The Best Car-Camping Gear for Wheelchair Users of 2025

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When purchasing a tent, wheelchair users should carefully consider the tent’s entryway. On a camping trip, you might prefer to wheel your chair all the way through the tent’s door, or you might be fine with parking your wheelchair outside and transferring inside. Some people find that being half in and half out of a tent works best for transfers. Family tents, such as the The North Face Wawona 6 Tent — Wirecutter’s best family tent for car camping — typically have generously sized doors and interior space.

The large entry doors on glamping (glamorous camping) tents—like the CRUA Outdoors Crua Tri—allow you to move in and out with ease, but the steep price of luxury tents can be a deterrent for the casual, every-so-often camper. Both glamping and family-style tents have the benefit of being able to accommodate a single or double cot. For many wheelchair users, transferring from a wheelchair to a cot is easier than transferring directly to the ground. Large tents are also convenient when inclement weather strikes. (Game of Go Fish, anyone?)

On the downside, large tents can be cumbersome. Additionally, securing tent poles and the rain fly over a tall or wide tent can usually be accomplished only with assistance from an able-bodied friend. Most tent walls usually have a swath of nylon at the bottom of the door that must be cleared by doing a small “wheelie.”

Smaller one- or two-person tents have some distinct advantages over larger tents: They are lighter to transport, and setup is easier. A wheelchair user can often independently assemble a smaller tent with little to no assistance. However, transferring to a tent with less door clearance can prove more challenging than doing so with a family tent.

Though purchasing a floorless tent is a gamble in terms of weather, single-pole tents like the Black Diamond Mega Light are an attractive option. Without a jumble of poles to deal with, setup is simplified, and the hassle of rolling over fabric and zippers to get inside is eliminated.

At some ADA-accessible campsites, you will find raised “platform” tent pads, which greatly expedite transferring. They allow a wheelchair user to transfer straight across from their chair to the tent opening, rather than from their chair down to the ground. Generally, you can expect to set up on a flat, ground-level tent pad, or, in more primitive campsites, a dirt area with variable terrain. A small step stool, a portable shower chair, or a yoga mat all can help with transferring from a chair to a sleeping bag in a tent (and vice versa). You can also set up your tent next to a picnic table and use the bench seat for support while transferring.

After transferring, you’ll want to keep your wheelchair protected from the elements. Family tents often feature a good-size vestibule that can be used to store a chair overnight. You might also opt to bring your chair all the way in if the tent isn’t already full of family, friends, and gear.

Some smaller tents have a vestibule that just covers a small-profile chair. MSR sells a Gear Shed add-on for its Hubba Hubba 1-Person backpacking tent that is ideal for stowing a chair. If your vestibule isn’t roomy enough, you can protect your chair instead with a waterproof patio-chair cover with elastic on the bottom, or put your chair’s seat cushion inside the tent and stow your chair outside, upside down.

Regardless of what size tent you purchase, securing the corners taut is necessary, and from wheelchair height, getting stakes deep into the ground can be tricky. As part of your car-camping arsenal, bring a hammer to make this step easier.

For tents that don’t come with their own footprint, plan on purchasing a ground tarp. A basic blue, all-purpose tarp from the hardware store will do the trick.

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Sleeping hammocks serve as an alternative to traditional tents, and are also a great place to chill with a good book mid-afternoon. Hennessy Hammock makes a lightweight bottom-entry hammock that packs small—the Explorer Ultralight Classic XL. After you get the hang of the setup, assembling the hammock can take 15 minutes or less. You will also likely want to bring in an insulation system. I recommend giving the whole process a dry run at home in your backyard or at a park before camping (that advice applies for tents, too). Depending on the person, transferring from a wheelchair into a bottom-entry hammock might prove less difficult than a ground transfer into a tent.

For hammock camping to be a success, you’ll need adequately spaced, small-trunk trees at your campsite and the ability to negotiate the terrain around those trees. Unless you are camping close to home and can scout out your campsite in advance, we advise bringing a tent in your vehicle as a backup plan. If rain is in the forecast, you might also need assistance from an able-bodied friend to set up a hammock rain fly at an appropriate height.