Sleeping Pads - 3 Types of Pads to Choose From
A good night's sleep is essential to an enjoyable camping experience. Do youself a favor and use a sleeping pad between your sleeping bag and the tent floor. Sleeping pads perform 2 important functions — first, they keep you comfortable when you're sleeping on hard, uneven ground. Second, they provide an important layer of insulation between you and the ground (to cut down on conductive heat loss).
3 Sleeping pads Options
1. Air mattress - great for tent camping in temperate weather.
2. Self-inflatable foam pad - more lightweight and decent cushioning if you get a quality pad.
3. Minimalist closed-cell foam pad - for the backpacker. Very light, 1 pound or less. But firm and stiff. Still, it's better than the cold hard ground.
Some of our readers' favorite sleeping pads:
Coleman 4-in-1 Quickbed
Therm-A-Rest® Trail Lite
Therm-a-Rest ProLite 4 Fast & Light Mattress
Related Articles:
Sleeping Bags - How to choose
Camping Tents - How to choose
Comments
Sleeping Pad - Defense of the Minimalist Foam Pad | Joy of Camping said (pingback):
[…] Sleeping Pads - 3 Types of Pads to Choose From […]
Dana Rose said:
Good read ! thanks for the info
allen said:
That looks comfortable !
Joe Figura said:
As a backpacker, the information provided regarding what backpackers prefer is incorrect.
The majority of us use inflatable pads, more than likely from Therm A Rest. The cheap closed cell foam pads are very uncomfortable unless you happen to be in a good forest area where you can bolster your sleeping arrangement with forest duff. Generally, the closed cell type pads are carried by the very weight conscious hiker. For me, I carry a 2 inch Therm A Rest, weighs 2 pounds, but because I am a 6'4" tall male, I'll trade the weight for comfort and the Therm A Rest is VERY comfortable.
Myrtha Chang said:
Hi Joe, thank you for the correction. We talk a lot about family camping on this blog, but not as much about serious backpacking. Would you like to contribute a post here at JoyOfCamping.com? Folks, check out the author's blog at http://www.bozemanstoveworks.com/ . He's got interesting discussion going on serious backpacking gear.