The Ozark Trail XXL Director chair is a good, if somewhat basic, director’s style camp chair offered by a company with a solid reputation in the market. While it does have a few shortcomings, these are generally easy to fix and easy to overlook. We like almost everything about this sturdy little chair. Its best features are, in our view, the width of the seat, the generous amount of supported weight, and its surprisingly modest price. It has been rated to support weights up to 300 lbs.
Compared with cheaper chairs of its kind (like those from Walmart), the REI Co-op chair functions better and will last much longer. If you’re looking for highly specialized or ultra-lightweight chairs for backpacking, our recommendations are probably not for you. We also don’t have suggestions for couch-style or loveseat chairs (we’d like to look at those someday, though). Kalee Thompson is the senior editor heading up Wirecutter’s kid coverage.
That’s as true for camp chairs as it is for recliners and the like. Where camp chairs are concerned, most of them top out at around 300 pounds of supported weight. That works for the majority of the market, but if you happen to be heavier than that, you’ll find that pickings can be slim. The canopy is big enough to block most, if not all, sunlight any time of day, and the chair’s seat has a strip of breathable mesh down the middle for airflow.
Of the chairs we tested, the Coleman chair was the only one that came with a built-in cooler bag, which can hold four standard-size beer or soda cans. The chair also has the round ozark trail chair mesh cupholder found on most chairs of this type. Since 2016, our testers (with different body types and physical needs) have subjected camping chairs to multiple camping trips.
Guided by experts, we spend hours looking into the factors that matter, to bring you these selections. Unbeatable deal if you’re looking to buy several chairs at once. It is best if you only have to carry it short distances.