I’ve never been much of an RV or car camping kind of guy, old fashioned out in the woods kind of tent camper – that’s me. I love to camp, but honestly – I hate sleeping on the ground. I’m getting too old to cuttle up onto a sleeping bag every night – and I’ll tell you, taking a mattress with me saved my love for the outdoors.

Now, before you go off and spend a hundred bucks on a fancy, smancy new air mattress – here are a few alternatives. Don’t get me wrong, they’re kinda comfortable – but there are alternatives.

Camping Mattress Types and Alternatives

A folding cot. These things are great! They don’t take up much space in the back of our family’s SUV and they’re not too heavy to move around. They setup real easy in our two man tent and they sure are comfortable. This is my preferred way of sleeping because they’ll get you off the moist ground. Waterproof isn’t 100% and at night when it’s cold and soggy I’d rather not be touching the floor.

A truck bed mattress. Yea, these babies cushin your truck bed to sleep in. I don’t own a truck, but I’ve seen these before and they’re great on a nice night when you want to be in the open air or if you’ve got a camper shell over your truck. They’re not too expensive either, they just require you to take all your junk out of the bed first!

Folding bed frames. Yea, for the really hard sleepers out there (you know who you are). These are pretty darn comfortable but I find them too cumbersome to use unless you have a really hard time sleeping unless you’re soft and comfy.

Camping Air Mattress

Back to the camping mattress. Air filled is groovy, and is great for getting you off the ground and giving you a comfortable night’s sleep. Make sure you bring an air pump though unless it’s one of those battery powered units that can inflate themselves automatically. True story, I filled one up before manually (blowing into it). Took an hour and wasn’t fun.