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Whether you opt for a single or a double, you’ll be a happy camper on one of these
One of the most common worries for would-be campers is whether they’ll be able to get a good night’s sleep in a tent – after all, a family holiday or a festival weekend isn’t much fun if you’re not getting proper rest. The best way to make sure you sleep well in the great outdoors is to invest in a decent air bed.
You’ll find a range of both camping mats and air beds on the market. Camping mats are thin, inflatable mattresses that roll down small and are designed for backpacking, wild camping and adventures for which portability and weight are key factors. Air beds, on the other hand, tend to be large, heavy and more time-consuming to inflate.
What makes air beds worth the higher price tag is the far better quality of sleep they offer, compared with mats. Air beds elevate you off the ground properly and enable you to eschew sleeping bags in favour of proper sheets, pillows and duvets to make camping far comfier. A good air bed is also a great investment for putting guests up in comfort at home.
When choosing an air bed, keep in mind that a cheaper option could be a false economy – it may be prone to slowly deflating in the night and could feel uncomfortable to sleep on. Our picks are all reliable, comfortable and durable, but still include some real bargains.
Keep scrolling for the best air beds for adults and kids in 2024.
We set up and slept on each air mat and tested how quick and easy they were to inflate, whether they held their shape during the night and how comfortable they felt to kip on. We also tested how easy they were to deflate, pack down and store, to make sure they’ll be suitable for all kinds of camping adventures as well as for overnight guests.
The main difference between an air mattress and an air bed is that the former is designed to be used indoors, while the latter is for outdoor use.
The average air bed can easily last up to 15 years. Often, if you opt for an air bed that has a built-in pump, the pump will fail before the bed will.
There are a number of things to consider when choosing an air bed:
According to the Sleep Foundation, it’s completely natural for air beds to lose some inflation over time. However, if this happens regularly, it’s probably due to a puncture of some kind. If this sounds like a problem you’re dealing with, fear not, as DIY repairs are very common within the air bed community.
According to Lauren Fountain from the Sleep Foundation, to fix the leak, you’ll need to locate the hole and then clean the area. She goes on to say you then need to “use an adhesive and some plastic or vinyl patches to cover the leak” and “after letting the patch set for several hours, you can test the patch to ensure the mattress is no longer leaking”.
Some air beds come with a patch kit, which typically includes an adhesive, applicator and patches that match your air bed material. However, if you don’t have this kit to hand, you can either buy one (taking into consideration the colour and material of your mattress) or fashion something yourself. Substitutes for a patch include some kind of thin, plastic material, such as part of a shower curtain liner – and you’ll want to use a strong glue as your adhesive, so your DIY work dries tight.
While we’ve not tested these patch kits ourselves, we found two budget-priced options, should you be looking to do some repairs yourself. The air bed inflatable mattress kit from True Strength (£11.95, Amazon.co.uk) comes with two different-sized patches, two adhesive tubes and disposable gloves. Meanwhile, Decathlon is selling this patch kit with three large adhesive patches (£5.49, Decathlon).
There’s an air bed to suit all kinds of campers (and budgets) in our round-up. Our top pick for comfort is Outwell excellent king-size air bed, at an affordable price it is a quality air bed you can use both for camping and for having guests over at home. Need something more affordable? Hi-Gear’s deluxe double air bed is surprisingly comfortable and costs a paltry £20.
Sian Lewis is a travel and outdoors journalist who is an expert in finding the best equipment you need for your next trip. While she’s not busy traversing the globe, she’s written extensively on everything from the best hiking boots and walking poles to camping mats and tents, so her research and recommendations are well worth trusting.
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