, keeping the air flowing through your shelter is important for staving off condensation. So, unless rain is in the forecast, prop open those vents and if possible roll back the vestibule doors to ensure adequate ventilation at all times.

increase airflow by opening up the vestiablue door and roof vent

4. Keep Wet Gear Outside Your Tent

Condensation generally requires 2 key ingredients: chilly temperatures and moisture.

We’ve already talked a bit about how you can keep cold temperatures at bay while in the mountains by selecting a forested campsite, but what about moisture?

Although there’s not too much you can do when it comes to moisture in the form of rain, there is a whole lot you can do to limit the amount of moisture you willingly carry into your tent at night. So, what do you do? The answer is to keep wet gear outside your tent at all times.

This includes any wet clothing, shoes, or any piece of gear that’s damp. It may seem convenient to keep all your gear with you at night, however, it’s not exactly going to help you avoid condensation build-up in the morning.

Leaving your wet gear outside will hopefully allow things to dry out before morning and the moisture coming off your gear will evaporate into the air around you instead of being trapped inside your tent at night, which would eventually turn into condensation.

If you’re unable to keep your wet gear outside because of the weather consider putting the gear inside a stuff sack to help reduce any potential condensation issues.

5. Remove Your Rain Fly

More often than not, backpackers tend to completely pitch their tent — rainfly and all — for every single night of their camping trip, even when the skies are as clear as can be.

However, unless it’s actively raining or unless it’s really, really windy outside, your tent’s rainfly isn’t doing much for you. In fact, the only thing your tent’s rainfly is doing in these situations is causing condensation at night.

Therefore, when clear skies are in the forecast, consider removing your tent’s rainfly. Although you should always be ready to set up your rainfly at a moment’s notice if it starts to rain, sleeping in your tent without the rainfly is a great way to limit condensation at night.

That’s because, no matter how breathable it is, your rainfly does a pretty darn good job of trapping in moisture and blocking airflow. So, nixing your rainfly can keep condensation at a minimum.

Keep the rain fly off in good weather to help prevent condensation

How to Deal With Tent Condensation if It Occurs

As mentioned earlier, you can do everything in your power to try to prevent condensation from happening inside your tent, however, sometimes certain environmental conditions cause moisture build-up no matter what. So then, what do you do?

Well, when you wake up to a tent full of condensation, your first move should be to empty out the inside of your tent. Then find a sunny spot and lay out the rainfly while keeping the tent body pitched in place. Doing so will give both the tent body and the rainfly a chance to dry during the morning.

If you’re like me and like to get on the trail as soon as possible in the morning, you can store the tent in the front exterior pocket of your backpack and when you stop for lunch you can just pull the tent out to dry.

By doing this, you’ll avoid being stuck with a wet tent later on in the day when you arrive at your next campsite. This will protect the rest of your gear from getting wet and keep you from getting wet and cold especially in the evening when the sun goes down and the temperature starts to drop.

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Backpacking Skills

How to Prevent Condensation Inside Your Tent