Review of the Lippert Picnic Popup Gazebo - a great shelter for RVers?
What is the best screen tent for RVers? Is there one that folds-up easily and small enough that it can fit in the pass-through compartment yet open large enough to cover things like a picnic table and provide shelter from bugs and insects? Today we’re looking at the Lippert Picnic Popup Gazebo to see how it fits those criteria.
A gadget like this will be familiar to many RVers and I’m sure a bunch of us have something like this. In fact, for some time I wanted a Clam screened tent which is the same basic idea. So why did I get the Lippert Picnic Popup Gazebo? Several reasons.
The weather is here…
The FROG rally was held in Indiana in August and that meant that the state was going to throw out a sampler platter of weather to see what we thought. Those weather gods brought beautiful, sunny days, torrential rains, wind and more. If you thought you brought the right clothing for the event you probably might want to bring yet one more thing.
From the moment the vendors were set-up at FROG Lippert had their booth at the ready and one of the things at the booth was one of these Gazebo tents.
I walked by it when it was pouring and sat in it when it was sunny and beautiful. No matter what ol’ Ma Nature had up here sleeve that tent withstood it.
So I bought one. Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been wanting one of these for a while so now I have one.
While I don’t see specifications for the material the tent is made of, it seems pretty durable and withstood some pretty harsh weather. There are fiberglass poles in each side that pop out to put the tent up. There are also fiberglass poles that you inside around the door opening to hold that up.
The door and walls are made up of a screen material so if you’re camping where the bugs want to party with you, they can bug off and stay outside. Another reason I like this and I am a mosquito magnet.
What’s included
With your $299 you get the tent (duh) and stakes. There is also a nifty carrying bag and I found that this fits into my pass-through storage on our Rockwood Mini Lite 2205s even with all the other junk, er, gadgets I have in there as well as our lithium and solar charging goodies.
Set up
This is easy to do. You open the bag, take out the tent which folds in half to get into the bag.
Open up the tent and pull on the side panel straps to pop them out.
The next step is to pick up the tent and put it where you want it to be. My wife and I have picked it up and put it over picnic tables easily. It’s pretty light at only 35.5 pounds.
Now you’ll want to stake it down and we do this with lag bolts and washers that we got at the local hardware store. As a lazy person, I use the electric drill to raise and lower my stabilizers so that’s how I get the lag bolts into and out of the ground. They’re cheap and work well - much more so than tent stakes in my opinion.
Plus, using that same electric drill, they’re really easy to pull out of the ground without hurting yourself and seem to hold better than tent stakes.
Now go inside the tent and install the fiberglass poles on either side of the zippered entry screen. Lastly, push up the middle and you’re done. It’s really fast and easy as long as you follow these instructions.
By the way - yes. I got it back into the storage bag the first time with no foul language.
I also got the side panels that cover the screened walls of this so we could use it as a proper tent as well, should we choose to. These have their own bag and just stick to the side of the gazebo with hook and loop (come on, we all know it’s Velcro) fasteners.
Overall a purchase I have used quite a bit since I got it and one that I’m pleased with.
