From folding beach chairs, canopy chairs, and all the way to beach chairs with footrest, there are so many types of beach chairs all promising to make your day out in the sun-kissed beach full of merry.
But which of the different types of beach chairs do you need to experience the unforgettable beach magic? And what does each of the many beach chairs cater for?
This article covers the various awesome beach chairs and our advice on the top rated beach chairs that always rises to the occasion:
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Need to buy a beach chair right away? Consider our hot list for different types of beach chairs below:
Different Types Of Beach Chairs
- Rio Beach Lace-Up Beach Chair – Best Folding Beach Chair
- Sport-Brella Recliner Chair – Best Canopy Beach Chair
- Tommy Bahama Backpack Chair – Best Backpack Chair
- Frankford Umbrella Wooden Beach Chair – Best Wooden Beach Chair
- Pacific Breeze Lounger – Best Beach Lounge Chair
- Kelsyus Kid’s Canopy Beach Chair– Best Beach Chair For Kids
- Tommy Bahama Beach Cooler Chair – Best Sand Beach Chair
- Quad Portable Camping Chair – Best Beach Chair For Elderly
- Beach Day Chaise Lounge Chair – Best Beach Chair With Wheels
What’s A Beach Chair?
A beach chair is a comfortable chair with a relaxing seat made of plastic, cloth, or other fabric back. This chair is used mostly at the beach, but also works for other outdoor activities.
The chair frames are commonly made of steel, wood, or aluminum.
Beach chairs today come in diverse styles to suit your different needs and make your time lounging in the backyard, sitting at the poolside, or sunbathing on the beach so much fun by offering a place to sit or lie as you enjoy the scenery and warm breeze.
Why Do You Need A Beach Chair?
The best beach chair helps you achieve your dream vacation by lifting your happiness in numerous ways!
- Boosts Comfort
Not many outdoor accessories will beat the most comfortable beach chair in delivering a pleasant feeling. The type that comes with an adjustable headrest, footrest, and reclines to multiple positions is especially so relaxing.
- Convenience
The best beach lounge chair often comes with plenty of handy pockets to hold all your outdoor odds and ends. Some have a small built-in cooler to put your beverages for your exciting beach outing.
Others will have water-resistant speakers, a functional USB phone charger, attachable table, and other features like a towel holder and make your life pretty easy out there.
- Easy To Transport
Unlike regular chairs, your ideal beach chair features an adjustable, backpack-like shoulder strap and is lightweight. It will also fold completely flat for easier transportation in your small car while traveling to your chosen destination.
That spontaneous trip with your friends to the campgrounds, beach, or a tailgate thus becomes less stressing.
Keep reading: Pros and cons of a beach chair
Other Reasons
- Support Special Conditions
Seniors and plus-sizes may struggle with sitting on the ground and getting back up easily. So having a chair can be very useful. Especially being able to choose between types of chairs for your comfort.
For example, users with painful arthritic knees will find an easy in easy out beach chair (built to be extra high) easier to use.
- Non-Rusting
The body of the best, long-lasting, worthwhile beach chairs is metallic, particularly aluminum, or coated so it doesn’t rust easily or erode by salt.
The leading types of beach chairs have materials that are mold resistant.
Here Are Different Types Of Beach Chairs On The Market.
There’s a beach chair for every one of your desires. Here are dominant styles:
1. Folding Beach Chair
The most comfortable folding beach chair folds up easily for transportation and storage. You just fold it up and toss the chair in the car and off, you head to the beach!
You can also pack it into an airplane or your suitcase!
Most folding chairs with cup holders like the Rio beach lace-up beach chair also conform to your body and are added with other useful extras such as cup holders.
Be careful to avoid the chairs that are difficult to fold or any that are too heavy to carry.
2.Canopy Beach Chair
This closely resembles a regular beach chair but it has a canopy that is attached to shade you from the harmful UV rays and give you a break from direct sunlight.
Canopy beach chairs also usually offer multiple adjustable positions and can be adjusted backward to expose your body fully to the sun.
These beach chairs help you read even without sunglasses. Also, a typical canopy beach chair has aluminum frames and lasts long.
Personally, I have used the reclining Sport-Brella recliner chair and found it great.
3. Beach Chairs With Umbrella
These have an umbrella that you can remove and/or attach in one move. They are similar to canopy beach chairs in that both provide protective shade though they have an advantage in that the removable shade umbrella can be used away from the chair.
These are all-season chairs because you get the shade when you want and can move the umbrella way when you’d rather not have anything over your head.
4. Backpack Beach Chairs
The backpack beach chair is carried like it sounds, a backpack. They have straps to make it convenient and easy to carry, keeping your hands free for anything else you want to bring to the beach.
This is arguably the most portable beach chair in the market.
From Tony Bahama, Rio Gear, and Ostrich, backpack beach chairs come in a variety of colors, constructions, and styles.
The best backpack beach chair will even have adjustable back straps to allow you to carry it comfortably.
5. Beach Lounge Chairs
Beach lounge chairs are intended for extraordinary comfort and relaxation. They are quite similar to folding beach chairs but are elongated to create more legroom, have headrests, and sometimes footrests and ensure the ultimate body resting position.
Here is a perfect example: Pacific Breeze Lounger.
Their multiple angled recline positions plus extra cushioning means anyone with back issues can immensely benefit from these chairs.
Some, have an open/close face cavity with a pillow and arm slots. You can actually use it as a massage table, personal tanning bed, reading chair or just succumb to the immense comfort.
6. Beach Chairs For Kids
Designed to accommodate kids smaller bodies, this category of chairs helps your youngster enjoy the best the beach has to offer.
The best toddler beach chair is constructed with durable materials such as aluminum frames and sturdy, easy-to-wash polyester fabric.
Their bright colors and kid’s friendly design mark them out from the crowd in addition to appealing to kids’ playfulness.
My partner bought Kelsyus Kid’s Canopy Beach Chair for our 3-year-old daughter a couple of months back and she looks right at home in it.
But if you want canopy-less models, the Melissa & Doug Butterfly themed Camping Chair can be a good bet.
7. Low To The Ground Beach Chairs
These are low-ground chairs and stylish but with a super simple design. They allow different folding positions and can take an almost horizontal position.
Then, a few including the famous Tommy Bahama Beach Cooler Chair are made of high-grade lightweight material that can carry up to 300lbs person.
They work fine with kids and adults but are not very suited to seniors and beachgoers with leg issues because of their low ground clearance.
These seats are also a huge attraction to kids because of their brilliant color selection.
8. Wood Beach Chairs
A wood beach chair has a hardwood frame and is another group of chairs known for comfort and elegance.
The best wooden chairs have also all the usual desirable features of aluminum and steel like cup holders and can fit other outdoor events such as concerts, BBQs, and picnics.
You can even customize your wooden chair by engraving it.
As with the rest, you can get some beautiful Ashwood or Oakwood frame wooden beach chairs on Amazon at very decent prices.
9. Best Beach Chairs For Elderly
Elderly beach chairs tend to be elevated more off the ground with a goal to make them easier for seniors to sit down/get up.
They often offer some form of back support to relieve elders with back issues and are adjustable to allow the user to change sitting positions from time to time.
To get an idea on these senior citizen community favorites, check the Coleman’s quad portable camping/beach chair.
10. High Seat Beach Chairs
These high off the ground chairs sit at least 12 inches off the ground and allow for easier access. As previously mentioned, seniors and people with knee problems find raised chairs pleasurable.
There are some which sit up to 20-inches from the ground, through most users are comfortable within the 12-20 inches range where you can find seats such as the Beachmall’s Heavy duty high seat chair.
11. Padded Beach Chair
In this beach chair, you get more cushioning on the seat and in the back making it one of the most comfortable.
We recommend it for those who sit, perhaps reading, for long hours.
I like the cushioned Kozyard Cozya beach chair a lot and find it a great fit whenever I go out. You can check the chair here.
12. Hammock Beach Chair
A hammock beach chair is not a 100% chair but rather specially built to enhance the sweet rocking/hammocking experience.
They deliver the rocking comfort of a hammock plus the portability of beach chairs.
A hammock beach chair may typically come with a pillow, cup/phone holder, an adjustable reflexology, and works even indoors.
13. Heavy Duty Beach Chairs
The difference between heavy duty chairs and regular beach chairs is in the sitting room and weight capacity.
The former has more space and is reinforced with higher quality materials to carry and withstand the pressure resulting from being used by overweight people.
Rio gear has made a very good plus-size beach chair in the Big Boy backpack chair (300 lbs. capacity).
You can also have a look at this 500lbs capacity beach chair for comparison purposes.
14. Beach Chairs With Wheels
Some beach chairs come with wheels to prevent them from sinking in the sand. Moving them is also easy by pulling them on their wheels.
The best models actually come with durable upholstery plus soft headrests and guarantee hours of restful lounging. A wheeled beach chair also allows you to adjust the lying position to deliver maximum fun.
The market leaders, such as the Beach Day Chaise Lounge Chair which can be folded to save on storage space when not in use.
15. Beach Chairs With Cup Holders
A big number of the contemporary beach chairs have pouches, mostly on the sides that you can use to store your favorite drinks.
A nice example is the Kelsyus original canopy beach chair which also features a breathable mesh seat and a sturdy powder-coated steel frame.
It’s very common to find more pockets to hold sunglasses, suns cream, and your other essentials in these chairs.
16. Beach Chairs With Footrest
Among other great features, this beach chair has a footrest to rest your feet instead of on the hot sand.
In addition to improving circulation, footrests in beach chairs elevate your feet’s comfort and are a desirable quality in modern-day chairs.
Consider the Ostrich 3 N 1 Beach Chair when looking at beach chairs with a footrest.
Here Are Some Factors To Consider When Shopping For The Best Tyes of Beach Chairs
So, what converts an average beach chair to a great? The secret is the features.
Here are the must-have qualities and other things to consider when choosing a beach chair
- Comfort You want severe joy and relaxation. After all, the beach is all about fun! Look for recliner chairs, pillow headrests, or footrests
- Can It Be Adjusted? You need a beach chair that you can customize to the most relaxed position.
- Rust Resistance You need one of the beach chairs that can weather the storm of being left outdoors and the salty water.
- The Height Question This is personal. How high do you desire to be off the ground?
- Can You Carry It Along The Sandy Beach? You will often be on the move with your stuff and you need you it easy!
- The Question of the Extras Decide if you need a cup holder or cooler attached to the the chair
- Shade or No Shade? Having shade added onto the chair in a canopy or umbrella means you have less to carry and don’t have to look for a shady spot
- The Question of Durability Make sure to get a chair that won’t break or mold on you immediately after purchasing
Wrapping It Up On Types Of Beach Chairs
There you have them, the various types of beach chairs plus how to pick the best of them all.
So, it should be you, the sun, the crazy waves, and the tender sand, and your best beach chair having the time of your lifetime.
Your picnics, outdoor concerts, sporting events, or time in the backyard will also never be the same!