The 5 Best Tall Camping Chairs (Bought & Tested!)

What counts as a tall camping chair

There’s no official cut-off, so I went by the one number that matters: the height you’re actually sitting at once you’re in the chair. Only 5 of my camping chairs get within 2 inches of a dining chair.

Every height here is the real seated height, measured from the ground up to the bottom of my seat while I’m sitting in the chair. The IKEA dining chair is in there as a reference.

• Where the line sits: a chair that counts as tall sits at 15in or higher once you’re in it.
• How many qualify: just 5 of all the camping chairs I own.

• The closest miss: the Quechua Reclinable at 14.3in. I really like that chair, but it has been out of stock for ages.
• The benchmark: my IKEA dining chair sits at 17.0in, and no camp chair I own reaches it.

The marketed seat height is measured at the front of the seat

Camping chairs don’t have a standardised seat height. Some brands measure from the front of the chair, and others measure the seat with nobody sitting on it. Neither one is the height you end up at.

Marketed figures are the brands’ own. I’ve left the Coleman Big N Tall out because I couldn’t find a marketed seat height for it.

• Smallest gap: the YETI, only 0.75in off. YETI publishes the average of the front height and the seated height, which is the honest way to do it.
• Biggest gap: the Kijaro, marketed at 20.0in and measuring 15.5in once I sat in it.
• My rule of thumb: take about 4in off any marketed seat height and you’ll be pretty close to what you actually get.

Seat slouch, and the height you lose the moment you sit down

Every camp chair sinks a bit when you sit on it, and how much it sinks is what I call the seat slouch. I measured the seat height at the front of each chair, then again from the ground up to where I was actually sitting, and took the difference.

The Coleman Cooler Quad isn’t a tall chair. I’ve put it in to show what a slouchy seat does to a high front.

• The rule I use: anything over 4in of slouch felt like it gave me less back support.
• The YETI is the exception: both armrests lock, which pulls the seat taut, so it only drops 1.5in.

• Why a tall front means nothing on its own: the Coleman Cooler Quad starts at 18.75in, higher than the Freestyle, and still leaves you at 13.5in.

A tall seat doesn’t get you a tall backrest

This is the trade-off nobody mentions. Every chair I own with a backrest tall enough to rest your head on sits low to the ground instead.

Backrest height is measured from the seat up to the top of the fabric, and I’m 5’3.

• My cut-off: I needed about 26in of backrest before I could lean back and rest my head on it.
• None of the five gets there. The YETI comes closest at 24.0in, and only because I can scoot down.

• The shortest here is the Freestyle at 18.0in, which covers about 75% of my back.
• The trade-off: the tall backrests I own all belong to low chairs. The ENO Lounger has 31.0in of backrest and sits at 9.5in, and the NEMO Stargaze has 30.0in and sits at 10.3in.

The tradeoff: every tall chair I own is a heavy one

Sitting high needs a bigger frame, and a bigger frame weighs more. All five of these land in the heaviest half of my collection.

Weight includes the carry bag, where the chair comes with one.

• The range: 9.7 to 14.7lbs, against 2.8 to 4.0lbs for the lightweight chairs I own.
• Only two of my chairs come with backpack straps, and they’re the two heaviest ones on this page. That’s the only reason I don’t mind carrying them.

• Packed length is the bigger problem: the Kijaro is 46.0in long and the YETI is 43.0in, so do check they’ll fit in your car.

Getting in and out is the whole point

This is the reason to buy one. The lower a chair sits, the more work it takes to get back out of it, and that gets old quickly if you have bad knees.

• My rule from all the testing: if you have trouble getting out of low seats, I’d avoid anything that sits at 11in or lower.
• Every chair here clears that comfortably, at 15.0in or higher.
• You can also eat comfortably at a camp table in these, which I can’t do in most of my other chairs.

• Where the average chair sits: most of mine come in at around 11in, which is about 4 inches lower.

So is a tall camping chair worth it?

It comes down to your knees and to where you’re sitting. Here’s what I’d say for and against, after 5 months with all five of them.

• Worth it if: you have bad knees, because getting out of a chair with an 11in seat height is a lot harder than getting out of one at 15in.
• Worth it if: you eat at a camp table, since none of these leave you reaching up for your plate.
• Not for you if: you want to rest your head, because the tallest backrest here is 24.0in and I need about 26in.
• Not for you if: you’re carrying the chair any distance, because the lightest one here is 9.7lbs.
• Not for you if: you have a small car, because all five pack down over 34in long.