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Looking for an inflatable double bed. Primarily used for week long camping trips in the big tent with electric hookup. May see some use as guest bed too
Must be higher hight, like a real bed and have inbuilt pump that we can plug in.
Currently use a folding camp double bed, which isn't too bad with a camp mat on top but still not that comfy, and pretty loud when I toss and turn.
Google seems to give loads of results that all look very similar.
A self inflating mattress is a much nicer solution than an airbed. No sagging, way more comfort. You can put one on a camp bed for extra height if you want.
10cm thick gets you a pretty similar experience to sleeping on a real mattress.. we use two of these with a king size sheet over the top, and a cotton sleeping bag as a duvet
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07J2DTJ87?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title
We’ve done most combinations over the years and think we’ve finally cracked the (car/luxury) camping bed setup. It’s warm, fast to setup, super comfortable and acceptable size once packed away. Not the cheapest but well worth it.
Two Decathlon inflatable bases then a nice thick self inflating double mattress on top. The bases pack down really small and take very little inflating, 2 can be clipped together to make a double bed. 75mm sim is quite bulky but way better than a big plastic airbed.
Bases - https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/inflatable-camping-bed-base-camp-bed-air-70-cm-1-person/_/R-p-309887
What 5lab said.
Decathlon have a big inflatable mattress. I think 130X200cm.
Comfy as.
Wanted to use it in my van but it doesn't fit.
An Intex one.
We use it as a guest bed, but also take it camping. We bought it when we were planning a camping trip while my Wife was pregnant and wanted something a bit higher off the ground.
It's really comfortable and convenient. I've never noticed the cold thing that gets mentioned a lot with airbeds, but then we don't really go camping when the weather is cold. We use it with a Coleman double sleeping bag.
I think it's actually queen sized and is pretty big, so make sure it'll fit in your tent.
Decathlon have a big inflatable mattress. I think 130X200cm.
Comfy as.
Wanted to use it in my van but it doesn't fit.
Let me switch things up - this is the schniz.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HZSJ8OI?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
Pump and lead built in, just need to be somewhere near a power socket, has some magic internal structure that more or less eliminates the centre-roll issue, almost the height of a normal bed and packs down not much bigger than a regular double airbed. We took it camping in August, it's AWESOME, so much better than normal air beds. Heat loss I imagine still an issue (we sleep on a duvet) and it does still slowly go down, but not much might have had to top it up, say, every third or fourth day.
Next best thing is two single airbeds connected with a double sheet.
Recommendation? Like above - ditch the air bed idea, they're awful, cold, they break and they're uncomfortable.
We use two alpkit dozers, throw a duvet on top of them and sleep on that. Then another duvet to sleep under. Been good to -5 in a pop up tent.
They do a double.
https://alpkit.com/products/double-dozer
We also slept on 'em for 6 months when moving into a new house. It wasn't a massive upgrade getting a bed & mattress.
When offered air beds at other people's houses I'm definitely tempted to bin 'em off and sleep on the floor. But I don't. They are just better than floor.
My plans had been shot down by my very sensible wife. She kindly reminded me that we moved away from the big air mattress in favour of our camp bed due to all the reasons listed above!
I think my issue with our current setup is our sims (cheap and very slidy) sliding around on top of the camp bed and squeaking when I roll about during the night. I'm going to try putting down a strip of that anti slip matting on each side of the bed before placing our sims on top. Hopefully that'll fix the issue. I'll be happy, my wife will be happy that I've only spent £6 and I can plan on replacing our current sims for a couple of alpkit dozers in the future and she'll probably not even notice 😉.
I do like the idea of that big inflatable double bed, looks very comfy. But every large air mattress we've owned in the past has leaked and turned week long camping trips into an uncomfortable nightmare. At least with the current setup, if a sim goes flat it still provides a bit of cushion on top of the folding camp bed.
How do I stop my pillows falling off though?
I've been meaning to get a couple of the Decathlon bases, always seems to be the recommended setup in the camping groups. They keep going up though, sure they were £50 a couple of years ago.
We have a 10cm Kampa Kip SIM at the moment, it's comfy enough but you're down on the floor. And all of these thick double SIMs have the same problem of being enormous when they're rolled up, ours is barely smaller than the tent.
Let me switch things up – this is the schniz.
I have one very similar. It's a brilliant spare bed for home. Not sure as I'd want to take it camping without some sort of insulation on top.
How do I stop my pillows falling off though?
Stuff it inside the hood of your sleeping bag.
And all of these thick double SIMs have the same problem of being enormous when they’re rolled up, ours is barely smaller than the tent.
The thing with these is, you probably need less than you think. The first SIMs we had were the thickest ones Alpkit did at the time (Fat Airic or something IIRC). When they died (I think there was a design flaw, though Alpkit wouldn't admit to it) we replaced them with something a fraction of the thickness and they were as good or better.
We had a double Aerobed for years. Stirling service for maybe 9, 10 years? It developed a leak which I could never find, sprayed soapy water all the way round and scrutinised all over for bubbles - nothing. got worse, thought briefly about chucking some stans in there.
Would have abought another, it was great for the £80 we spent on it. Comfy for 8 years, cold when it's cold, but chuck a blanket or two underneath a fitted sheet and you're away from the cold air in the bed. They didn't seem to be available in the same quality as when we'd bought originally, so we went for an Alpkit Double Dozer. I sleep on my side half the time, and there wasn't enough to depth in it to stop me getting a bad back.
With 2 weeks camping in France last summer, we did a load of reading and decided to splurge on an Exped Megamat LW. Bloody lovely, not a twinge from the back in 2 weeks. Quality build, comfy, not much wallow from your partner. Kids share the double dozer.
It's pricey, but compare it to bike parts and how much time you might spend on it in many years camping and it's easier to justify!
****ing STW 😂 Wrote a long reply then it logged me out and I lost it 🤣
In short: I have the Vango version of that mega air-bed above. It's awesome, wouldn't use anything else for car (van) camping now. You keep it plugged in so it tops itself up, a slow leak wouldn't be an issue (not that it has leaked yet).
Wouldn't use an airbed again. Too much movement when the other person moves around, and I find them too uncomfortable.
Not the most practical solution due to the size, but we have a memory foam mattress. Use it for guests stopping over and for camping when taking the van. It rolls up but still very bulky, so not ideal if you don't have the boot space. But a hell of a lot comfier and warmer than an airbed.
In the past we had a colemans double airbed that had two Chambers, so when I got up for a pee, the wife didn't go flying. Its was a good idea. Lasted 2 nights before it started to leak.
For those who get cold on airbeds, we used to put down a cheap aliexpress foil blanket on top of the mattress, then a blanket then a fleece fitted sheet to keep it all secure. In winter we add an electric blanket to the mix as we've usually got electric hookup.
Wouldn’t use an airbed again. Too much movement when the other person moves around, and I find them too uncomfortable.
Not the most practical solution due to the size, but we have a memory foam mattress. Use it for guests stopping over and for camping when taking the van. It rolls up but still very bulky, so not ideal if you don’t have the boot space. But a hell of a lot comfier and warmer than an airbed.
Thick Self Inflating Mattresses are the best of both worlds - loads warmer than a pure air(only)bed. Our Exped has an R value of 8.1 (way off the end of the chart below) And packs down to the size of a couple of pillows so you don't need a van if you want to take a tent as well!
