The Best Puffer Jackets to Survive the Cold

It's –25 degrees Fahrenheit outside and the wind is howling. If that sounds unpleasant to you, a down puffer jacket would make it much less so. Cold should never stop you from getting outside. You need the secret to staying warm in the winter: the right clothes.

The puffer jacket offers the best warmth-to-weight ratio of any piece of cold-weather clothing you can own. More times than not, a good puffer is the difference between comfort and misery. To save you from that misery, we've spent years testing down parkas of all shapes, sizes, and down fill powers to find the best jackets to keep you toasty warm around town, out on the trail, and in the serious, dangerous cold of high-altitude and high-latitude adventures. And fear not, we've included a few synthetic-fill jackets for those who don't want to use down.

Once you've got ...