The Outdoor Adventure Giving you tips, tricks & recommendations to help make adventuring in the Outdoors fun, safe & exciting for you and your kids.
Looking for something to sit on on your backpacking trips, but short on space? I was. A Chilean company called Doite, which makes a wide variety of backpacking and outdoors gear has come out with their adventure chair, a highly portable seat that comes in its own case. It’s called the “Piso Adventure” or Adventure Stool.
Here’s a short list of features and details:
- · Set-up stool size: 29 x 15 x 29cm
- · packed stool size: 22.5 x 18* cm x 3cm (*18cm at the widest point 10.5 cm at thinnest)
- · Weight with case: 25.3 oz / 1.586 lbs / 0.72 Kg
- · Weight without case 23.15 oz / 1.448 lbs / .66 Kg
- · Good for up to 80 kilos (176 lbs)
Obviously this thing would be considered to be more of a luxury item, but for anyone that wants to be a bit more comfortable and off the ground on your day/weekend trips you might want to consider this cool little product.
What I like about it
Size and weight
I love how small this thing is. I started backpacking with my daughter (5) recently and I wanted to take some chairs with us (we were planning on doing some fishing, plus there wasn’t a lot of deadfalls around). I ended up strapping them to the outside of an already heavy pack and it wasn’t any fun. On the other hand, I took two of these Doite chairs on a day hike with my son (3) and daughter (5) and it took me a bit of time to find them in the pack they were so small.
Realizing that any stool/chair is a luxury and adds weight, these don’t do too badly at 1.5 lbs. Especially when they are advertised as weighing 1.9 lbs (0.9 kg).
Comfort and sturdiness
Doite got the collapsible frame done right. Despite being so compact (enough to fit in a backpack pocket) it is sturdy and durable. The frame is reinforced by a strap on each side and a metal hook lock on the bottom (with 4 different settings). Although the stool is rated for 176 lbs, I come in right around that range and feels like it could handle another 20 lbs without any trouble.
Complaints
It’s a bit short. I foot tall is a bit small for me. It does fine and it’s comfortable but they could have added another few inches (without affecting the size too much.)The packing case is made of the same material as the seat and is in my opinion unnecessarily heavy. The medium duty zipper on the case doesn’t extend to the ends of the side of the case and that makes it a bit of work to get it out.
All in all though, I’m happy with the chair despite a couple of improvements:I would probably replace the bottom metal lock system with some strapping to save a bit more weight. It uses steel for the frame which is heavy, but I don’t know if you could save any weight on them without compromising integrity.
The final downer is that you’ll have to ask a friend to pick one up for you next time they’re in South America. I haven’t found them available in North America.
Final Thoughts
If you’re someone who wants a little bit of luxury, but can’t afford a lot of pack space, consider this “Piso Adventure” (Spanish for adventure stool). Impress your friends at the fireside and keep yourself higher and dryer.
Take a look at the website for this and other DOITE gear.
Doite Piso Adventure
Doite English site
