Why I Use a Hot Tent for Winter Camping in Ontario (And Why You Should Consider One Too)

The Pomoly StoveHut 70D is a four-season hot tent.

You know a hot tent is working when it is minus 20 Celsius outside and you are taking your long johns off because it is plus 30 inside. The first time I felt that happen was when I fully understood what hot tent camping actually is. It is not roughing it through the cold. It is creating a genuinely warm environment in the middle of conditions most people would never consider camping in.

Hot tents allowed me to keep doing my favourite thing through the months when most people pack their gear away. If you are considering one, here is what I actually think after using several of them across Ontario winters.

A 12 inch long woodstove is ideal for use in this tent

What a hot tent actually is

A hot tent is a shelter designed with a stove jack built into the fabric. The stove jack is a reinforced opening, usually with a heat-resistant collar, that lets you run a chimney pipe from a wood stove inside the tent safely through the wall or roof. Without a stove jack you cannot safely run a wood stove inside a tent. With one, you can heat your shelter to whatever temperature you want as long as you have wood.

That is the whole concept. Everything else, the shape, the material, the size, the floor, the inner tent, flows from that one design decision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsNYCkVNHIg

What it feels like inside

The temperature is what makes it for me. Wood stove heat is dry heat and it sticks to you differently than other sources of warmth. After sitting near a wood stove for a while and stepping outside into minus 20 air, the heat lingers in your clothing for a surprisingly long time. It is as if your jacket absorbed it thoroughly before you went out.

Inside the tent, if you have a stove with glass windows, you can watch the fire burning while you sit in comfort. After a long day in the cold that sight will make you tired almost immediately. There is a particular kind of coziness that comes from being completely warm in the middle of a genuinely frigid environment. It is hard to explain until you have experienced it but it is the whole reason people get into hot tent camping.

There is another side to this coin though. Dry heat means dry skin. After a few days in a hot tent your skin will feel it. Itchy, tight, the kind of dry that lip balm and lotion do not fully fix. It is manageable but worth knowing. The other thing is smoke. If your stove is not drawing well the smoke will sometimes linger at the top of the tent before venting out. In fact, the dominant smell both during and after your trip will be wood smoke, which for most people reading this is not a negative. There might also be a slight tinge of bad sock smell as well, since feet don't like being cooped up in boots all day. But I digress. What I'm trying to lead to is that scratchy lungs are the result. Good ventilation and a properly set up stove eliminate most of this but it is a real consideration, even more so the longer you run the stove.

There are so many innovative styles of hot tents that can be found on the market

What most people do not realise before buying

These tents are large when packed. A hot tent with its poles, stove jack reinforcement, and thicker materials packs down to a size that will surprise you if you are used to three season backpacking tents. Plan on it taking up a meaningful portion of your vehicle's cargo space. This is vehicle camping gear, not trail gear in most cases.

Setup also takes longer to get used to. The sheer size of these tents means it takes a few minutes just to orient yourself before you know which way everything faces and how the poles connect. The first few setups feel slow. After a handful of trips it becomes routine.

The tent offers a spacious palace for solo adventurers

The most important thing to consider before buying

Size. Not the size of the packed tent, the size of the interior when it is standing.

If you are spending serious time in a hot tent, which is the whole point of winter camping, your body will notice the space limitations faster than you expect. A cramped hot tent on a one-night trip is fine. A cramped hot tent on a four-day trip in January is a different experience.

From my perspective: Well, I want to be able to stand up. Teepee-style hot tents are incredible but their tallest point is usually right in the middle and the walls taper sharply. You end up living in a relatively small zone where you can actually move comfortably. The Pomoly Circle 6 tent is almost a teepee style but uses a hoop to help expand the headroom in their tent.

Cabin-style tents (my new favourite style) give you more usable headspace across a larger area of the floor. I still find myself bending to get through the door on most of them, which is a minor annoyance, but once inside the usable space is meaningfully better.

Stove choice is a close second for consideration. Your stove needs to fit the tent. A wood stove that is too large will sit too close to the tent walls. Too small of a stove and you can't heat the structure effectively. Be sure to do your research before committing to a potentially expensive purchase.

The tent stakes are sturdy enough for more ground types

The hot tent I keep coming back to

I have used a number of hot tents across different styles and sizes. The one that has given me the best overall experience is the Pomoly Barracuda 2. It is a cabin-style tent with genuinely impressive headroom and interior space. I can move around properly, set up a cot, a table, a chair, and the stove, and still have room.

The plastic windows are something I did not expect to appreciate as much as I do. When the door is closed against the cold you can still see outside. Watching snow fall through a tent window while you are warm inside next to a wood stove is one of the better winter camping experiences I have had.

If you want to read my full review of the Barracuda 2 including how it held up through a late Ontario winter, that is on the site.

The Barracuda 2 has quickly become one of my favourite tents

Is a hot tent worth it?

For winter camping in Ontario, yes. Without question.

A quality sleeping bag and good layering can get you through cold nights in a regular tent. But there is a ceiling to that approach and the experience is fundamentally about managing discomfort rather than enjoying the environment. A hot tent removes that ceiling. You are not managing the cold anymore. You are warm, comfortable, and able to actually enjoy being outside in winter.

The pack size is real. The setup learning curve is real. The dry skin is real. None of those things have made me reconsider using one.

My content may contain affiliate links to products I mention. These are products I have tested and used personally.