How We Tested Camping Chairs

We did a ton of our chair testing while car camping and a fair amount of backyard barbecues with the gang. In each of these scenarios we primarily focused on long-term comfort and durability (they saw daily exposure to the wind, rain, and sun). Although we packed and moved the chairs around frequently, we usually didn't carry them for more than five or ten minutes. In addition, we wanted to make sure that they could stand up to an array of potential uses. Testers brought them climbing, hiking, to the beach, and even to a handful of game nights.


Most of our test models survived the daily sitting, napping, packing, unpacking, and general abuse that occurred over our multi-month testing period. People of all sizes sat in them to weigh in on comfort and they were packed and unpacked a painful number of times and carried to many destinations to assess portability. Their attendance at many a wild bonfire and daily exposure to the elements sufficiently tested their durability. We measured each chairs' ease of use by assembling them. Over. And over. And over. Finally, we also measured their dimensions, weight, ability to drain water after a rainstorm, ease of packing/carrying, and exactly how many beers those pocket coolers could handle (three).