They typically come with their own carry bag, making them easy to transport from one place to another. Celebrate the light, airy feeling of spring with new picks for your patio & garden space. GearLab is founded on the principle of honest, objective, reviews.
Despite its simplicity, it offers exceptional value for its low price, extreme durability, minuscule weight, and versatility. Same goes for the Nemo Chipper which is even cheaper and made from reclaimed materials. For the most significant cost savings, look to the foam chairs, which are almost always less expensive than tent-style models but can still offer you a padded seat to comfort your derrière. With so many backpacking chairs on the market, how do you pick the right one? In this article, we’ve identified the four most important qualities to look for in a chair. We rate each seat on its comfort throughout 30 minutes of lounging, its size and how much it weighs, its overall stability when getting in and out, and its ease of use.
T+L writers are shopping and product experts who score the market for the best of the best travel gear. For this article, lifelong camper Lydia Price joined a group of other editors to put 29 outdoor chairs to the test in our New York City lab. They carefully evaluated the comfort, durability, portability, and value of each chair to put together this list of the best options for camping. She also tested several chairs during camping excursions of her own. Keeping in mind that good portability is key for outdoor chairs, we broke down and packed each for transport, testing their carrying cases and any and all straps and handles to judge the placement, size, and design.
Gripes aside, for those on a budget, this chair is a solid pick for more casual adventures. The Moon Lence Backpacking Chair is a value pick that outperforms its price point. It has a well-defined bucket seat that makes it lounge-worthy but not so deep that ozark trail hammock chair it’s hard to get out of it. The square base is also stable enough that we weren’t fearful of tipping over, and we appreciate the side pockets for phone and sunglasses storage. In terms of out-of-case performance, it stacks up well for its price point.
It also facilitates better posture and keeps the back in a straighter, less curled position than most models. This chair has a unique bent leg design that creates a wider base and seat while keeping the packed profile slim. Along with its reasonable price, these attributes make it one of the most well-rounded products we tested. The Helinox Chair One weighs about 2 pounds, compresses smaller than a 2-liter bottle of soda, and is the most comfortable and easy to stow of the three top backpacking chairs we tested. Like competing chairs, the Chair One has a nylon and mesh seat and aluminum legs, which are linked with shock cord (the chair legs are made out of the same material as high-end tent poles). The Trailhead is also on the heavier side for a camp chair, and it’s far from compact.
It barely misses being the lightest chair of its kind, yet it’s significantly more comfortable and stable than its lightweight counterparts. When sitting down in the Zero, we immediately noticed the back support provided by its shape and the stability of the legs that keep its wobble to a minimum for such a light chair. Backpackers willing to put in extra work for extra comfort will rejoice when discovering the Big Agnes Big Six chair. The spacious seat is wide and tall and offers a high enough back for a headrest, a feature not found on any other chair this compact and lightweight. Its size is enormous for the small 5.5″ x 5.5″ x 21.5″ bundle it makes when packed up, and the comfort it offers may even encourage you to take a catnap. 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.
When spending just a few minutes in a chair, most are comfortable enough. But, some chairs stood out for supporting the back for longer sessions. We compared the depth of each tent-style chair, as some ozark trail hammock chair tipped us forward more than others. We prefer a deeper seat that lets us recline and relax, like the one found on our favorite model, the Big Agnes Skyline UL, and the luxurious Big Agnes Big Six.