Is Naturehike a Good Tent Brand? An Honest Look Before You Spend
Heads up: some links below go to Amazon. If you buy through them it costs you nothing extra, and we may earn a small commission that keeps this site running. We only recommend tents we'd actually take camping.
Short answer: yes, Naturehike is a good brand — for the right buyer and bought from the right place. If you want a light, freestanding backpacking tent that costs a third of what the big names charge, Naturehike is one of the smartest budget plays out there. If you want a bombproof 4-season fortress or a palace for two adults, look elsewhere.
You probably landed here because you saw a one-star review somewhere and got nervous. Good instinct to check. Let me untangle the thing that scares most people off — because once you understand it, the brand stops looking sketchy and starts looking like the bargain it is.
The scary review problem, untangled
Here's what trips people up. Search "Naturehike reviews" and you'll hit the Trustpilot page for naturehike.com, and the score there is rough — down in the one-to-two-star range. Read the actual complaints, though, and a pattern jumps out fast. They're almost never "the tent fell apart." They're "I ordered three weeks ago and it still hasn't shipped," "support stopped replying," "they wouldn't honor the warranty," "shipping cost a fortune and went through a sketchy courier."
That's a logistics and customer-service story, not a product-quality story. The company is shipping direct from overseas, and when something goes wrong, getting a human to fix it is slow and frustrating. Real problem. But it has almost nothing to do with how the tent performs once it's pitched in your hands.
Now look at the same tents on Amazon. The Cloud-Up 2 sits around 4.5 stars across thousands of ratings. Why the gap? Because Amazon swallows the part Naturehike is bad at. Prime handles the shipping. The 30-day return window handles the "my unit had a flaw" problem — you box it up, send it back free, done. You're buying the good part (a clever, light, cheap tent) and outsourcing the bad part (their customer service) to Amazon's returns desk.
So when someone asks is Naturehike legit — yes. It's a real company with a real product. The trust gap is entirely about where you buy.
Who Naturehike actually is
Naturehike is a Chinese outdoor brand that's been around since roughly 2010, based in Ningbo. They make lightweight tents, sleeping bags, pads, and trekking gear, and they've quietly become a go-to name in the budget ultralight world. Walk into any backpacking forum and you'll find people who started on a Naturehike Cloud-Up because they couldn't stomach $400 for a first tent — and a chunk of them never bothered upgrading.
"Made in China" sets off alarm bells for some folks. It shouldn't, by itself. A huge share of outdoor gear — including stuff from premium Western labels — is manufactured in China or Vietnam. What Naturehike did differently was cut out the Western brand markup and sell close to direct, which is exactly why the price looks too good.
The materials: surprisingly grown-up for the money
This is where Naturehike earns the reputation. Spec-for-spec, the Cloud-Up 2 reads like a tent that should cost a lot more:
- 20D nylon with a PU3000–4000mm waterproof coating on the floor (the fly runs a touch lighter, depending on version). That's a thin, light, properly waterproof fabric — the same class of material premium ultralight tents use.
- Aluminum alloy poles. Not the cheap fiberglass you'll find on a $30 dome that splinters in a gust — aluminum flexes and springs back.
- Smooth, sturdy zippers. Small thing, big deal — a blown zipper is the most common way a budget tent dies, and these run smoother than the gritty ones on bargain-bin domes.
- Freestanding, double-wall design — separate inner and rainfly, which is the right way to manage condensation, plus a real vestibule for boots and packs.
Put plainly: you're getting premium-ish ingredients at a budget price. That combination is the whole reason the brand exists.
Naturehike Cloud-Up 2
Light, freestanding, ~3.3 lb. The budget backpacking tent that made the brand — and an easy Amazon return if your unit's off.
The honest weaknesses (every budget tent has them)
I'd rather you hear this from me than discover it at a trailhead at dusk. The Cloud-Up 2 — and Naturehike's lightweight line generally — has real trade-offs that come straight from being light and cheap.
It runs snug. A "2-person" Cloud-Up is a roomy solo tent or a cozy-with-a-friend tent. The floor is about 6.9 by 4.1 feet with a peak around 40 inches, so if you're over six feet tall, your head or feet will brush the ends. Two adults plus gear is tight. This is true of most ultralight two-person tents, Naturehike or not — manufacturers rate optimistically. Plan one size up for comfort.
The floor is thin. That 20D nylon is feathery, which is the point, but it's not armor. Pitch it on gravel or pine duff without protection and you risk a pinhole. Use a footprint — Naturehike sells a cut-to-fit one, or a $10 painter's tarp works. This single habit fixes most "it leaked from the bottom" complaints.
Condensation, if you pitch it lazy. It's double-wall, which helps, but the venting is modest and a closed-up vestibule on a cold, humid night will leave dew on the inner. Stake the fly taut with a gap at the bottom, crack a vent, and it's a non-issue. Skip that and you'll blame the tent for your own breath.
Some unit-to-unit variance. This is the real QC caveat. Most Cloud-Ups arrive fine, but a small share show up with a cranky seam, a tweaked pole, or iffy factory seam-sealing. Pitch it in the backyard the day it arrives, hose it down, and check. If it's off, that Amazon return window is exactly why you bought it there.
What we like
- Genuinely light (~3.3 lb) and packs small for the price
- Aluminum poles and smooth zippers — the parts that matter
- 20D nylon, 4000mm fly — properly waterproof
- Freestanding double-wall with a real vestibule
- Bought on Amazon, returns are painless
Worth knowing
- Snug — size up if two adults need room
- Thin floor; a footprint is basically mandatory
- Will sweat if you pitch it sloppy in humidity
- Occasional QC misses unit to unit
- Not a true 4-season / heavy-snow shelter
Who it's for — and who should skip it
Buy Naturehike if you're a budget backpacker, a weight-conscious camper, a first-timer who doesn't want to drop $400 to find out if you even like sleeping outside, or a soloist who wants a featherweight shelter that doesn't feel like a toy. For trail use under three seasons, the Cloud-Up 2 is one of the best dollars-to-grams deals going. We rank it among our top cheap tents for exactly this reason.
Skip Naturehike if you need a tent that shrugs off serious winter gusts and heavy snow loading, or if "2-person" has to mean two adults with elbow room and a place to sit out a rainy afternoon. Naturehike's ultralight tents are built to be small and light first. They're not built to be roomy or bombproof, and no amount of brand loyalty changes physics.
Naturehike vs. Coleman: different jobs
This is the comparison I get most, and it's a bit of a category error — these tents are for different trips. Naturehike is a backpacking brand. Coleman is a car-camping brand. If you're driving to a campsite and carrying your tent twenty feet from the trunk, weight doesn't matter and space does, and that's Coleman's whole game.
| Naturehike Cloud-Up 2 | Coleman Sundome 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Backpacking, solo/2P | Car camping, families |
| Weight | ~3.3 lb | ~9.8 lb |
| Poles | Aluminum alloy | Fiberglass |
| Fabric | 20D nylon (light) | Heavier polyester (tough) |
| Real capacity | 1 roomy / 2 snug | 2 adults + gear |
| Carry it far? | Yes, that's the point | No — trunk to site only |
For weekend car campers, the cheaper, roomier, more forgiving pick is the Coleman Sundome — a heavier, tougher, more spacious tent that you'd never want to carry on your back but love at a drive-up site. If you're genuinely torn between the two, we put them head to head in our Cloud-Up 2 vs. Coleman Sundome breakdown.
And if your real worry under all of this is water getting in — a fair fear with any cheap tent — we dug into that in do cheap tents leak, and how to stop it. The short version: most "leaks" are condensation or a missing footprint, both fixable.
The bottom line
Is Naturehike worth it? For budget backpacking, yes — confidently. You get aluminum poles and proper 20D waterproof nylon at a price the big brands can't touch, on a freestanding tent that packs tiny. The brand's reputation problem is a shipping-and-service problem on their own site, which is exactly why you sidestep it by buying on Amazon. Add a footprint, pitch the fly taut, and the Cloud-Up 2 will see you through a lot of trail miles.
Check the Cloud-Up 2 price on Amazon →Frequently asked questions
Is Naturehike a Chinese brand?
Yes. Naturehike is a Chinese outdoor gear company, founded around 2010 and based in Ningbo. That's not a red flag on its own — most budget (and plenty of premium) outdoor gear is made in China or nearby. They design and sell their own lightweight tents, sleeping bags, and trekking gear, and have built a real reputation on Amazon for packing a lot of features into a low price.
Why are Naturehike tents so cheap?
They sell close to direct and skip the markup that funds a Western brand's retail network, marketing, and lifetime warranty. They also use lighter, thinner fabrics — 20D nylon instead of beefy 68D polyester — which trims both weight and cost. You're paying for materials and a strong design, not for a name or a no-questions-asked guarantee. For a budget backpacking tent, that's a fair trade.
Is Naturehike good for backpacking?
This is where Naturehike is at its best. The Cloud-Up 2 is freestanding, packs small, and weighs around ~3.3 lb with aluminum poles and 20D nylon — genuinely light for the money. Treat it as a roomy solo or a snug two-person tent, add a footprint, and it handles three-season trail trips well. It's not a 4-season storm shelter, but for most backpacking it punches well above its price.
Should I buy Naturehike on Amazon or their website?
Buy on Amazon. The scary low scores you see for Naturehike's own site are almost entirely about slow overseas shipping, lost orders, and warranty headaches — not the tent. On Amazon you get fast Prime shipping and a 30-day return window, so if your unit shows up with a flaw, you ship it back for free. Same tent, far less risk.