Overwhelmingly, the Coleman came out on top, with campers praising its comfort and stability. After six months of regularly using the Coleman Cooler Quad Chair, we think it’s the best choice for most people who are seeking an upright chair for car camping, tailgating, and outdoor gatherings. We noticed during the first of our three camping trips—a weekend in California’s Joshua Tree National Park, with a total of seven families—that, given the choice, coleman cooler campers prefer to take the biggest seat. When we set up a dozen chairs around the campfire without comment, people consistently claimed them from largest to smallest. Outdoor furniture is not one size fits all, so think carefully about your unique needs before committing to a style. Shorties (like yours truly) may be uncomfortable in seats that are too high to rest their feet on the ground while their backs are flush against the chair.
Weighing in at a negligible 8lbs 2oz, the Cooler Quad won’t punish you for parking a little ways away from your intended destination. When you consider this in tandem with the carrying sleeve, the Cooler Quad lies somewhere on the more portable end of the coleman camping chair full-sized camp chair spectrum. A camping chair with such a high-grade integrated cooler wouldn’t be much without a cup holder to match. The makings of great camping chairs aren’t all that complicated, and Coleman’s Cooler Quad hits the nail on the head.
For this article, lifelong camper Lydia Price joined a group of other editors to put 29 outdoor chairs to the test in our New York City lab. They carefully evaluated the comfort, durability, portability, and value of each chair to put together this list of the best options for camping. While sturdy canvas chairs are great for keeping your back supported, no one wants to be engulfed in a thick fabric when the temperature rises. REI’s Co-op Camp X Chair brings the best of both worlds with a webbed nylon mesh that keeps you cozy and cool. The material is designed to evenly distribute your weight and maximize comfort, and we found the material was tense enough to feel supportive while letting them take advantage of the breeze.
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. Some of the 29 chairs we tested had unique features that set them apart from the crowd but fell short in categories that kept their score too low to make our list of recommendations. Still, you may find these options to be well-suited for your specific camping needs.
All you need to do is grab onto the armrests and draw them towards the center, and the rest of the chair should collapse. After this, you’ll want to slide the folded chair into the carrying sling, and then you can be on your way. Within the realm of Coleman products, their Big-N-Tall Quad is a true beast of a chair. With a max capacity of 600lbs, cushioned back, and self-bailing seat, it’s one of the only models that can give the Cooler Quad a run for its money. We also really enjoyed their Aluminum Deck Chair, which brings the same wide seat and throws in a side table at the cost of easy transport. Our not-too-discriminating underage testers liked all the kids’ chairs, though over time we found several reasons to declare the REI Camp Chair the best of the bunch.