Sky-High Ceiling, Down-to-Earth Comfort: NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 Tent Review

It’s embarrassing how many tents I have tucked away in our garage. So much so, I’m pretty sure I got an eye roll from my partner when the NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 showed up. In my defense, it’s hard to purge our stash of tents, with some feeling like part of the family, like my parents’ old center-pole Kelty, and the four-season Sierra Designs, patched from where a passing black bear took a swipe.

For car camping, we now gravitate toward high-top tents since my partner is 6’1”. We have been using Marmot’s Torreya six-person tent. It’s well-built and luxurious if we’re going to be somewhere for a week or traveling somewhere where we need to hide our bikes inside, but it’s rather massive for overnights. So I was hoping the NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 might fill that slot, and it does.

The Aurora Highrise 4 is amply roomy, but not sprawling. It packs better in the car, and it’s lighter to carry. We’ve now used it in the desert and mountains, and have grown to appreciate it enough that it’s already packed in the car for an upcoming 5,000-mile road trip. Here are our impressions so far of the Aurora Highrise tent. 

In short: A huge door, tall ceiling, and ample ventilation are reasons enough to add the NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 Tent ($400) to your outdoor adventure collection. But this tent also has a jovial personality and an easy set-up. It’s a great fit for a small family (whether the kids are furry or regular) or a cushy setup for a couple who wants extra living space and gear storage. 

To see where the NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 tent stacks up in the larger market, check out GearJunkie’s Best Camping Tents Buyer’s Guide. Spoiler alert: We awarded it “Most Livable 4-Person Camping Tent.”

NEMO Aurora Highrise 4P: Review

First Impressions: Quick Setup and a Cheery Attitude

As soon as the Aurora Highrise 4 arrived, we decided to set off on a last-minute camping trip. It was a bit early in the season, and the wind was blowing, but our excuse to play hooky and get outdoors wasn’t going to be dampened by a questionable forecast. Plus, we were only going across the valley, a 45-minute drive, so it’s not like we couldn’t scramble home if anything went awry.

Because of our haste, he hadn’t even laid eyes on the tent until we got to the campsite. By then, the wind was blowing a solid 20 miles an hour. It’s always a challenge to set up a tent under those conditions, but especially one we weren’t familiar with. Still, it only took us 10 minutes, rainfly and all. (On our second trip, we set it up in five.) 

Once we got it set, we noted that it’s also a strikingly attractive tent. The shape is dynamic, and the color, which NEMO terms “atoll oasis,” brightens a gray day. Plus, the floor is a cheery plaid.

Built for Comfort 

The Aurora Highrise 4 uses steep walls to achieve standing height throughout the inside. As long as you’re shorter than 6’3”, you can walk around with ease. Combined with a 62.5-square-foot floor, it makes for spacious sleeping, eating, storage, and rainy-day activity space.

Another outstanding feature is a massive front door, which includes three zipper sliders so you can control not just how much you want it open, but also where you want it to be open along multiple spans of the door.

The door is also nearly as tall as the tent, which provides ease of entering and exiting. The two 19.5-square-foot vestibules are ample for gear storage or light cooking. The second door is half the size, but is still easy to navigate.

Voluminous Ventilation

The ventilation on the Aurora Highrise is particularly well thought-out. The top third-ish of the tent is mesh, including the entire ceiling, and there are windows on all four sides.

That means you can create ample cross-ventilation, no matter which direction the wind is blowing from. It also allows you to peek out of any side for safety, or to see who’s on their way to raid the cooler. 

The rainfly doesn’t overly inhibit the ventilation, either. Thanks to a double zipper, you can roll up the fly to expose a large swath of the palatial front door. And since the fly is shaped to create a small awning for the windows, rather than extending to the ground and covering them up, you can be ready for rain and still enjoy the view and the breeze.

Quality Crafting

For a three-season tent, the Aurora Highrise 4 is sturdy enough. It includes aluminum poles and quality no-see-um mesh. The zippers slide smoothly, and there are a lot of nice touches for tying back doors, windows, and the rainfly. The floor is a sturdy 150D PU polyester, so it has no fear of dog claws, sticks, and pine needles. 

While this tent doesn’t have color-coded poles, those are not super-necessary, as the setup is intuitive. Two larger-diameter, longer poles go crossways to hold up the main body of the tent, and two smaller poles keep tension along the ends.

To add to its ease of setup, there are only four stakes on the main tent and four stakes for the fly. The plaid floor also helps by making it easy to identify the bottom. 

This tent has a number of nice touches, too, like a loop with a snap closure on the ceiling, for easy lantern hanging. It has adequate storage pockets, including a nightlight pocket with a headlamp diffuser, plus standards like guylines and sealed seams. It also meets flame-retardant standards without using added harmful chemicals. 

Stormproof?

The biggest question with the Aurora Highrise 4 is how it performs in severe weather. While it functions fine in light rainstorms and holds up decently enough under wind, I fear it wouldn’t fare great in heavier weather conditions.

I haven’t yet been camping in it during a squall, but I can imagine that some rain would come through the side windows. The fly doesn’t cover them vertically, and the windows are only covered by flaps; no zipper or Velcro. This problem would be amplified if the tent were not properly tensioned by the stakes. 

Another hassle is that without the fly on, there are only four stakes holding down the tent, which means wind can blow under from the sides and billow up the floor. The stakes are also just bent-steel style — what we call nail bruisers — because as you pound on them, you’re likely to hit a finger or two. But that’s easily remedied by picking up some stouter stakes from the hardware store.

Finally, the storage bag is a little flimsy, and it’s not particularly easy to get everything back in, but neither of those should be deal breakers. 

NEMO Aurora Highrise 4P Tent: Conclusion

The NEMO Aurora Highrise 4 Tent is a solid choice for a couple who want to set up an extra-comfortable living space, like an air mattress and camp table, or a small family with a kid or dog or two. Either way, there’s plenty of room to stretch out, horizontally and vertically.

There are certainly other easy living tents out there, such as the North Face Wawona 4 — a $450 four-person tent with equally vertical walls and a voluminous vestibule. That said, the Aurora Highrise does best in a number of different metrics, including floor space (62.5 versus 58 square feet), standing height (75″ versus 68″), and obviously price, at $50 less. For most folks and families, this edges the NEMO into the front-runner position.

This tent particularly excels with comfort and ventilation, and its main door is a prize. If you’re looking for headroom and comfort, through hot days and chilly nights, you’ll be happy to have set your bet on this tent. And if you need even more room, NEMO also makes a six-person version. Either way, the living is easy in the Aurora Highrise.