Camping is an amusing way of diverting your attention from your daily routines to a relaxing and reinvigorating adventure. But, your intended rest and recreation might be ruined if you do not bring a suitable camping mattress for you. And because of this, it might even jeopardize your health due to sleep discomfort.

In line with that, there are many things to consider when choosing a camping mattress. Of course, that would highly depend on your preference and in the place where you would set you camping escapades. So, in this article, we listed five important things to bear in mind before you settle upon and immediately buy a mattress.

Large or small

Before you make a purchase order of a camping mattress, determine first the appropriate size you have to bring. When we talk about size, this is relative to the floor space of your tent, whether it can fit in your car, can you bring it with your backpack, and your body size as well.

If you happen to overlook this, anything could go wrong. You might sleep with some of your body parts laying on the ground. You may sleep outside your tent if it’s too big. Or the most unfavorable is you might not be able to bring it because it might be too heavy for your backpack.

Hot or Cold

Of course, you have to know if the mattress can hold against warm or cold temperatures. This is indicated as the R-value. For your information, R-value pertains to the mattress’s thermal resistance. Thus, R means resistance.

Remember, you are going on a camping trip, this means that the surrounding’s temperature is always fluctuating. Plus the fact that mattresses will be placed on the ground where it can absorb the heat or coldness that might affect your sleep condition. In other words, the best camping mattress is the one that can withstand high and low temperatures.

Lightweight or Heavyweight

More importantly, the type of matt is a key factor to base your choices. These types of mattresses have their strengths and weaknesses.

  • Air mattresses – these are lightweights, thick, and best in backpacking but prone to punctures.
  • Self-inflated mattresses – these are easy to inflate but slightly heavier than foam mattresses.
  • Foam mattresses – these are multipurpose and resilient against punctures but extremely stiff which makes it difficult to pack.
  • Air bed mattresses – these are really thick, tough, and hard to puncture but tremendously heavy compare to the former. Plus, it can be inflated with the use of motor air pumps alone.

Blow or Blow

Based on the types of mattresses, these require different ways of inflating or deflating. There are some that are self-inflated where you can just blow it by yourself like a balloon. In contrast, there are types that require either a manual or an electric air pump.

Easy or Hard

Finally, it follows that determining the type of mattress depends so much on what kind of camping activities will you engage yourself. It could range from simple backpacking or car camping up to as challenging as hiking or winter camping. Hence, each has its respective degree of difficulty, events, terrains, trails, and loops.

Conclusion

Fairly enough, it appears that choosing the appropriate camping mattress entails careful considerations of numerous factors. Each of them is very essential and should not be disregarded. Doing so may put you in a quandary whether to continue or not.

At the end of the day, we all wish our camping to be fun and exciting. So, the moment you decide to camp, make sure to bring the rightful mattress for you. After all, you won’t allow your mattress to be an additional load.