Sick of Sleeping Poorly While Camping? These Air Mattresses Can Fix That

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A comfortable air mattress is a must-have for car camping and base-camping expeditions. Along with a camp stove and a portable fire pit to gather around in the evening, a camping air mattress ranks high on the list of items that make a night outdoors feel more like vacation than an endurance fest to see how long you can last without sleep.

We focused on car-camping air mattresses for this piece, which means they’ll be heavier, more cushioned, and better for front-country trips. If you’re looking for lightweight backpacking sleeping pads, look here. These are our top recommendations of the best car camping air mattresses out there, plus advice on the most important things to consider before buying.

In the market for more camping gear? Check out our stories on the best tents, the best double sleeping bags, and the best backpacking backpacks.

The Best Camping Air Mattresses

• Best Overall: ALPS Mountaineering Vertex Air Bed

• Best Budget: Sierra Designs Queen Camping Air Mattress

• Best Upgrade: Kelty Kush Queen Air Bed with Pump

• Best for Sleeping in a Car or Truck Bed: Luno 2.0 Air Mattress

• Best Warm Two-Person: Exped MegaMat 10 Duo

What to Consider

Like your home mattress, comfort is paramount when shopping for a camping mattress. This boils down to a few factors, including thickness, warmth, and mattress size. If you’re looking for something more portable, you’ll also have to consider things like packed size and mattress weight.

Are Camping Air Mattresses Different From Regular Ones?

While some air mattresses will work for both houseguests and camping excursions, camping air mattresses are typically lighter than home air mattresses, and non-self-inflating models often have a pump that plugs into your vehicle’s power outlet instead of a wall outlet. They might also come with a battery-powered pump.

A camping air mattress is often lighter and more packable as well, and might not have the extra insulation of a home air mattress. So it’s entirely possible to use a home air mattress camping, or a camping air mattress at home, but there will be differences in packability and comfort.

R-Value

The scale used to measure an air mattress’s resistance to heat loss is represented by its R-value. Most people will be fine with an R-value of 4.0 for three-season conditions, and anything higher will keep most people warm even in cold temperatures when paired with the correct sleeping bag for the conditions. This scale is primarily used for backcountry sleeping pads, and is less frequently used for front-country inflatable air mattresses.

Thickness

All of the mattresses listed here are comfortable for stomach, side, and back sleepers. When inflated correctly, none will allow you to feel the ground, but they do range in thickness from around 4- to more than 10 inches thick.

Camping air mattresses that combine foam with inflation can get away with a thinner profile, as the blend of foam and inflation provides additional support and structure. Look for a mattress at least 4 inches thick regardless, and remember that if the mattress has added insulation, thicker means heavier and more challenging to pack.

Finally, in terms of extras and nice-to-have features, some camping air mattresses come with warranties, patch repair kits, and carrying bags or stuff sacks.

How We Selected

I have been camping (both backcountry and front-country) for the past 15 years, and have been testing camping gear professionally for a decade. For this piece, I took into consideration the needs of car campers compared to more minimalist backpackers, and chose air mattresses that prioritized a combination of comfort, R-value, ease of inflation, and packed size.

These air mattresses will work for a variety of campers, including pairs, side sleepers, people who need battery-powered pumps, and those without a lot of space to spare. Most of these will also work as a spare mattress for houseguests, so you can double the usefulness of your purchase.

Vertex Air Bed (Twin)

This camping air mattress by Alps Mountaineering punches well above its price tag for a model with a solid thickness-to-weight ratio. The 6-inch thickness is sufficient for side sleepers, but the compact design and 3.5-pound weight (for the twin) makes it easy to stash in a car-camping bin or tuck behind the seat when rolled up. We also love the multiple inflation options, including via your car’s 12-volt outlet or with the rechargeable battery-powered pump.

The mattress is constructed of a durable, PVC-free fabric and features an inner coil system for support, though there is no padded insulation. It comes with a drawstring stuff sack for storage and we listed the twin-size specs, but it's also available in a queen-size version.

Queen Camping Air Mattress

Sierra Designs continues to strike a stellar balance between quality gear and affordability, and is a trusted name amongst avid outdoors people. The brand’s front-country camping mattress is more than 10 inches thick but weighs just 6 pounds, and packs down into a compact carrying case. It has a stretch-resistant fabric coated with TPU for extra durability, and the built-in pillow helps simplify packing.

Kush Queen Air Bed with Pump

This is my go-to air mattress for front-country camping as well as truck camping. This is a reasonably priced, high quality mattress from a brand I’ve used for ages, and it packs down small to fit into my car camping bin. It inflates quickly and I charge the battery-operated pump during the driving portion of my road trips.

Part of the reason it’s so compact is that it doesn’t have plush insulation, but the 6-inch height and flocked face fabric feel warm in temperatures down to freezing when paired with an adequate quilt or sleeping bag.

This mattress weighs just 5 pounds and has an integrated pillow, though for car camping I usually bring a more luxe pillow from my house. It’s made of PVC-free, TPU-laminated fabric designed to withstand punctures, and comes with a battery-operated pump and a repair kit, plus a drawstring stuff sack for storage.

Luno 2.0 Air Mattress

Designed specifically to fit in the bed of a truck back of an SUV, this air mattress has cutouts for the wheel wells and fits in nearly 2,000 vehicle models, including standard truck beds and the wildly popular Subaru Outback.

The Luno 2.0 is actually two air mattresses connected across the surface, covered with a single-piece layer of 00-denier oxford fabric. This means that firmness can be adjusted separately on each side, and the mattress also comes with two inflatable base extenders to add extra support. This has a high weight capacity of 600 pounds, specifying 300 pounds for each side.

The entire kit includes an electric pump that plugs into the car's 12-volt outlet, a patch kit, and a 1-year limited warranty with purchase.

MegaMat Duo 10 Self-Inflating Sleeping Pad

This self-inflating option (which truly does inflate to nearly full capacity on its own) comes from a dedicated outdoor gear company and is built with a more complex construction than generic air mattresses from broader-focused brands. The interior is built with open-cell foam insulation that gives it an ultra-warm R-value of 8.1, which is more than warm enough for winter camping when paired with the right quilt or sleeping bag.

Exped's MegaMat Duo 10 is nearly 4 inches thick, made of nontoxic polyester with a TPU laminate, and its air valves have soft edges and don't stick out and create annoying lumps. Each side of the mattress has a 330-pound weight capacity, and it's rated for four-season camping.

The set includes a repair kit and along a small battery-operated pump for topping off inflation, and we love the generous five-year warranty.. Plus, despite the warm rating, this model packs into a stuff sack small enough to carry over your shoulder.

Sleep System Sleeping Pad

Hest's Sleep System is the mattress to buy if you love winter camping. It has an R-value of 11.8, the highest of all the options we cover, with two-layer foam construction over an inflatable base.

The removable machine-washable mattress cover is made of a stretchy nylon twill, with a durable PU-coated nylon on the bottom. The mattress is a full 7 inches thick, plus it has handy pockets on each side to stash small items like your smartphone and headlamp.

This is a single mattress that still has a high weight capacity of 350 pounds. Anything heavier and you’ll find diminished comfort from compressing the memory foam components.

The mattress comes with a patch kit and rolls up into a handy duffel bag, but it does inflate manually with a hand pump (included), which may be a dealbreaker with so many battery-operated pump options.

SupportRest Elite Camping Air Mattress

This air mattress is better suited for people looking for something to bring to a cabin or similar front-country camping area, rather than car camping. This mattress is 18 inches thick and features an inner coil system and 600-pound weight capacity. It has a raised edge to help keep pillows from sliding off, and comes with a built-in 120-volt pump. This is one of those camping mattresses we’d feel perfectly fine having houseguests sleep on as well, and the taller height makes it easy to get in and out of.

MondoKing Camping Mattress

This car-camping model from sleeping pad royalty Therm-a-Rest has an excellent warmth to weight ratio, with an R-value of 7 in a compact mattress that weighs just 4.5 pounds and is more than 4 inches thick. It’s packed with speciality insulating technology that uses a combination of foam and air ridges.

This mattress uses a similar valve system as that of some lightweight backpacking models, with a small valve for inflating and a larger valve for quick deflation. Therm-a-Rest advertises this as self-inflating, but you’ll probably end up using mostly your own lung power with some help from their stuff-sack inflation system.

Camping Air Mattress Cot

Ideal for people with back issues who still want to sleep outside, the steel frame built into Coleman’s Camping Air Mattress Cot provides ample support, and the taller height makes this model easier to get and out of. Two fold-out side tables might seem excessive, but when you get up to make coffee and want to crawl back in bed, you’ll be glad for the convenience and mesh cup holders. This mattress has a weight limit of 600 pounds, and the battery-operated pump inflates the whole thing in just a few minutes.

At 42 pounds, this mattress isn’t the most portable on the list, though it does come with a zippered duffel-style bag that holds the entire frame along with the mattress. This is one of our top picks for using at home and front-country camping, as the elevated frame makes it feel more like a guest bed than a mattress on the floor.

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