The Shibumi Shade Is the Only Beach Tent You Need

Welcome to Beach Week, a celebration of the best place on earth.

Is the beach too sunny, too hot, too sandy for you? That last one I really can’t do much about, but if you’re hung up on the first two, I can solve your problem with an easy solution. (Don’t go to the beach! Just kidding.) You’ve already seen beach tents line the shore—they range from is-this-just-a-camping-tent-but-placed-on-the-beach to what I’ve heard referred to as "it’s giving circus", and those are both fine options. Fine! But you can do better.

The first option ("camping tent") is great if you need a little beach "me time"—zip yourself (or maybe a child with an iPad) up in there, but can get hot inside thanks to having three "walls" with an open front. The second option ("giving circus") is great for big groups, but involves a whole lot of construction (and forget it when there’s too much wind). There are also "pop-up" tents that really only work for 1 or 2 people in minimal wind scenarios. Over hundreds of beach days, I’ve tried all of these tents—all to varying degrees of success. Nothing was perfect! Even the tried-and-true beach umbrella could transform into a deadly weapon if not planted deep enough into the sand. (Have you ever seen an umbrella tumble across a crowded beach? Horrifying.)

Shibumi Shade

I saw my first Shibumi Shade flapping on the beach a few summers ago—and surely you’ve seen them too. It’s shaped like an arch, planted directly into the sand on either end, with a bright blue and teal fabric that waves in the wind creating a neat square of UPF-protecting shade below it. ("UPF" is similar to "SPF", but for fabrics. The Shibumi’s 50+ UPF protection blocks 98 percent of UV rays.) It’s more of a canopy than a tent, immediately solving the age-old crowded beach problem of "blocking" your neighbor’s view of the ocean.

The shade was invented by two brothers and their best friend in North Carolina after they got frustrated with having to schlep and set up the various aforementioned tents and shades. The Shade is "40 percent ocean-bound recycled plastic bottles," made of a fabric called REPREVE®, produced by a manufacturer called Unifi—"fiber and resin sourced from bottles at high risk of entering in the ocean." These plastic bottles are collected, chopped, washed and melted into flakes and then chips that are heated, extruded and spun into fiber.

There are two Shibumi sizes and both are equally portable. The smaller Shibumi costs $190, weighs just 2 pounds, and comes with only two different "pieces" to keep track of: a folding metal rod and the shade (which is attached to a bag that you also use as a weight once you fill it with sand.) The bigger Shibumi is, well, bigger thus and gives a bigger area of shade. It has the exact same makeup, weighs 4 pounds and costs $270. Usually, you have to stake your tent into the sand. With both the big and mini Shibumi, there are no annoying stakes to eventually lose. The first time I set it up by myself, I was obsessed. (And then, hours later, exhausted from being at the beach all day, I was even more obsessed with the ease and speed at which you can take it down and pack it up.)

My Shibumi Shade quickly replaced all of my other shade gear. First off, it’s aesthetically gorgeous—no other tent structure can really compare. The way it gracefully dances in the wind! Stunning! I didn’t have to spend time staking and re-staking it into the sand; I didn’t have to worry about it taking off down the beach on a murderous path; I didn’t have to feel bad about blocking my beach neighbor's hard-earned view of the sea. I felt like I was protected from the sun’s harmful rays, while also feeling like I was completely outside, at the beach.

The founders designed the Shade to "work with the wind, not against it" (I place this in quotes because it’s their trademarked tagline, not something I just made up). This is important to note, because you really do need a solid amount of consistent wind to keep the Shibumi afloat. (Which means this isn’t a canopy that’ll necessarily work at the park, or for a street fair.) Luckily, the beach is reliably windy—although it’s not reliably always moving consistently in the same direction.

There have been a few times where we’ve had to mathematically shift the Shibumi, its shade repeatedly slowing and slapping friends (gently) in the face as the wind occasionally falters. And if the wind is VERY strong the Shibumi will stay steady in the sand, but it can also get a bit noisy, sounding like loud flapping (When some friends took the Shibumi on vacation to Portugal, a fellow beachgoer came over to them to scold: "Can you take your tent down? You are disturbing everyone and we are trying to sleep." (Why were they all sleeping on the beach? I don’t know. Go home to your beds!)

Shibumi claims that their new-and-improved Shade (which was announced and put on sale at the end of May) is "now quieter, stronger, and provides more sun protection than ever before." Luckily, I was cursed with a windy beach recently and took the opportunity to test the Old Shibumi and the New Shibumi side-by-side—both immediately began to flap furiously in the wind once I set them up in the sand. But was one significantly quieter than the other? Vaguely, but it was hard to tell. I could hear both Shibumis flapping loud and clear. Bottom line: there are some days at the beach that the Shibumi might not be right for. But they are few and far between (and maybe not the most ideal beach days, generally!)

Perhaps the biggest barrier to entry (no pun intended), is the price point. But despite the hefty price tag, Shibumi Shade is worth it. So while there really isn’t another beach tent on the market that costs as much as the larger Shibumi, you really have to maximize your days at the beach. Which, for me, isn’t a problem.

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Related Reading:

Confessions of New York City’s Traveling Pool Guy

Nobody Does a Beach House Quite Like the Danes

Everything You Need for an (Actually) Enjoyable Beach Picnic