This chair comes with a sturdy carrying case, with an over-the-shoulder strap, and it’s simple to expand and fold up accordion-style. It has the highest weight capacity and largest seat of any chair we tested. Out of all the chairs we tested, this chair’s capacity—800 pounds—is the highest (the next-highest weight limit is 500 pounds).
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.
Fortunately, this is also easy to remedy via a bit of DIY engineering. Simply buy a mesh bag for storage, attach a D-Ring to it, and clamp it onto one of the chair’s ozark trail chair support struts. In the sections that follow, we’ll tell you everything this well-priced chair has to offer and be quick to point out its shortcomings.
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.
After a couple of camping trips, we concluded that a strap is more convenient than a bag—it’s quicker and easier for a kid to grab the chair and go, without parental help. It can hold a lot of supplies, and it’s easy to carry and set up. The King Kong chair has two cupholders and intuitively placed storage pouches under each armrest; unlike the Coleman chair, though, this one doesn’t have a cooler pouch. There’s also a mesh pocket behind the backrest, to hold things you don’t need to access quickly.
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.
After six months of frequent use, the stitching along one arm had come unraveled, and the small straps holding up the back of the armrests had both ripped in half. This chair costs slightly more than the Coleman Cooler Quad Chair, but it’s still a budget-friendly option. It delivers a solid baseline of build quality, comfort, and reliability that we didn’t find in other, similarly priced chairs.
However, they don’t have all of the same features. There are also chairs that are hybrids between categories, such as the Nemo Stargaze Reclining Camp Chair, which comes highly rated and recommended. Each comes with a convenient carrying bag that you can sling over your shoulder. Made from an easy-to-clean polyester fabric and metal frame. The 4-pound, steel-framed REI chair has an attached carry strap, rather than a carry bag (which the other chairs have).
This chair’s big canopy provides ample sun protection at a campsite or sporting event, and it doubles as a backpack-strap-equipped carrying case. Convenient carrying bag makes is easy to keep in the trunk. Made with a steel frame and rated for up to 300 pounds. Set of 2 folding camping chair for camping, traveling, sporting events and the yard.