Like the Mac Sports Heavy Duty Collapsible Folding All Terrain Utility Cart (our pick for use on sand), the Mac Sports Outdoor wagon has an easy-to-use, telescoping handle. Of all the folding wagons we tested, this Mac ozark trail chair Sports wagon was the most adept at making sharp turns to navigate a small obstacle course on grass or concrete. It does not require any assembly, which is also true of our beach-wagon pick from the same company.
Folding wagons can be useful tools for families, beachgoers, or really anybody who needs to tote a lot of gear from one place to another. The Kenda tires would’ve been fun to ride on slightly more consistent and hard-packed gravel roads. However, with nearly 300 pounds of total weight on roads populated by jagged rocks, downhill runs meant bottoming out the tires, which meant pinch flats. The Explorer has the range for bikepacking through the mild hill country and unloaded rides through moderately steep terrain. But the approach to the Ozarks’ White Rock mountain wasn’t moderate. Feeling more sickly, I pushed the Explorer up a few miles of hills I’d ride up with most gravel bikes.
There are also chairs that are hybrids between categories, such as the Nemo Stargaze Reclining Camp Chair, which comes highly rated and recommended. 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. Senior staff writer Lauren Dragan said the Renetto is her most comfortable camping chair. Senior editor Kalee Thompson, who wrote a previous version of this guide, has been regularly using the Coleman chair she originally tested in 2016. Aside from the color fading and the cooler pouch deteriorating, her chair has held up to years of backyard hangs and camping trips. In summer 2023, she bought a newer Coleman Cooler Quad Chair to compare to her 2016 model, and she found them to be more or less the same.
I hauled both of my sons along with beach gear like boogie boards, coolers, chairs, and endless amounts of sand toys. It has the most comfortable and supportive seat shape of any chair we tested. The Dual Lock chair has a firmer backrest and seat bottom than the competition.
The handle makes it easy to carry and the straw folds in to stay clean and leak free. We also found that, even when fully open, the wagon bed doesn’t lie flat. The bare-bones Uline Utility Wagon was not as highly rated as the Mac Sports wagons. If you intend to use your wagon primarily at the beach, we recommend the Mac Sports Heavy Duty Collapsible Folding All Terrain Utility Cart. And if you’re looking for a wagon designed to tote kids around in, see our guide to stroller wagons.