Today I wanted to talk about items that brings me joy—my beach set-up! I prefer to spend a lot of my free time during summers on the beach, and I am proud to say that I finally feel like our beach set-up is now (almost) ideal for us! Call me crazy, but we splurged on two different beach set-ups, one for days when we don’t have to walk far and don’t have a lot to carry, and one for days when we are walking far distances and have a lot to carry.
My favorite beach set-up when we don’t have far to walk:
The BEST beach chairs:
My siblings gave me a beach umbrella for my birthday from Business & Pleasure that I absolutely love. I love the color (pink stripes!), the frills at the bottom of the umbrella, the fact that you can angle it, the quality (the wood pole is thick!), and the fact that it’s UPF 50+. In fact, I love it so much that I bought matching pink stripe chairs to go with it! The chairs are backpack chairs, so they are easy to walk with, but they are a little heavy, so I haven’t tried to walk miles down the beach with them yet. They don’t have a drink holder, but the wooden armrests are so large that we rest our drinks on them. The quality is just so nice—whenever we use them, people come up and ask us where we bought them. The answer is Business & Pleasure!
The BEST beach blanket to match:
I bought the chairs and umbrella in pink stripe largely so that it would match this blanket that I love, love, love. I had this company called Coco & Wolf custom-make a patchwork Liberty of London picnic blanket for my sister years ago, and she loved it so much that she had them make a custom one for me… The company must have loved our blankets so much that they now have added picnic blankets (and the cutest baskets!) to their website! It looks like they aren’t doing patchwork blankets at the moment (though perhaps you could ask them if they would?) but the ones they are making are gorgeous. This one is probably my favorite right now, but they make a variety of colors, so scroll around. I love all of the colors in their blankets, and they put a waterproof bottom on the blanket so that you can stay dry on top of wet grass.
My favorite beach set-up when we DO have far to walk:
Great beach chairs:
We use Tommy Bahama backpack chairs and have since 2017. We like them because they are lightweight, hold drinks, and they come in fun happy colors. You can also pack a lot of items into the two back pockets (it fits your favorite beer for the beach in the insulated pocket, along with a sparkling water; the upper pocket fits my husband’s giant Hamilton book and our rackets for paddle ball). They haven’t held up SUPER well, however we have had them for 5+ years… Some of the seams in the back pockets are ripping. So they’re still useable, but it’s not ideal. Still, the price is right!
My husband and I tend to do a LOT of research on items before we buy them, and there is a company called Lido that JUST sells one chair, “the perfect beach chair”. We used these chairs thanks to LifeHouse hotel on Nantucket and loved them because they were lightweight, padded, with a wet clothes pocket and carabiner for keys… Perhaps these will be in our future soon… If we get them, I’ll let you know!
My favorite blanket to match:
We take this Kahuna parachute blanket almost everywhere we go. In fact we have two of them, and we leave one in the car. We like it because it’s really lightweight (not even 1 lb), it comes with anchors to keep it in the sand, it’s huge (96”x96”), and it keeps out the sand. It’s sold out on Amazon but there is a similar one that is even slightly bigger here: I use this blanket on the beach but also on hikes, in the woods, etc. It’s also really easy to wash via your washing machine.
I hope that you’re getting some great beach time this summer complete with a relaxing and comfortable set-up!!! xx
