Anecdotally, we found that this chair category in general is more popular among women than among men, who generally prefer a higher, upright seat. The GCI Outdoor chair also has a pocket built into the back that can hold a phone or a book. This chair comes in green or blue and is rated to hold up to 250 pounds. But after half a dozen excursions, we found—as ozark trail tent we had with the Renetto Original Canopy Chair—that having a chair you can easily carry without a bag is preferable. In real-world conditions, you’re often packing up fast to try to get ahead of crowds or traffic. So you can easily misplace a carry sack on a dark night in a crowded field, especially if you’re in a large group or have a lot of stuff.
However, this isn’t really a chair, per se — you are still basically sitting on the ground. If you find getting up off the ground difficult and uncomfortable, then this seat may not be suitable for you. But for those who want a dry, warm spot to park their rear without adding more than a couple of ounces to their packs, this one could be your ideal solution. Like most chairs of this type, the Coleman Oversized Quad comes with an over-the-shoulder carry bag.
A close-to-the-ground chair is often the ideal choice for outdoor concerts, movies, theater performances, and other events where you will be concerned about blocking other people’s view. Twisting chairs are also less comfortable, primarily because they tend to have a smaller sitting surface and no backrest, as is true of the REI Co-op Trail Stool. Tent-style chairs like the Big Agnes Skyline UL, Big Agnes Big Six, and Nemo Moonlite excel in the comfort metric since their raised seats are easier to get in and out of. Because they keep their form, it is much easier to plop down and feel supported. The Helinox Ground Chair is a unique tent chair that sits even lower to the ground than its closest competitors, making it more of a recliner meant to extend legs forward.
It weighs 7½ pounds and is rated to hold up to 325 pounds. Camping trips, beach days, picnics in the park, outdoor movies and theater performances, a fresh-air get-together with friends—there are countless occasions when you might use a camp chair. Comes with the same compact bag with a shoulder strap for carrying. Though 2 ounces could be a deal-breaker to some hikers, the vast majority of even the most ultralight backpackers are willing to add the minuscule weight of the Therm-a-Rest Z Seat to their kits. It’s hard to pass up this kind of versatility — this foam pad can act as your seat, sleeping pad extension, pack cushion, and more. Add in the facts that there is zero setup involved and that these seats are known to last for decades, and you’ve got a winner.
Unlike other portable chairs, the Everywhere Chair is designed to sit on uneven slopes; this can be handy when space is limited at a fireworks show or an outdoor theater performance. Our panel of testers at the Wheeler Gorge Campground deemed the Everywhere Chair to be the most comfortable of the three low-to-the-ground chairs we tested. A low-to-the-ground chair can be ideal for outdoor movies, concerts, theater performances, and other events where you want to avoid blocking other people’s view. Our testers liked the comfort and back support of the GCI Outdoor Everywhere Chair, as well as the ability to adjust it to sit on uneven ground. They also appreciated its cupholder (rare in chairs of this sort) and its quick close-up-and-carry design.
The REI chair’s polyester seat material feels both more forgiving and more durable than the thinner material on the Ozark Trail Kids’ Folding Camp Chair from Walmart. The box-shaped cupholder is a little roomier than the round cupholders on the Coleman and the L.L.Bean Base Camp chairs—better Ozark Trail Canopies for stubby water bottles or mugs of hot chocolate around the campfire. We found that the cheaply constructed Walmart chair had a cupholder that was too small for a soda can, or any of the hard-plastic or metal water bottles that the kids we know brought on a camping trip.
We also found that the space-saving hubless pole design takes slightly more time to assemble than the hubbed pole models, but only by around 10 seconds, so we’re splitting hairs here. All in all, this is the seat we’d most like to end up in at the end of a long day. The Coleman camping chair is big and durable, and of all the upright chairs that our panel of campers tested, it was the most comfortable.
The Ozark Trail Oversized Mesh Chair from Walmart, although similar to our pick in size, was far less comfortable, with rough-feeling material that was obviously of lower quality. We later found, after six months of frequent use, that the stitching along one arm had come unravelled and that the small straps holding up the back of the armrests had both ripped in half. Walk around any campground or tailgate party, and you’ll notice the popularity of this variety of accordion-style seat. You can pick one up at just about any big-box store (sometimes for as little as $10), order one with your favorite sports team’s logo, or pay a premium for a similar model from Cabela’s or REI. Convenient carrying bag makes is easy to keep in the trunk.
We considered both the relative weight of each chair compared to models of the same design (foam or tent style), as well as how it stacked up against every product we tested. We start each of our reviews with market research, which yielded an initial selection of nearly 50 contenders for our backpacking chairs. From there, we purchased the most promising models and tested them for several weeks, updating the review frequently to reflect new products. Over the years, we have taken out close to 30 chairs and sat on everything from rocky cliff bases to desert sand to city parks.
Having said that, we have some questions about its longevity. The seat fabric is stiff, leading to several pressure points over time. Attaching the seat fabric to the aluminum frame also takes a little finessing. Ozark Trail Sleeping Bags It has a lot of short tube segments, and the legs are especially challenging to fold up and pack away. Gripes aside, for those on a budget, this chair is a solid pick for more casual adventures.