Follow her on Instagram at @HikeUpYourSkirt or find more of her work at suziedundas.com. The cupholders on the L.L.Bean Kids’ Base Camp Chair aren’t as roomy as those on our picks, and they are not as adept at holding stubby water bottles or mugs of hot chocolate. ? Stay in style with the PzStyles
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The right chairs can make or break a camping trip — no one wants to go into a s’mores-induced sugar coma while squirming in a flimsy foldable. And if you’re lugging all your gear on a backpacking journey, a portable seat you can properly rest on is even more crucial. Knowing which brands and models to trust is the first step to creating your own outdoor oasis. For a classic fold-up camping chair, the REI Co-op Wonderland stands as a great mixture of comfortable and durable.
It also allows the chair to automatically balance your weight if you tuck a leg under your body or lean a bit forward, which can cause stationary chairs to tip. The steel frame allowed our testers to use the reclining back confidently and lounge in the chair at just about any angle. The adjustable cup holders accommodate anything from a soda can to a beer growler (yes, you can have up to 64 ounces of beer in your cup holder). Cooler aside, we also like the Coleman chair’s side pocket (don’t leave those bottle tops in the woods) and cushioned backrest. The fact that the chair holds an impressive 325 pounds makes it ideal for big and tall buyers.
The box-shaped cupholder is a little roomier than the round cupholders on the Coleman and the L.L.Bean Base Camp chairs—better for stubby water bottles or mugs of hot chocolate around the campfire. We found that the cheaply constructed Walmart chair had a cupholder that was too small for a soda can, or any of the hard-plastic or metal water bottles that the kids we know brought on a camping trip. It will fit a Capri Sun pouch or a narrow, rectangular juice box, but that’s about it.
Celebrate the light, airy feeling of spring with new picks for your patio & garden space. She has written feature stories for publications like Outside Magazine, SkyLife Magazine, Playboy, Frommers, INSIDER, and more, and contributes ozark trail hammock chair couples travel and honeymoon content for TheKnot.com. Suzie co-authored Lonely Planet Sustainable Travel Guide and is the author of 2021’s “Hiking Lake Tahoe.” She has undergraduate degrees from the University of Maryland and an M.A.
Do a quick online search for director chair-style camp chairs and you’ll see that most options look relatively similar. They fold just like a movie director’s chair—hence the name—but usually don’t pack down vertically. But after half a dozen excursions, we found—as we had with the Renetto Original Canopy Chair—that having a chair you can easily carry without a bag is preferable. In real-world conditions, you’re often packing up fast to try to get ahead of crowds or traffic.
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. Generally speaking, the lightest chairs out there won’t deliver as plush of a sitting experience as bulkier products that weren’t meant to accompany you on backpacking adventures. If you’re looking for a chair to take on the move, opt for something weighing under 2 pounds that can be stored as compactly as possible. These no-frills seats are more tolerable for resting your terrain-tested feet than for enjoying multiple meals, drinks, and the company of other campers around a fire.