The tent aisle is designed to sell you a fantasy: a vast canvas palace with three bedrooms and a porch, pitched on a manicured meadow in perfect sun. Most families use a tent a handful of nights a year, in mixed weather, and have to carry and pitch the thing themselves. Buy for that reality and you will be far happier.
Size is the first honest conversation. Tent capacities are optimistic — a stated four-person tent sleeps four people with no room for bags, boots or a stray child who migrates in the night. The reliable rule is to buy for two more than your group: a six-berth for a family of four gives everyone room to sleep and somewhere dry to keep kit.
Then look hard at the poles and the pitching. A tunnel tent with a few long poles pitches fast and packs down sensibly; a complex geodesic with a dozen sleeves looks impressive and becomes a two-adult argument in a rising wind. If you can, pitch it once in the shop or the garden before you commit — the trip is not the place to learn.
Weatherproofing is where the money quietly goes. A decent hydrostatic head rating on the flysheet, taped seams, and a sewn-in groundsheet keep water out through a genuinely wet night. A cheap tent will keep the sun off beautifully and let you down the first time it really rains, which is precisely when you need it most.
Finally, think about the after. A tent that dries easily, packs back into its bag without a wrestling match, and stores small is a tent you will actually keep using. The best family tent is not the biggest or the cleverest — it is the one that is still going strong on its fortieth night because using it never felt like a chore.