The 9 Best Lightweight Chairs and Seats for Backpacking

Field magazine

We love a good camp chair for convenient, comfortable seating during hangs at the local park, beach, backyard, and of course, campsite. Admittedly, a bit of a luxury for real outdoorsing, most pack weight-conscious hikers and ultralight backpackers might gloss over including a camping chair on their trip into the backcountry, but we’ll happily make room for one during our quick UL getaways or car camping outings. Thanks to recent design innovations by outdoor brands we know and trust, it’s becoming much easier to find a comfortable, high-quality camping chair that takes up minimal space and weight when stored in a backpack.

Scroll on to get straight to our top picks for the best backpacking chairs. If you’re keen to learn more about seating options for backpacking trips first, then keep reading for a quick primer on what to look out for when shopping for your own backpacking chair.

Field Mag’s Top Picks:

What Makes a Good Backpacking Chair?

Weight

Priority spec number one here is the overall packed weight of our camping chair. We want that number as low as possible—anything below two pounds is a good starting point. A low-weight or ultra lightweight camping chair will provide a little less overall comfort than a full-size camping chair, but certainly more than a stray log or hardpacked campsite ground.

Compactness

Even the most mammoth backpacking packs have their limits, so it’s important to consider how well a camping chair packs down. Once in their included stuff sacks, a longer, skinnier packed size will make it easy to fit the chair in an exterior backpack pocket or lash to a backpack’s daisy chain with web straps or shock cord.

Design and Features

While weight and packability make up the two most essential considerations of your ideal camping chair, it’s important to consider the chair’s design and functions to see if it suits your needs. For example, one chair may provide a seat height that hovers your bottom a short distance from the ground, while another may serve as a barrier between your body and the cold, wet earth. If you’re a big fan of lounging, consider the angle that the seat’s backrest provides your body; some might even include a headrest!