Field Note 007 — Kijaro Dual Lock Chair
Twelve Years, Four Chairs, and One Very Slow Death
Around 2014, I was putting together what I thought of as my first permanent camping kit. Not permanent in the sense that it would never change, but a collection of gear that had a purpose, worked together, and could stay ready to go. I had reached the point where I needed chairs.
So I did what I tend to do when I need something that I expect to own for a while: I researched the hell out of it.
The Kijaro Dual Lock kept coming up. The reviews were good, there were plenty of colors to choose from, and the price was reasonable. I eventually found them even cheaper at Dick’s Sporting Goods—or Chick’s, depending on exactly when this happened—and went to try one in person.
The locking mechanism was what sold me.
Most inexpensive folding camp chairs have a familiar feel. You open them, sit down, and the whole thing settles underneath you. The fabric sags, the frame shifts a little, and you are always very aware that you are sitting in a folding chair.
The Kijaro was different. Open it completely, lock the frame into position, and everything becomes surprisingly solid. It doesn’t sag or slowly creep inward underneath you. The seat stays open and the frame feels planted. It was comfortable, sturdy, reasonably priced, and uncomplicated.
I bought two.
Red and Gray.
More than a decade later, I have bought two more.
That probably tells you where this review is going.
A Lot of Miles for a Folding Chair
Those first two chairs became part of the camping kit and followed me pretty much everywhere the rest of it went. Mountains, lakes, deserts, the occasional beach, random roadside campsites—they were just there.
That is probably the highest compliment I can give basic camping equipment. Eventually you stop thinking about it.
You arrive, pull the chairs out, open them, lock them, and sit down.
The Dual Lock mechanism is still the defining feature for me. There is a button on the frame that locks the chair fully open, and it also locks the chair closed for carrying and storage. The first time you encounter it, there may be a brief moment of wondering why the chair won’t close like every other folding chair you have used. Once you understand what the button does, that learning curve is over.
More importantly, locking the frame open gives the chair the rigidity that originally caught my attention in the store. After years of sitting in other people’s chairs around campsites, I still notice the difference.
The rest of the chair is fairly straightforward. There is a cup holder in each arm. They hold cups. They have successfully completed this difficult assignment for more than a decade.
The more interesting addition is a small organizer hanging from the side. It has two mesh pockets and a zippered compartment. A phone fits nicely in there, which keeps it safely off the ground and, perhaps more importantly, gets it out of your hands for a while.
The zipper pocket is good for whatever little things you accumulate around camp.
Mine spent years slowly filling with brass.
Old Red
Eventually, Red and Gray stopped aging at the same rate.
After I bought my current house, Old Red started seeing regular duty outside. She spent a lot of time on the deck around the fireplace, and over roughly a year and a half the constant exposure began to show. The color faded substantially, and the sun was clearly doing more than cosmetic damage. UV is brutal on fabric, and leaving a camp chair outside indefinitely is not what I would recommend if you are interested in conducting your own twelve-year durability test.
The end finally came at the desert property.
I was sitting in Old Red when I felt the seat underneath me begin to rip.
There are moments in life when you know exactly what is happening and have enough time to make a responsible decision.
I decided not to get up.
The chair had been with me for years. The fabric was going. There was no saving it. So I stayed where I was and decided we would see this thing through together.
It took about twenty minutes.
The bottom slowly continued tearing until eventually there was no longer enough chair underneath me to qualify as a seat. My butt hit the ground, my knees came up toward my chest, and Old Red's run was officially over.
It was a ridiculous ending, but after everything that chair had been through, at least I was there for it.
Gray Is the More Interesting Story
Old Red demonstrated what years of use followed by prolonged outdoor exposure can eventually do to one of these chairs.
Old Gray demonstrates something else.
Gray was bought at the same time, went on the same trips, and accumulated more than a decade of regular use, but she was never subjected to the same prolonged UV exposure. The difference today is remarkable.
From ten feet away, I am not sure most people would immediately identify Gray as the old chair.
Get closer and the years become visible. There are scratches and scuffs. Some discoloration has developed around the ends of the armrests. There is a little fraying here and there. The most obvious aging is actually in the hardware: pivot points, nuts, bolts and rivets have developed surface rust.
But the chair itself?
Still good.
The fabric is intact. The frame works. The locking mechanism works. She opens, locks into place, and remains a perfectly usable camp chair after more than a decade of heavy use.
That distinction matters because it would be easy to look at what happened to Red and conclude that the chair eventually failed. It did—but only after I spent roughly a year and a half leaving it outside and watching the sun destroy it.
Gray is the better representation of what normal ownership has looked like.
So I Bought Another One
When Red finally died, I needed a replacement.
By then I had spent years around other people's camping gear. I had seen plenty of cheap folding chairs, and I had also watched camp chairs become increasingly elaborate and expensive. Rockers, complicated frames, extra mechanisms, oversized designs—there are now plenty of ways to spend considerably more money on a place to put your ass.
I couldn't find a reason that I needed any of them.
Nothing I had encountered solved a problem I was having with the Kijaro. Some were cheaper. Some were considerably more expensive. Some added features that also added bulk and weight. None made me look at the chair I had been using for years and think, I need that instead.
So I went back to Kijaro.
To my surprise, the basic Dual Lock chair had not changed much. Neither had the price.
New Red joined the camping kit.
Not long afterward, Blue arrived as a Christmas present from a family member who knew about the demise of Old Red and apparently understood that the appropriate response was simply to replace her with another Kijaro.
That brought the lifetime total to four.
Size, Weight, and Carrying It Around
The Dual Lock is a full-sized adult camp chair. Unless you are exceptionally tall or need substantially more room than an ordinary camp chair provides, I have a hard time imagining most adults having trouble fitting comfortably in one.
That size does have consequences.
Folded, the Kijaro is a little longer and a little bulkier than the cheapest basic folding chairs. It is also slightly heavier, although the weight has never been significant enough for me to care during normal use.
The extra length actually provides one small carrying advantage. With the chair in its bag, I can put the shoulder strap over my head and wear it diagonally across my body rather than hanging it vertically from one shoulder. If I am walking farther than the distance between the truck and the fire ring, that is considerably more comfortable than keeping one arm raised to hold a strap in place.
Still, let's establish what this chair is not.
This is not a backpacking chair.
Truck to campsite? Absolutely. Down to the lake? Sure. A short walk to somewhere interesting? No problem.
Several miles into the backcountry?
Bring something else.
Twelve Years of Wear
There has been remarkably little mechanically wrong with these chairs.
After somewhere around half a decade of use, one Nylock nut near a foot managed to work itself loose. I found it, threaded it back on, and continued using the chair.
That's about it.
It is worth occasionally looking over the hardware, particularly as the chair accumulates years of use. Folding furniture has a lot of pivot points and fasteners by necessity. A ten-second inspection every once in a while is hardly an unreasonable maintenance requirement.
The current condition of Old Gray says considerably more to me than a list of specifications ever could.
She isn't pristine. I wouldn't want her to be. Every scratch, faded spot and rusty pivot represents years of being thrown into vehicles, unfolded on dirt, moved around camp, packed away and dragged back out somewhere else.
But nothing about her suggests she is finished.
Old Versus New
Putting Gray beside one of the newer chairs makes the durability easier to appreciate.
Up close, you can absolutely tell which one has spent more than a decade going camping. The newer fabric is cleaner, the hardware is fresh, and the little accumulated marks of years of use simply aren't there yet.
What surprises me is how small the functional difference is.
The fundamental design is still the same. The newer chair locks open with the same solid feel that originally convinced me to buy the first pair. Gray still does it too.
There has been no dramatic redesign required to keep me interested in the product. Kijaro had a fairly simple idea: take the familiar folding camp chair and give the frame a way to lock solidly into position.
It worked.
What I Don't Like
There isn't much, but there are tradeoffs.
The Kijaro is larger than necessary for children, and I wouldn't buy one specifically as a kid's chair. It takes up a little more room in the vehicle than the most basic folding chair, and anyone trying to minimize packed size or weight has better options.
The locking mechanism can also be slightly unintuitive the first time you use it. That inconvenience lasts approximately until someone shows you the button.
And after enough years, keep an eye on the hardware. I had one nut loosen. It was an easy fix, but it happened.
Beyond that, most of my criticisms are simply consequences of what the chair is. The size and slightly greater weight are part of getting a full-sized chair with a frame that feels substantially more rigid once locked.
For the way I camp, that is a trade I will make.
The Verdict
I could tell you that the Kijaro Dual Lock is comfortable. It is.
I could tell you the locking frame makes it noticeably sturdier than the ordinary folding chairs I have used. It does.
I could tell you that the organizer is useful, the cup holders work, the carrying bag is easy enough to deal with, and the chair has proven itself across mountains, deserts, lakes, beaches and campsites for more than a decade.
All of that is true.
But the easiest way to review this chair is to look at what happened when one finally died.
I didn't go looking for an upgrade.
I didn't decide that twelve years of new camp-chair designs had made mine obsolete. I didn't convince myself that I needed a rocker, a more complicated frame, or some expensive new solution to the ancient problem of wanting to sit down.
I bought another Kijaro.
And more than twelve years after buying the original pair, Old Gray is still here too.
Sometimes the best piece of gear isn't the one that gives you something new to think about. It's the one that quietly earns a permanent place in the kit until you eventually stop thinking about it at all.
That's what these chairs did.
Buy less. Go more.
— Dane Justus
Founder, Weekend Route