Coleman Camping Chair With 4-Can Cooler Review: A Season of Car Camping in Texas

I bought our first Coleman chair with the 4-can cooler armrest in the spring of 2024, mostly because I was tired of watching drinks tip over in the dirt next to cheap folding chairs. Two and a half seasons later, I own three of them, one for me, one for my husband Wade, and one for our son Eli, and they have been to Garner, Pedernales Falls, the Guadalupe River, and one rainy week in the Colorado mountains. This is what a full season of Texas car camping does to a chair, and what the chair does to a season of Texas car camping.

The short version: the cooler armrest is not a gimmick, the cushioned seat is genuinely comfortable for a whole evening, and all three chairs still look almost new after being thrown loose in the back of our 2017 4Runner. The longer version involves a folded leg, a spilled can of sparkling water, and a 14-year-old who will now fight you for the good chair.

I am going to tell you the honest version up front, because that is how I test gear. The armrest does not keep drinks cold. The chair is heavy. The carry bag takes two tries. And I still would not trade any of them for the lighter chairs I have tried, because the things this chair does right are the things that matter on a real trip.

How I've Used It

We bought the first one in 2024 to replace a cheap folding chair that collapsed under Wade on a trip to Garner. The leg just folded sideways when he leaned back to reach for the firewood. Nobody got hurt, but it killed the evening, and I decided we were done with chairs that could do that.

Since then, the three chairs have been on every trip we've taken. That's roughly eight weekends at Texas state parks, a long weekend at Pedernales Falls, and our yearly week in the Colorado mountains. They ride loose in the back of the 4Runner, get rained on, sit in full summer sun, and get dragged across gravel. I have never once treated them gently.

For the record, I'm 46 and not small. Wade is bigger. Eli is 14 and uses his chair like a piece of playground equipment. All three chairs have survived all three of us, which is the durability test that matters. There is also the question of what a chair needs to do at our campsite. We set up a base camp at Garner and spend the day hiking, then come back and sit. The chairs get used hard for two hours in the morning and four hours at night, and then they sit in the sun. That pattern, heavy use in bursts, is exactly what this chair is built for. The best test was a slow sunset at Garner when nobody moved for an hour, because the chairs were comfortable enough to just sit in and watch.

What the Cooler Armrest Actually Does

The armrest on the right side holds four standard 12-ounce cans. The zip pocket on the left side holds my phone, keys, and a small headlamp. The cup holder in the left armrest is deep enough that a gust of wind at Pedernales did not tip my coffee over.

I tested the armrest the way I test everything, by leaving it loaded in the sun for six hours at Garner in July. The cans inside were warm by the time we opened them. That is the honest version. It is not a cooler in the YETI sense. It is a holder that keeps cans off the ground, out of the dirt, and within reach, and it does that part perfectly.

What it does better than I expected: it stops drinks from getting kicked. At a campsite with three people and gear scattered around, cans on the ground get stepped on. Cans in the armrest do not. That sounds like a small thing until you have watched a full can of sparkling water roll under the table.

One note: the armrest holds four cans, not four bottles, and not big insulated tumblers. The cup holder fits a standard bottle but not a 30-ounce tumbler. I use the cup holder for coffee in the morning and the armrest for cans in the evening, and that division has worked out well. If you are still deciding whether a cooler armrest is worth it at all, I went through every reason it earns its place in a separate roundup. The short version is that it comes down to one thing: drinks stay where you put them.

The Cushioned Seat and Back After Two Seasons

The seat cushion is about an inch of padded fabric, and the back gets the same treatment. After two seasons, the cushions show no flattening. I sat in one of these for four straight hours around a fire at the Guadalupe River and got up without the sore tailbone I get from most camp chairs.

The frame is steel, which means it is heavier than the aluminum chairs everyone sells now. I do not care. For car camping, weight lives in the back of the 4Runner, not on my shoulders. What matters to me is that the frame does not flex when I lean forward to grab another piece of wood.

Eli's chair gets the worst of it, because he is 14 and sits in it like a raccoon that just got into camp. He leans way back, tips it onto two legs, and uses the armrest as a footrest. The chair is still square. That is the test that matters.

One more thing about the seat: it sits at a good height. The seat is high enough that I can get out of it without bracing my hands on my knees, which is not true of the low-slung chairs that are so popular now. For Wade, who is taller and has a bad knee, that matters more than any other feature on the chair.

How It Handles Texas Weather

We camp in Texas summer. That means 100-degree days, sudden thunderstorms, and red dirt that gets into everything. The chair fabric is a tight weave that sheds rain well enough. After a storm at Pedernales, the seats dried within the hour once the sun came back.

The steel frame has a coating that has not rusted, even though the chairs have sat out overnight in dew more times than I can count. The zippers on the cooler pouch and the side pocket still run smooth. The carry bag is the weakest part, honestly. The strap is thin, and the bag fits snug, so getting the chair back in takes a few tries. Most trips I do not bother with the bag at all.

The one thing that shows wear: the fabric on the armrest where my elbow rests. It is not ripped, just slightly fuzzy after two seasons of elbows. That seems fair.

The other Texas test is wind. We have camped at Pedernales when the gusts were strong enough to fold a cheap canopy. The chairs stayed put. They are not heavy enough to anchor a tent, but they did not blow across the campsite, and the cup holder kept my coffee from becoming a projectile. That is more than I can say for the low aluminum chairs we used to bring.

Packing and Carrying

The chair folds into a flat rectangle about the size of a small suitcase, and it stands on its own when folded. That sounds minor, but at the end of a long day, a chair that stands up while you wrestle the bag is a chair you will actually put away.

It is not a backpacking chair. It is not even a compact chair. It is a car camping chair, and it does that job better than anything else I have owned in 15 years of camping. If you are carrying it more than 50 feet, you are using the wrong chair.

Packing the car is a whole ritual in our house. Wade packs the tent, Eli packs his own bag, and I pack everything else. Three of these chairs stack flat against the side of the cargo area in the 4Runner, and they take up less space than the old folding chairs did because they fold flat instead of into a bundle.

I will also say this: the carry bag has a shoulder strap, even though it is thin, and the chair fits back in the bag more easily if you fold it the way the picture shows. The first few times I fought it. Now it takes about thirty seconds. Like most gear, the learning curve is short and the payoff is long.

Alternatives I Considered

I compared this against the Coleman Quad Chair with Lumbar Support, which has a higher back and a more upright seat. That one is the better pick if you want to sit at a camp table or you need more lower-back support. I chose the 4-can cooler model because the armrest is the feature my family actually uses on every single trip.

I have also sat in plenty of lightweight aluminum chairs over the years. They pack smaller and carry easier, but they sit lower to the ground and the armrests are thin bars. For sitting around a fire for three hours, the Coleman is more comfortable. If you want the full breakdown of how the two Coleman chairs compare, I wrote that out separately.

I should also mention the chairs with the tall backs and the footrests, the ones that look like recliners. They are more comfortable for a long afternoon, but they are enormous, and they do not fit three across in the back of a 4Runner with the rest of the gear. For our setup, the Coleman hits the sweet spot between comfort and packability.

The honest way to decide is to ask what the chair is for. If it is for sitting at a picnic table, get the quad chair with lumbar support. If it is for carrying a mile down a trail, get something that weighs two pounds. If it is for the evening around the fire at a state park, which is what we do, the 4-can cooler model is the one I keep choosing.

The armrest cooler is not a cooler. It is a holder that keeps cans off the ground, out of the dirt, and within reach, and that is exactly what I needed.

Who This Is For

If you car camp a few times a year, drive right up to the site, and want a chair that sets up fast and stays comfortable through a long evening, this is for you. It is for families, tailgaters, and anyone who has ever watched a drink tip into the dirt. If the chair just needs to show up and work, this is the one.

If you are shopping for a first camp chair, or replacing the one that finally gave up, this is a safe place to start. It does not have the most features, and it is not the lightest, but it does everything a camp chair needs to do, and it does it without drama. That is worth a lot after a long day.

Who Should Skip It

If you backpack, hike to your campsite, or count every pound in your pack, skip it. If you need a chair that packs down to the size of a water bottle, this is not that chair. And if you want an armrest that keeps drinks actually cold through a July afternoon, it will not do that. Buy a proper cooler and a lighter chair.

One more group: if you already own a chair you are happy with, do not buy this one just because it has a cooler armrest. The armrest is convenient, but it is not life-changing. I am not going to tell you this is the only chair worth owning, because it is not. It is just the right chair for how we camp.