We have, on many occasion set up a fly over our tent, especially during periods of wet weather.

For our family’s trip to Disney World many years ago, we stayed in a tent at the campground. Knowing that afternoon and evening rains were probable; we set up a tarp over our tent. The almost daily rain never touched our tent, where as a neighboring tent using just the tent fly was obviously soaked.

On another occasion, our Girl Scout troop went on a rafting trip; we knew that potential severe weather was possibility due to an approaching storm front, so my wife and I set up a tarp over our tent. During the night we were hit with a major storm dumping between 3 and 4 inches in the area. Most of the girls ending up spending the night in the vehicles, our co-leader’s tent became soaked and they ended up having to abandon that tent. Our tent stayed dry throughout the night. When we awoke in the morning and walked through the camp, most of the tents were flooded and abandoned.

By having a tarp that extends out over the front of the tent by a few feet, it gives us a relatively dry area to transition from wet ground into the tent. Granted we were car camping and bringing extra gear was not an issue, but the tarp took up almost no extra room and only takes a few minutes to erect over the tent. If it is raining when setting up, we set up the tarp first giving us an opportunity to get the tent set up without getting soaked in the process. The tent also stays dryer, so packing up is made much easier.

Just a different approach-
Pete