No I’m not hard. The days of me being able to sleep on someones floor/outdoors on the hard ground are long gone.

Recommend me a half decent quality airbed that doesn’t go part soft during the night or a good value small folding bed?

Look at Alpkit, they have a range of thermarest-a-like camping mats from hardcore alpine climber to soft-arsed british camper.

Have a look at the MoD camp beds. Relatively light, relatively comfy and should be cheap as surplus.

I bought 2 Outwell airbeds last year – one single, one double.
Got the electric pump as well and am impressed by it all.

Pump plugs into car power socket and works to inflate and deflate very quickly. Beds are quite tall and comfortable by air bed standards. Well made, decent materials as well.

Not the cheapest but the best I’ve ever used.

D

There, I found one…

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/EX-MOD-British-Issue-American-style-camp-bed-cot-/260982070129?pt=UK_Collectables_Militaria_LE&hash=item3cc3be5b71#ht_500wt_1219

Brings back memories…

Thermarest or alpkit for outdoor, Aerobed for indoor.

If you want very small pack size, very lightweight – Vaude Norssken.
Bigger and heavier, have a look at the Multimat range – they do very thick ones, so super comfy!

Do you need to carry it or put it in the car?

And, do I remember correctly that you live in Manchester?

Normal airbeds are very cold on bare ground

Thermarest neoair is warm 🙂 – can be had for about 80 quid thesedays ?

Honestly the best camping item i have bought in years .

Check out gaynors of Ambleside for some deals on thermarests.

Thermarest. Just does what it says on the little label at the bottom.

Get one of these..

£10 at Go Outdoors and much more comfy than a Thermarest or Alpkit equivalent. If it’s a bit cold, put a blanket or something on it under your sleeping bag.

Look at Alpkit, they have a range of thermarest-a-like camping mats from hardcore alpine climber to soft-arsed british camper.

This.

I tried one of those campbeds, thinking I was on to a winner, but it was too narrow and really uncomfortable on my shoulders.

There are wider models available. Go Outdoors have a reasonable range.

I use Army surplus canvas camp beds, they are very comfortable, cheap and pack up into a roll with the metal legs.

Alpkit’s air beds range, IMO, is not up to abuse.

I have a couple of thermarest which i use. Be under no illusions, they are not “comfy”, but if you sleep on your back and stick to summer stuff then they are great.

If you want something comfier than a Thermarest, and miles warmer for winter (so no need to take a closed cell too), then look at Exped mats. You won’t get a comfier/warmer mat for weight/bulk ratio.

Exped

I got an Exped recently, one of the down-filled ones. Really warm to sleep on, even in snow camping. Comfy as well as its 9 cm thick (appaently, I’ve never measured it). I’ve got a bad back and don’t get sore using this. It rolls up as small as a thermorest also. Great for hiking. They are expensive for a samp matress though. Depends on what you need.

Coleman Comfort. Without a doubt.

Decathlon do a brilliant airbed. It comes with pillows, sheet and duvet. You can infate them from a car but I did it with a stand pump. Very very comfortable and not expensive.

After many years using a basic mat I went for a Thermarest last year and I’m a total convert. I prefer a hard mattress (bed at home) so I find the Thermarest to be comfortable and keeps enough of the cold out.

The best recommendation I can give for a Thermarest is that I bought one for my wife and now she’s started to enjoy camping! We borrowed some old style Thermarests for my wife to try and then bought the newer style ones which are much easier to roll up after use.

HTH

i would echo peterfiles comments about durability of alpkit mats – although they have revised the design recently …..

my alpkit mats – both mines and the mrs lasted only 2 weeks of continual camping on a 6 month bike tour ….. before blistering. They blamed us leaving them in a warm tent inflated how ever a quick link to our blog showed us to be moving from place to place every day leading to the failure – they did agree to replace/refund but it was obviously 6 months or so before i could send them the corners back !

we replaced them with kathmandu mats which picked up a few holes along the way and required repairing a few times but at least that was repairable – i tried various bodges with the alpkits including sewing the delaminated bubble through to the other side and then patching over but short of embroidering it into a patch it clearly wasnt working it would just pull the centre of the bubble in and make the delamination bigger !

for the cost of the alp kit + the kathmandu mats i wish id just bought a real thermarest with the advantage that had i had a problem with delamination i could have gone to one of the many thermarest dealers world wide and got it replaced !

Slightly sceptical of the self-inflating camping mats. I test-layed a few yesterday at Go Outdoors and was thinking ‘at what point do I get a sore hipbone’?!

Unless I bought a higher volume Thermarest it’d be the same wouldn’t it?

Its to go in the car so no issues with volume/weight.

Question on the campbeds- the cheapy low campbed was ‘great’ however it rocked fore andaft alot… wonder if its got a weight limit 😆

Seriously – it you’ve not bothered by weight and bulk (I was meaning the bed) get the campbed. Might be worth investing in one of the more expensive ones if you are worried about tipping it.

Traditional airbeds can get very cold and damp.

Thermarest-a-likes are great for backpacking but, as you discovered, have their limitations in terms of comfort. Although they claim to be self-inflating, I always blow a bit of extra air into mine to prevent that sag-through feeling at the likes of the hips.

If you want total comfort then the Coleman Double air mattress is hard to beat, but as people said they do get cold, this can be ameliorated by insulating the mattress from the ground using PU roll mats and/or fleece blankets. However after going through 3 in 5 years we made the change to Alpkit Wideboys and found them to be great, warm and comfy ftw, if you’re really worried by comfort the Dozer at 7cm thick looks to be the one to get.

“Thermarest-a-likes are great for backpacking but, as you discovered, have their limitations in terms of comfort. Although they claim to be self-inflating, I always blow a bit of extra air into mine to prevent that sag-through feeling at the likes of the hips. W

seriously – neo air is actually all that …. my hips dont hit the floor ever and i have sticky out hips , they insulate they pack small – downside is they need a bit of puff to get them inflated

Neo-airs are what £75-80? Even the more expensive camp beds are less than half that.

My actual current favourite is the Pacific Outdoor Peak ELITE AC. Light, comfy, the tubes run lengthwise and the outer ones are slightly wider/taller, so you don’t roll off. About 400g.

yep if your tent has room for it that is fine – i assume car camping he will have a big tent 😀

just making the point that just because its a “thermarest” doesnt mean it has to be uncomfy 🙂

Question on the campbeds- the cheapy low campbed was ‘great’ however it rocked fore andaft alot… wonder if its got a weight limit

Thats why i bought the proper Army version, its a lot sturdier and made of better materials.

hora – if you are near Manchester, we got some car camping stuff from outdoorworld which was just up the road from the Warrington Wolves stadium. They’ve got loads of stuff there and it’s decent enough. We got a vango double airbed and it’s spot on.

Used to be comfy on a 10mm Karrimat, now really feel the ground even with Basecamp Thermorests. We bought ourselves a Vango 70mm double self-inflating matress: Has coped with about 5 weeks of camping so far, is a PITA to roll up and rolls up to a massive 40cm by 70cm roll…but it really has made a difference to post menapausal camping; extended camping expeditions are no problem any more and at £75 for the double mat, really not too bad value

Exped Synmat here. Not quite as warm as the down one, but with out the hassle of breath moisture ruining the down. Still warm and very comfy! Its a bit fragile, but all of these things are a bit fragile.

Air Mattress from Tesco; about £5 for a single, plus foot pump for a few quid. Cover with a blanket or thermarest style thing.

Cheap and comfy.

you’ll be comfy after 8 pints.

cheap army style cot for car camping, expensive exped blow up thing for on the bike