The 5 Best Sleds of 2025

Top pick

Our 12 kid testers unanimously chose this snow tube as the best sled. It travels farther and faster than any other sled, and the pull strap makes it easy to haul back to the top of the hill.

Over the past six years of sled testing, nearly every person who has tried the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube has hailed it as the best sled on the hill. Compared with the rest, it offers the fastest and smoothest ride, and it consistently slides way farther than almost all of the competition. Thanks to the tube’s easy-to-grasp tow strap, even our 5-year-old tester could haul it back to the top of the hill. The Sonic Snow Tube was easy to inflate and just as good on icy snow as on fluffy powder, and it hasn’t lost any air over time. The one real hitch is its high price. But given the enthusiastic praise from our testers and the overall quality of how it’s put together — not to mention the hours and hours of fun we’ve had with it — the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube is worth the investment for people who are going to be sledding regularly and want a sled that will last for many years.

The L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube consists of four primary parts: the inner tube, the hard-shell bottom, the cover, and the tow rope. The hard shell bottom, something found on other quality tubes, allows the snow tube to glide over contours on the sledding hill, which we especially noticed in colder weather when the hill iced up and got bumpy. The hard bottom reduces drag, and the result is a faster ride that travels farther. It also offers a lot more knee and butt protection for smaller riders, who tend to sit in the center of the tube rather than on top of it. Other tubes, even the similarly priced Bradley Snow Tube, have soft, pliable bottoms that conform to the hillside, creating resistance. Seated in those, our little testers could feel every small ridge and bump they went over.

The inner tube of the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube is durable and looks as if it came off a big tractor. It has a traditional tire valve, so it inflates easily with a bike pump or an air compressor (just like a car tire) and stays filled between sledding sessions. (If anything were to happen to the inner tube, you can try a patch kit, have it repaired at a tire store, or buy a replacement from L.L.Bean.) In contrast, the cheaper tubes we tested have beach-toy-like valves that inflate either by electric pump or by mouth, and they need to be topped off before each sledding session. We’ve had a number of these cheap valves pop open during one of our runs.

Aside from holding air in nicely, the L.L.Bean inner tube makes for a cushy ride. Every rider noticed this effect, but especially the 10-year-olds, who got into the habit of leaping onto the tube as it was speeding by with another rider inside.

The cover of the Sonic Snow Tube is simple and adds a little texture, and we like that it has strap handles, which are easy to grab and hold but sit flat against the cover if you’re not using them. Some sleds have hard plastic handles that stick up and can dig into your side if someone — say, a 10-year-old — decides to jump on top of you in the middle of a run.

In addition to the handles, the Sonic Snow Tube has a pull strap, which is an essential accessory on any bulky snow tube. The strap is a little over 3 feet long and ends in an easy-to-grab loop handle that even our littlest testers were comfortable using to pull the tube to the top of the hill. Most less-expensive tubes don’t have a strap, and some of our kid testers really struggled getting those models to the top of the hill, especially when it was windy and the tubes kept trying to fly away from them.

We’re now entering our seventh winter with the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube, and it shows almost no signs of deterioration or wear. The bottom has become slightly scratched, but as far as we can tell, it hasn’t slowed the sled down. From what we’ve experienced, we expect that it will last many more years. For summer storage, we just deflate the inner tube and tuck it above the garage.

L.L.Bean has a one-year return policy if you’re not fully satisfied with the sled. After that, it looks like they’re open to returns, but only on a case-by-case basis and if the problem stems from defective materials or craftsmanship.

We’ve been testing the regular-size L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube, which comfortably holds a medium-size adult with a small kid in their lap. Anyone over 6 feet tall would probably be happier with the extra-large version, which is also better for two kids.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

As great as the L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube is, it does have some drawbacks. The first is that, like any snow tube, it’s nearly impossible to steer or stop. This makes it potentially more dangerous. A 2010 study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, concluded that traumatic brain injuries were more likely to occur with snow tubes than with other sled types. Snow tubes can also spin, so it’s easy for a rider to get turned around and not see where they’re going. The same study stated, “the use of sledding products that may reduce visibility (such as snow tubes) should be discouraged.”

In our experience, if your legs are long enough, you might be able to strategically dig a heel into the snow to force a direction change, but because tubes can spin so much, that isn’t a reliable method. It’s also way too much to ask from a child. The L.L.Bean Sonic Snow Tube, like all snow tubes, is really best on an unobstructed hillside that empties out into a wide open area. If your sledding slope ends in a tree line or requires steering around a curve, we recommend a plastic toboggan instead. We also have information on helmets.

The Sonic Snow Tube is bulky, too, so if you have to drive to a sledding hill, it’ll take up a lot of room in the car. One solution is to partially deflate it and then fill it back up with a bike pump, but that’s added effort and time.

You should also consider the cost: The Sonic Snow Tube is among the most expensive sleds we’ve tried. But going by its performance, its long-term durability, the enthusiastic reactions of our test crew, as well as the customer feedback on L.L.Bean’s site, this tube is worth the price.