The Good: A compact, thoughtfully designed camp chair.

The Bad: Grandma might have trouble getting in and out of it.

The Not-So Ugly: Mesh back panels keep you cool while kicking back.

I appreciate good design more than the average person, and the Mayfly chair by Alite Designs has clearly been well thought out. The assembly is really intuitive, but just in case, there are cute little graphics on the stuff stack to get you going. Basically, the chair frame is a series of connected, collapsible aluminum poles, exactly like a tent. This is definitely not in the instructions, but if you wave around the poles enough, they snap into place themselves. Grab the fabric portion of the chair and slip the frame into the 4 corners, and voila! You’re ready to get relaxin’.

One of the selling points for the Mayfly is that you have two different leg style options. The first is a standard “all legs placed firmly on the ground” style, but you also have the option to leave off the front leg support and use this as a two-point-of-contact seat… basically, a one-person teeter-totter. I have to admit that the only argument I can see for this option would be to ditch the minimal ounces that extra front leg adds, because you can still get all that rocking action on by leaning back with the full leg system deployed.

I do want to point out that this chair is very low to the ground, which cuts out a lot of extra leg weight you would have to haul around, but it does pose a little bit of a challenge to get out of gracefully. Personally, I opt to throw grace to the wind and go for style points getting out of the chair. Barrel roll? Check. Somersault? Check. Let’s be honest here - after a long hike, you really don’t want to be getting out of your chair anytime soon. Sit back and relax!

Written by Emily

Photos by Dan