MoonShade Awning Provides Perfectly Portable Shade Anywhere You Need It

By Brett Foote - June 22, 2022

Innovative MoonShade awning can be used on any vehicle without additional modifications, and it’s amazingly portable, too.

In today’s world, camping, overlanding, and off-roading are more popular than ever, which has led to a number of factory-built packages and models catering to those hobbies, as well as a burgeoning aftermarket full of amazing parts and accessories. Those that want an awning to provide portable shade from the sun don’t lack for options, either. But most of those awnings require at least semi-permanent mounting solutions or roof racks to attach them to a vehicle, which isn’t terribly convenient for most. However, as we recently discovered when FTE sponsor, Moon, supplied a MoonShade awning for review, it’s the perfect, temporary, portable solution for that fairly common problem.

We tested out the MoonShade awning on our very own 2021 Ford Bronco Badlands four-door, which is equipped with the Sasquatch Package and no factory roof rack. While we love the way Ford’s OEM roof rack looks on the rugged SUV, it also makes removing the factory molded-in color hardtop a bit harder to remove and reinstall, and we’re the sort of folks that love to go roofless whenever the weather allows, so we didn’t tick that particular box on the options sheet.

The lack of a roof rack likely meant that finding a suitable awning was out of the picture, however, and that was also a problem. We are big time college football fans and tailgate at every home game, along with a couple of road dates every season, and typically lug our 10×10 foot tent with us everywhere we go, which is heavy, awkward, and tends to take up a ton of space in the rear of the SUV along with our other gear such as a grille, cooler, chairs, and tables.

This was the most surprising thing about the MoonShade awning when we received it in the mail – aside from the fact that it has a very high-quality look and feel, this thing is incredibly light at just eight pounds -versus our pop-up tent, which tips the scales at 40 pounds – and it’s also amazingly well-designed in that the 9×7-foot awning and all the hardware needed for installation fits in a nifty little shortage bag that measures just 28 inches long by 6 inches in diameter – quite literally less space than a camping chair or pretty much anything else we tote around with us on a routine basis.

This is possible thanks to the MoonShade’s ingenious design, which includes telescoping support poles that fold up into smaller sections and are made from lightweight aluminum. Those same poles are also height-adjustable from 78 inches to 98 inches, which comes in handy because it means that one can angle the tent as the sun moves around, or just change the height to fit the vehicle it’s attached to. In the case of our tall-riding Sasquatch-equipped Bronco, that was obviously important and quite welcome.

Setting up the MoonShade awning is also incredibly easy and could be done with one person in a pinch, which is not something we can say for traditional tents. The awning comes with two different-sized suction cup mounts for the roof, as well as one set of magnetized mounts. The suction cups work perfectly on metal, but in the case of our MIC roof, we wound up having to use a magnetic mount on the front windshield pillar, as well as a suction cup on the rear glass to make it work, as the suction cups don’t adhere to the textured top very well. No big deal, however, as pretty much any other vehicle on earth won’t have this problem.

That solution worked nicely, however, and we proceeded to attach the shade top’s harbinger clip to the magnetic mount before attaching the second to the rear suction cup. Then, we attached the suction cup to the rear of the vehicle before extending the support poles and feeding them into the pockets at all four corners. The support poles are further held in place by a series of clips positioned in the middle of the awning itself.

From there, all that was left was to attach the support poles. Those simply slide up into the holes in each corner of the awning, after which each can be secured to the corresponding harbinger clips. Guidelines and stakes are included to help keep the awning from blowing away as well as providing a bit of extra security, which is helpful in our windy climate.

Once installed, it was immediately evident that this is a high-quality product. The MoonShade did a fantastic job of filtering out the sun’s rays with its UV protective treatment, as well as providing a cool spot to hang out in the extreme heat we’ve experienced over the past couple of weeks. The awning itself also features reflective illumination at night, which is nice when you’re trying to find your way back to your camping spot in the dark – or tailgate after a hard-fought victory on the field.

Even better, uninstalling the MoonShade awning was just as simple as installing it, at which point everything zips up in the provided bag, taking up precious little space in the cargo area of our Bronco. In fact, we just left it back there so we can have portable shade whenever we need it – the awning is just that unintrusive, which is perhaps its most appealing feature, aside from the fact that it’s so easy to put up and take down, especially when compared to other awnings on the market.

Currently, the MoonShade awning retails for $350, which puts it somewhere in the middle in terms of what aftermarket awnings cost. However, to us at least, MoonShade’s tiny footprint, light weight, ease of use, and the fact that it can be installed on any vehicle without additional modifications make it worth every penny. If that sounds like something that you could benefit from, you can purchase your own MoonShade by heading over here.

Photos for Ford Truck Enthusiasts by Brett Foote