When you’re going camping and you’re planning on having a short hike-in (say, less than one mile), you need to take the size and weight of your camping chair into account. The last thing you want to do is pack too much stuff and have a miserable time getting to your campsite. If you’re in good shape, are familiar with the area you’re going to be hiking through, and know exactly where you’ll be camping, then you could go with one of the car camping chairs. They’re not light but they’re not super heavy either, so it’s conceivable that you could pack it out to your campsite with out too much trouble.

Most of us, however, are going to be OK with sacrificing a bit of comfort for a smaller, more manageable folding camping chair. Instead of going for one of the larger chairs I mentioned for car camping, you’re going to want to go with a smaller, more lightweight camping chair to make your hike-in more enjoyable. Something like this one below, which is lighter and smaller than the car camping chairs.

Another option, if you need to go even smaller, would be something like this folding camp chair below. These types of chairs are incredibly light, fairly comfortable and will even pull double duty as a stadium seat. The drawback to them is that they sit directly on the ground, which can be uncomfortable if the ground is wet or rocky.

The last type of camping to think about is when you have a significant hike-in of greater than one mile. In these types of situations, the size and weight of your chair becomes increasingly important. Depending on the length of your hike, the weather, and the terrain you’ll be covering, you’ll probably want to go smaller and smaller when it comes to your camping chair.

The best seating option for long hike-ins is something like the camping chair below; actually more of a camping stool. The biggest drawback to camping stools is that they don’t have a back, so you can’t relax as totally as you can in a heavy duty camping chair, but they are super light, very small, and very easy to put in your pack for the hike to your campsite.