When I camp I like as many creature comforts from home as possible. Even though I enjoy tent camping and camping in our pop-up camper my dream is to have a class A motorhome so that I can sleep in total comfort on even the coldest and rainiest nights.
Since that isn’t in my budget, I do the next best thing and use air mattresses while camping. It’s as close to my bed at home that I can get without actually dragging my bed from home to the campground; and since my king size mattress doesn’t fit in the back of my Ford Explorer it has to stay put.
I own two air mattresses, an AeroBed
The Aerobed pump needs electricity to inflate it; something I didn’t think about a couple years ago when we took it on a camping trip and had a campsite without electricity. There my husband and I stood wondering how we were going to inflate our mattress. We had a popup camper at the time so you might think it was no big deal – that we could just sleep on the mattress in the camper even if it is a thin one that isn’t as comfortable as the air mattress. That would have been fine except we had taken the original mattresses out the camper and left them at home (had taken them out when we cleaned the camper and forgot to put it back in). That meant finding a way to inflate the air mattress or sleep on particle board.
Luckily the camp hosts had an inverter (a handy little gadget) that they let us use it to inflate the air mattress. Then we only had to look like fools while we maneuvered a fully inflated queen size mattress into our pop-up camper (no easy feat).
The very next week after we got home from that camping trip I took myself to the store and purchased a Coleman
While air mattresses add an extra level of comfort to the thin mattresses in popup campers, I think they are essential when tent camping. An air mattress keeps you off the ground and is comfy so a person can get a good night’s sleep after enjoying a day of outdoor activities and fresh air.
And an air mattress on a cot is even better because it’s much easier to keep dirt from feet and the floor of the tent from joining you in bed.
