For $60, REI’s Co-op Skyward Camp Chair is a super reliable option that will last you for years. It has all the basics of a good chair, including a strong steel base that quickly and easily unfolds in an umbrella-like motion. It packs up easily into the included sleeve and has convenient additional features like a cup holder and drop-down pocket for items like your phone or a bottle opener.
They fold just like a movie director’s chair—hence the name—but usually don’t pack down vertically. The flatpack style of chair doesn’t lend itself well to extreme portability. That being said, if you’re mostly car camping out of your truck or driving to a friend’s BBQ, you’ll love the extra size and support these chairs offer. We especially like the Infinity zero gravity chair, which reclines nearly flat if you’d rather stare at the clouds than at your fellow campers.
After this, you’ll want to slide the folded chair into the carrying sling, and then you can be on your way. If you’re curious about our methods for reviewing chairs or want to broaden your understanding of the kinds of products out there, our buyer’s guide is a great place to start getting the lay of the land. We also have a list of our favorite camp chairs across the board; check it out to see how the Cooler Quad stacks up against other top contenders. A camping chair with such a high-grade integrated cooler wouldn’t be much without a cup holder to match. The Cooler Quad, in addition to being one of the better-developed chair coolers we’ve seen, has an overbuilt cup holder that fits the devotion to absolute relaxation that we see in all the other features of the chair. Usually, swinging chairs have more pieces and parts than a standard chair, but the Rio foldable hammock chair manages to stay minimal in both weight and size.
Check for reinforced stitching and reliable construction to ensure the chair can withstand outdoor conditions, avoid rust, and can handle getting packed in-and-out of a car on a regular basis. The Coleman features a padded seat and back, adjustable armrests, mesh cup holders, a magazine or tablet side pocket, and a soft cooler pouch (large enough for a small ice pack and up to 4 cans!). At just under 11 pounds, it’s light enough to toss in the car or carry a few down to the fishing hole.
The canopy quickly and easily transforms into a carrying case—just wrap it around the chair and snap it closed with two plastic buckles, and you can carry the whole thing on your back like an oblong backpack. We brought this chair to a dense Los Angeles neighborhood to watch Fourth of July fireworks. We got some admiring nods en route to the celebration—and we had one of the more comfy seats at the show. 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.
Double chairs are predictably much heavier than their single-person counterparts (the Kelty Low Loveseat comes in at 15 lb. 6 oz.), which makes them bulky for hauling. We’ve only included one double camping chair on our list due to the overall lack of utility—we’d rather purchase two separate single-seaters and save a few bucks in the process. Yeti changed the cooler game with their luxury coolers, and they’ve done it again with camp chairs. While paying premium prices for a camping chair when you only make it to the wilderness a couple times of year may not seem practical, good portable seating can be an invaluable addition to your home life too. If your chair has pole legs, just make sure that you bring along a ground sheet if you may be encountering soft surfaces like sand. Because people use outdoor chairs for an array of purposes and have different preferences when it comes to comfort, it was almost impossible to choose just one best chair.
All this adds up to a solid chair and a reasonable price that looks good and won’t let you down. For an extra-roomy, portable perch, look to the Kijaro XXL camping chair, coleman canopy which offers a 25.5-inch-wide seat and a maximum capacity of 400 pounds. It locks easily in place once it’s unfolded and locks in its collapsed position once you’re done.
The directions are sewn into the carrying case, but even our least spatially-inclined tester had no problem setting up the Stargazer without instructions. Think about how you’ll use and then read through our assessments and reader testimonials to find the right chair for you. For an all-around convenient foldable seat with some useful extras at a nice price, look no further than the Coleman Quad chair. Senior shopping editor Megan Mowery picked up a double set three years ago, and now she never sets up camp without them. There are some people for whom camping is simply the perfect backdrop for drinking. We understand those people, and for them, we recommend this Coleman Camping chair with a built-in cooler that keeps your backup drinks very close and very cold for hours.