Camping Mattresses

The MegaMat is the reference car-camping mattress, and the reason is its foam: vertically laminated rather than a simple slab, so four inches of loft stays supportive under a hip instead of compressing to nothing. R-value 8.1 is warmer than any air pad here except Exped's own 8R, and Exped rates it to about -40 °F. It weighs four and a half pounds and rolls to the size of a sleeping bag, and once inflated it gets made up with a fitted sheet and forgotten about.

Best for: Car camping, van sleeping and cold basecamps

R-value 7.7 and four inches of foam, with a stretch-knit face that takes a fitted sheet. This is the warmest camping mattress in the catalogue and the closest thing here to sleeping at home. The Air Frame construction puts a stabilising structure inside the foam, which is what stops a four-inch pad from feeling like a waterbed, and the 52-inch Double version genuinely fits two adults without the usual valley down the middle.

Best for: Car camping and van sleeping in cold weather

Four and a quarter inches of self-inflating foam, 25 inches wide, R-value 7. This is the pad that ends the argument about whether car camping has to be uncomfortable. It weighs four and a half pounds and rolls up to the size of a small duffel, so it never goes in a backpack, but nothing you can carry sleeps like it. The R-value is high enough for winter truck camping and cold cabin floors, and the stretch-knit top takes a fitted sheet.

Best for: Car camping and truck-bed sleeping in any season

The MondoKing's cheaper, thinner sibling, and the better buy for most campers. Three inches instead of four and a quarter, R-value 6 instead of 7, about a pound lighter and $40 cheaper in the comparable size. The trick in the name is that the foam is die-cut in different densities along the pad — firmer under the hips, softer under the shoulders — which is why it feels better than three inches has any right to.

Best for: Campground and basecamp sleeping without the MondoKing's bulk

R-value 5.3 for $99 is the best warmth-per-dollar figure in this catalogue by a wide margin — the nearest air pad with that rating costs more than twice as much. The catch is 37 ounces and a packed size you would not put in a backpack. Sea to Summit varies the foam density along the pad so the insulation sits where the body is and the weight comes out where it isn't, which is why this is thinner and lighter than most self-inflating pads at this R-value.

Best for: Campground sleeping and anyone who wants warmth without spending

A foam topper bonded over I-beam air chambers, which is a genuinely good idea: the foam takes the pressure points and the air takes the load. It is comfortable in a way that pure air pads are not. The thing to read carefully is the R-value — 2.4 is a summer number on a pad that looks and feels like a winter mattress, because the foam layer is comfort foam, not insulation. On a 40-degree campground night this will feel colder than its four inches of plush suggest.

Best for: Warm-weather car camping where comfort beats warmth